Intelligence on the Eve of War: NYTimes editorial

[jbfam4]

TODAY'S EDITORIALS
Intelligence on the Eve of War

Published: February 1, 2004

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/01/opinion/01SUN1.html?8br

Mr. Kay based his exoneration of the administration on the fact that intelligence analysts who helped him in the search for illicit weapons in Iraq repeatedly apologized for being so far off base in their prewar estimates. Not a single analyst complained to him of any pressure being applied. That is an important insight from Mr. Kay but it is not dispositive. Kenneth Pollack, a Clinton administration national security official whose support for an invasion of Iraq was highly influential in the debate leading up to war, has done a lot of soul-searching over how he and others could have been so misled. In a recent magazine article, he, too, placed most of the blame on intelligence failures but, unlike Mr. Kay, he faulted the Bush administration as well.

In the months leading up to the war, Mr. Pollack says, he received numerous complaints from friends in the intelligence community that administration officials showed aggressive, negative reactions when presented with information that contradicted what they believed about Iraq. They allegedly subjected the analysts to barrages of questions, requests for more information and fights over the credibility of sources that passed beyond responsible oversight to become a form of pressure.

Analysts at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace have tracked what they consider a pronounced change in the tone of intelligence estimates, with those made before mid-2002 generally cautious and full of caveats and those thereafter much more alarmist. The shift suggests, they say, that pressure from policy makers led intelligence analysts to reach more threatening judgments about Iraq's weapons programs. David Kay told the Senate last week he is dubious that the break was really so sharp. This, too, is a dispute that requires impartial investigation.

Without doubt the most important intelligence document leading up to the invasion was a National Intelligence Estimate hastily assembled and presented to Congress shortly before the vote on a resolution authorizing the use of force in Iraq. This document contended that Iraq had chemical and biological weapons in hand, as well as active programs to enhance its capabilities in all areas.


Also left unexplained was how the estimate's authors could conclude that Iraq was continuing and expanding its chemical weapons programs when a Defense Intelligence Agency report had just acknowledged that "there is no reliable information on whether Iraq is producing and stockpiling chemical weapons." In these and other respects, the information on which Congress based its war vote seems out of kilter with the government's own most expert opinions. The great unanswered question is whether this was wholly the work of top intelligence officials or was the result of pressure from above.

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/01/opinion/01SUN1.html?8br

[Martin Eden]

1. The NIE report was about more than just WMD

Iraq's weapons programs were only part of picture. Weapons alone do not make a case for war -- there must be solid evidence that the regime possessing the weapons is likely to use them offensively against our country or our allies, or to give them to terrorist surrogates.

This column by Paul Sperry (who voted for Bush) cites key judgements in the NIE report that remained classified until after Congress voted to cede their Constitutional war powers to the president:

Yes, Bush lied
October 6, 2003

WASHINGTON – A year ago, on Oct. 1, one of the most important documents in U.S. history was published and couriered over to the White House.

The 90-page, top-secret report, drafted by the National Intelligence Council at Langley, included an executive summary for President Bush known as the "key judgments." It summed up the findings of the U.S. intelligence community regarding the threat posed by Iraq, findings the president says formed the foundation for his decision to preemptively invade Iraq without provocation. The report "was good, sound intelligence," Bush has remarked.
<snip>

Now turn to the next page of the same NIE report, which is considered the gold standard of intelligence reports. Page 5 ranks the key judgments by confidence level – high, moderate or low.

According to the consensus of Bush's intelligence services, there was "low confidence" before the war in the views that "Saddam would engage in clandestine attacks against the U.S. Homeland" or "share chemical or biological weapons with al-Qaida."

Their message to the president was clear: Saddam wouldn't help al-Qaida unless we put his back against the wall, and even then it was a big maybe. If anything, the report was a flashing yellow light against attacking Iraq.
<snip>

Please read the entire column
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=34930

[ixion]

3. the last paragraph of the wnd article...

"That's inexcusable, and Bush supporters with any intellectual honesty and concern for their own families' safety should be mad as hell about it – and that's coming from someone who voted for Bush. "

It's good to see that at least some conservatives who voted for this cabal are realizing that they made a terrible mistake.

Let's just hope it's not too late to correct, and vote these thugs out of office.

[salin]

2. so the NYT editors are asking questions.... they who approved

cheerleading biased reports from Chalabi as hard facts as reported by their key middle east reporter... who later was involved in controversy when she interfered with the commands given to the troops with which she was embedded? She whose questionable ethics were disclosed in the WashingtonPost around the time of the Jason Blair incident and who was NEVER rebuked publically by the NYTimes editors - they who kept citing questionable "opinions" of exiles who had not been in the country for 20+ years, presenting that information as FACTS in the war buildup?

Anyone else find this a bit ironic?

[young_at_heart]

4. It's ironic and cause for rethinking their news gathering ability

Hindsight should make them sit up and question why they didn't have more discussion and brainstorming on such a vital subject. This obedience to the Republican agenda began with Reagan.