(Senate) Inquiry faults (CIA) intelligence on Iraq

[Newsjock]

Edit to add link, change title to conform
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A9230-2003Oct23.html

By Dana Priest
The Washington Post

WASHINGTON--The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence is preparing a blistering report on pre-war intelligence on Iraq that is critical of CIA director George Tenet and other intelligence officials for overstating the weapons and terrorism case against Saddam Hussein, according to congressional officials.

The committee staff was surprised by the amount of circumstantial evidence and single-source or disputed information used to write key intelligence documents, in particular the Oct. 2002 National Intelligence Estimate, summarizing Iraq's capabilities and intentions, according to Republican and Democratic sources. Staff members interviewed more than 100 people who collected and analyzed the intelligence used to back up statements about Iraq's chemical, biological and nuclear weapons capability and its links to terrorist groups

Like a similiar but less exhaustive inquiry being finalized by the House intelligence committee, the Senate report shifts attention toward the intelligence community and thus away from White House officials, who have been criticized for exaggerating the Iraqi threat. At stake as the presidential political season approaches, said committee sources and intelligence figures, is who gets blamed for misleading the American public if weapons of mass destruction are never found in Iraq--the president or his intelligence chief.

more

[librechik]

1. tx for the headsup. NJ

quelle surprise

[asjr]

2. senate

They can criticize all they want. It still will not change anything. Nothing will be done about it. It has been in their faces since before we invaded Iraq. They should have done something then. We were sold down the river a long time ago.

[DisgustipatedinCA]

5. Something will be done

But not from Congress. I think the CIA, tired of being dumped on once again, will release a new spate of leaks. They're holding all the cards.

[dusty64]

10. I thought the same.

Scapegoating again with NO mention of crashcart's constant pressure to release only the findings that advanced HIS agenda.

[snippy]

17. I agree. Particularly since Cheney and Libby spent hours at the CIA

pushing the analysts to come up with Bushshit intel.

[kainah]

3. link please? n/t

[never cry wolf]

4. There is SOOOO much wrong with this...

Do they out the OSP? Do they mention Cheney's and Libby's unprecedented trips to CIA headquarters? Do they mention Chalabi??

What a frikkin whitewash!!!!!!!!!

ARGHHHHHH!!!!!!!

:nuke:

[leftchick]

11. you are so right! They are trying to rewrite history here....

Hopefully the spooks won't let them get away with it.....

[loudnclear]

6. Here is why we are in trouble where Bush re-election is concerned

Listened to a focus group aired on C-Span radio this evening. The most scary event I have ever heard. People: the majority of Americans are uniformed dittoheads! Example:

When asked about Bush's handling of the Iraq situation a response by one of the group members was something like this" 'Bush lied in getting us into the Iraq war but he did the right thing' The group disagreed with almost every economic policy and even most of Bush's foreign policy EXCEPT that he did the right thing in invading Iraq. Clinton (always mention Clinton when you don't really have a convincing argument to make) had 8 years to take care of Iraq and didn't do it./

If these focus group members are a reflection of the American public, then we are in serious trouble.

[Media_Lies_Daily]

7. This is just wrong, IMHO...

...the CIA has done everything it could to deliver the real facts to the Bushies. If the Bushies keep playing with fire, they are going to get badly burned.

Anybody that's been paying attention knows who's been lying about WMDs in Iraq, and it's not the CIA.

[goforit]

8. Quite frankly....I blame Congress just as much!!! They too knew!!!

Shame on the (false)President
Shame on Congress(Gepthart/Lieberman/Kerry/all GOP)
Shame on the military for not stepping up to tyrranny
Shame on the PNAC
Shame on all the Neo-con fascists
Shame on all Corporations that support Bush
Shame on the American people for not demanding for DEMOCRACY in 2000
Shame on Blair and the Royal Clan

DAMN IT.......It is time to clean house today!!!!

:argh:

[goforit]

9. Where is MOVE-ON??????....Everyone call and fire your SENATOR!!!!

Fire them all NOW!!!!

[loudsue]

12. If we didn't elect them, goforit, we CAN'T "un"elect them....

The voting machines are running the country, and there's not a damn thing we can do about our "elected" officials, when our votes aren't counted!

Until we take care of that...we're just by-standers. Move-On needs to make this their FIRST AND MOST IMPORTANT cause.

:kick:

[ElsewheresDaughter]

13. why isn't anyone screaming OSP! OSP!?? Office of Special Plans???

created by wolfowitz to produce fabricated intelligence to fit PNAC agenda because the CIA wouldn't give bush the intel they wanted...this agency was created just months before bush*s SOTU and Powells false evidence speech presented to the UN

IT WAS NOT THE CIA...IT WAS PERLE AND WOLFOWITZ AND BUSH CABAL!!!!

www.scoop.co.nz/mason/stories/HL0307/S00157.htm

When George Tenet, the director of the CIA, testified before the Senate Intelligence Committee last week about dubious intelligence data on the Iraqi threat that made it into President Bush’s State of the Union address in January, he said an ad-hoc committee called the Office of Special Plans, headed by Wolfowitz, Assistant Secretary of Defense for Policy Douglas Feith and other high-profile hawks rewrote the intelligence information on Iraq that the CIA gathered and gave it to White House officials to help Bush build a case for war, according to three Senators on the intelligence committee.

Tenet told the Intelligence Committee that his own spies at the CIA determined that much of the intelligence information they collected on Iraq could not prove that the country was an imminent threat nor could they find any concrete evidence that Iraq was stockpiling a cache of chemical and biological weapons. But the Office of Special Plans, using Iraqi defectors from the Iraqi National Congress as their main source, rewrote some of the CIA’s intelligence to say, undeniably, that Iraq was hiding some of the world’s most lethal weapons. Once the intelligence was rewritten, it was delivered to the office of National Security Adviser Condoleeza Rice, where it found its way into various public speeches given by Vice President Dick Cheney, Deputy Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Bush, the Senators said.

Moreover, these Senators allege that the office of the Vice President and the National Security Council were fully aware that the intelligence Wolfowitz’s committee collected may not have been reliable. The Senators said they are discussing privately whether to ask Wolfowitz to testify before a Senate hearing in the near future to determine how large of a role his Special Plans committee played in providing the President with intelligence data on Iraq and whether that information was reliable or beefed up to help build a case for war.

A week ago, Tenet claimed responsibilty for allowing the White House to use the now disputed claim that Iraq was trying to purchase uranium from Niger to build an atomic bomb in Bush's State of the Union address. Last week, these Senators and a CIA intelligence official said the Office of Special Plans urged the White House to use the uranium claim in Bush's speech.

But Democrats in the Senate are now asking what role the secret committee set up by Wolfowitz played in hyping the intelligence on Iraq's weapons programs


more....

www.dissidentvoice.org/Articles7/ Leopold_Tenet-Wolfy.htm

Asia Times -
... The OSP is just one more arm of the neo-cons - especially Wolfowitz and Feith - in
a central strategy of supporting Ariel Sharon's hardcore policy against the ...
www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/EI11Ak02.html

Who fabricated the Iraq war threat: An inside view
... intelligence and military affairs. Douglas Feith, Undersecretary of
Defense, and Paul Wolfowitz set up the OSP. Shulsky is an avid ...
www.rebelion.org/petras/english/030813petrasirak.htm

[MetaTrope]

14. Regime change, please

But can the CIA manage it as readily against an illegitimate government as they've done with actual legit governments?

[Blue_Roses]

15. this is gonna backfire

in some faces and it won't be the CIA.

[priller]

16. It's no surprise, the Pukes are running the show

Sen. John "Jay" Rockefeller IV (D-W. Va.) said yesterday he had secured a promise from Roberts to ask one executive agency, the Defense Department and, in particular, its Office of Special Plans, for information about the intelligence it collected or analyzed on Iraq.

The office has been accused by some congressional Democrats and administration critics of gathering unreliable intelligence on Iraq that bolstered the administration's case for war. Those allegations have not been substantiated, and the director of the office, William Luti, has denied them.

Rockefeller is under considerable pressure from the Senate Democratic leadership not to allow Roberts to focus only on intelligence bureaucrats while avoiding questions about whether Bush, Vice President Cheney, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and others exaggerated the threat from Iraq.

So this committee hasn't even looked into the OSP or the twisting and exaggerated intel from Cheney, Rummy, Feith, Wolfie, Perle, Chalabi, and all the rest of the PNAC cabal.

[bspence]

18. This thread should have 100 replies by now!!

This is huge! We're actually being proven right after all this time!

I'm going to the demonstration tomorrow in DC with a big s* eating grin on my face.

[Don_G]

19. Amazing How A Republican Controlled Senate Blames The CIA

Instead of laying the blame squarely at Dimbo's feet.