Senators' report faults CIA on Iraq

[stevedeshazer]

WASHINGTON — A classified Senate investigative report says U.S. intelligence agencies turned vague, incomplete information into firm warnings about the threat posed by Iraqi weapons of mass destruction.

The report by the Senate Intelligence Committee raps CIA Director George Tenet and his top advisers at the National Intelligence Council for a prewar intelligence "estimate" that said Iraq possessed chemical and biological weapons, even though the intelligence behind that assertion was shaky.

The firmness of that finding, set against the failure to find any weapons since the war, has become an embarrassment to U.S. intelligence agencies and led to criticism of President Bush.

Though the report is still being edited and portions blacked out so it can be publicly released, Republicans and Democrats have agreed on its key findings, senators and Senate staffers said. "The picture in regards to intelligence is not very flattering," Sen. Pat Roberts, R-Kan., chairman of the intelligence committee, said Sunday on CNN's Late Edition.

source: http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2004-03-14-senate-cia-iraq_x.htm
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Congress and Bushco say the buck stops >>>>>>>>>>>>>> over there. :grr:

The Dems have rolled over again and are scapegoating Tenet. Bush, Cheney, Powell, Rumsfeld, and Rice walk away unscathed.

[hang a left]

1. I think that the jury is still out on how this is going to play

Tenet has not answered these charges yet. I think that this week will be interesting. We will see who will roll.

[Media_Lies_Daily]

5. I agree...it should be a very interesting week.

[Jack Rabbit]

2. Are they really counting OSP as an intelligence agency?

U.S. intelligence agencies turned vague, incomplete information into firm warnings about the threat posed by Iraqi weapons of mass destruction.

It sounds like it.

[stevedeshazer]

6. That's what it sounds like, all right.

But Tenet is the one getting whacked. Not that I'm a big believer in him, either.

[HuckleB]

3. History has been rewritten.

It ain't as it was, but it "is" now.

:eyes:

:mad:

:(

[fearnobush]

4. No mention of the Office of Special Plans???

What about U.S. Air Force, Lieutenant Colonel Karen Kwiatkowski <http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/vv/20040220/lo_laweekly/51202&cid=891&ncid=1501>

[ConcernedCanuk]

7. - or "WHIG" either - don't see much about THAT in the news . .

.
.
.

an insider group in the Whitehouse

specifically to "paint" the picture for supporting the Iraq war

full name was "White House Iraq Group"

not hard to figure out what THEY were up to !

[jamesinca]

8. Here is what caught my eye.

Does anybody ask why the WH seized the worst case scenario, why they went with one opinion only before they committed this country to a war, why they did not ask about the difference between the different reports? Why does this administration only want the credit for what goes right, and none of the responsibility when it goes wrong. Mostly I want to know who signed on the dotted line that sent this country to war? I don't have that power, and I would not have signed that dotted line, so I want to know who that person is! That person is the one that is ultimately responsible, not some dairy farmer from the Baghdad farmers market that was paid for information.
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<SNIP>

Because of poor coordination at the top, different intelligence agencies distributed different assessments among senior policymakers, the report finds. The confusion contributed to statements by senior administration officials that were not always supported by most intelligence agencies.

The committee report criticizes Tenet and the CIA for consistently seizing on the worst-case scenario of the Iraq threat and overriding the views of intelligence agencies in areas where those agencies had expertise. U.S. Air Force intelligence, for example, disagreed with Tenet's finding that Iraq's unmanned aerial vehicles were for use in launching chemical or biological weapons attacks. The Department of Energy's nuclear weapons experts were overruled when they raised doubts that a shipment of aluminum tubes intended for Iraq was for use in enriching uranium for nuclear weapons.


But Vice Adm. Lowell Jacoby, head of the Defense Intelligence Agency, conceded at a Senate hearing last week, "It's clear that we were working in a situation where we had large gaps in information."
<SNIP>
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[stevedeshazer]

9. They know damned well there were "large gaps in information"

They also know damned well that in the vacuum of these gaps, they sucked in a bunch of confabulation designed to further their already foregone conclusion. Then they foisted it off on the American people as a security issue.

And they know damned well that George W. Bush is responsible. He's at the top. These bastards take no responsibility whatsoever. They have never admitted to a single error, miscalculation, or misjudgment.

[Cocoa]

10. Tenet richly deserves blame for this

and it doesn't mean Bush gets off the hook. Bush failed to fire Tenet, and Tenet lied to cover up for Bush.

I believe Kerry will fire Tenet if he's elected, as I recall he has recommended Bush do.

[rocktivity]

12. I could buy the Tenent as scapegoat angle

if it weren't for the Bush Regime deliberately undermining him with Operation OSP and that other office they created. Tenet isn't totally blameless, but he doesn't derserve to have the entire thing laid at his feet, either. Oh, and keep leaking those stories, Tennie--we love hearing from you!

:headbang:
rocknation

[Mithras61]

11. Re: Dems rolling over...

I saw an article last week (I forget the source, but I'll try and find it) that indicated that the Senate "committee" voted to close the investigation with this report while the Dems were on the Senate floor... 20 minutes before the vote was SUPPOSED to be held. This report is the R whitehousewash of the real investigation.

[stevedeshazer]

13. That would be most helpful

If it truly was a Republican whitewash job, I'll take back what I said about the Dems rolling over.

And, if so, shouldn't it be a big honkin' story?

[hang a left]

14. I believe that was on the computer hacking by repubs on dems.