Paul Reynolds (BBC): Iraq: Mindset behind intelligence failures

[Jack Rabbit]

From the BBC Online
Dated Wednesday February 4

Iraq: Mindset behind intelligence failures
Analysis
By Paul Reynolds
BBC News Online world affairs correspondent

A year after the US Secretary of State Colin Powell presented the American case against Iraq to the Security Council, attention is turning from the actual failures of intelligence to why they happened.
On 5 February 2003, Mr Powell declared: "Every statement I make today is backed up by sources, solid sources. These are not assertions. What we are giving you are facts and conclusions based on solid intelligence."
year on, that claim is hard to justify in several key respects. Even Colin Powell himself now says that he "doesn't know" if he would have supported war if he had known there were no actual stockpiles of weapons as he claimed that there were in his speech.
What is striking is the mindset displayed in the speech. The natural suspicion of Saddam Hussein meant that many pieces of intelligence were interpreted in an unfavourable manner even when another interpretation was available.

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