Cheney, Libby Blocked Papers To Senate Intelligence Panel
By Murray Waas, special to National Journal
© National Journal Group Inc.
Thursday, Oct. 27, 2005
Vice President Cheney and his chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, overruling advice from some White House political staffers and lawyers, decided to withhold crucial documents from the Senate Intelligence Committee in 2004 when the panel was investigating the use of pre-war intelligence that erroneously concluded Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, according to Bush administration and congressional sources.
Among the White House materials withheld from the committee were Libby-authored passages in drafts of a speech that then-Secretary of State Colin L. Powell delivered to the United Nations in February 2003 to argue the Bush administration's case for war with Iraq, according to congressional and administration sources. The withheld documents also included intelligence data that Cheney's office -- and Libby in particular -- pushed to be included in Powell's speech, the sources said.
The new information that Cheney and Libby blocked information to the Senate Intelligence Committee further underscores the central role played by the vice president's office in trying to blunt criticism that the Bush administration exaggerated intelligence data to make the case to go to war.
The disclosures also come as Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald wraps up the nearly two-year-old CIA leak investigation that has focused heavily on Libby's role in discussing covert intelligence operative Valerie Plame with reporters. Fitzgerald could announce as soon as tomorrow whether a federal grand jury is handing up indictments in the case.
Central to Fitzgerald's investigation is whether administration officials disclosed Plame's identity and CIA status in an effort to discredit her husband, former ambassador and vocal Bush administration critic Joseph Wilson, who wrote newspaper op-ed columns and made other public charges beginning in 2003 that the administration misused intelligence on Iraq that he gathered on a CIA-sponsored trip to Africa.
http://nationaljournal.com/about/njweekly/stories/2005/... And check out this Dem Senate Intelligence Cmte report:
Senate Intelligence Committee Confirms Faulty Foundation of Bush Administration's Push for War in Iraq
Under pressure from congressional Democrats last year, the Senate Intelligence Committee agreed to conduct an investigation of our government's actions and statements on Iraq in the period before the start of the conflict there. However, rather than conduct a single comprehensive investigation of these issues, Intelligence Committee Chairman Roberts decided to split this inquiry into two phases. The Committee released the results of the first phase of its investigation on July 17, 2004. Entitled "U.S. Intelligence Community's Prewar Intelligence Assessments On Iraq," the Committee's report concludes that the Bush Administration's case for war with Iraq was dramatically overstated and largely inaccurate.
In their additional views to the report, Vice Chairman Rockefeller and Senators Levin and Durbin argue that phase one paints an incomplete picture of what occurred prior to the war and make a compelling case for the committee to quickly complete phase two - an analysis of the Administration's use of this intelligence. According to these Senators, forceful public statements by senior Administration officials about the threat posed by Iraq created an intense climate of pressure on the intelligence community as it conducted its own analyses of these issues. This document presents key conclusions from the report and from the additional views submitted by Senators Rockefeller, Levin, and Durbin.
Major Conclusions Of Committee Report
"Most of the major key judgments in the Intelligence Community's October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate (NIE), Iraq's Continuing Programs for Weapons of Mass Destruction, either were overstated, or were not supported by, the underlying intelligence reporting."
"After reviewing all of the intelligence provided by the Intelligence Community and additional information requested by the Committee, the Committee believes that the judgment in the National Intelligence Estimate that Iraq was reconstituting its nuclear program was not supported by the intelligence."
"The statement in the key judgments of the NIE that `Baghdad has chemical and biological weapons' overstated both what was known and what intelligence analysts judged about Iraq's chemical and biological weapons holdings."
"The language in the October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate that `Iraq also began vigorously trying to procure uranium ore and yellowcake' overstated what the Intelligence Community knew about Iraq's possible procurement attempts."
"Much of the information provided or cleared by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) for inclusion in Secretary Powell's speech
was overstated, misleading, or incorrect."
"The Central Intelligence Agency's assessment that to date there was no evidence proving Iraqi complicity or assistance in an al-Qaeda attack was reasonable and objective. No additional information has emerged to suggest otherwise."
Additional Views of Senators Rockefeller, Levin, and Durbin
"Regrettably, report paints an incomplete picture of what occurred during this period of time. The Committee set out to examine ten areas of investigation relating to pre-war intelligence on Iraq and we completed only five in this report."
"The central issue of how intelligence on Iraq was used or misused by Administration officials in public statements and reports were relegated to the second phase of the Committee's investigation along with other issues related to the intelligence activities of Pentagon policy officials, pre-war intelligence assessments about post-war Iraq, and the role played by the Iraqi National Congress, led by Ahmad Chalabi, which claims to have passed `raw intelligence' and defector information directly to the Pentagon and the Office of Vice President."
"As a result, the Committee's phase one report fails to fully explain the environment of intense pressure in which Intelligence Community officials were asked to render judgments on matters relating to Iraq when policy officials had already forcefully stated their own conclusions in public."
"The Estimate and related analytical papers assessing Iraqi links to terrorism were produced by the Intelligence Community in a highly-pressurized climate wherein senior Administration officials were making the case for military action against Iraq through public and often definitive pronouncements."
"In the months before the production of the Intelligence Community's October 2002 Estimate, Administration officials undertook a relentless public campaign which repeatedly characterized the Iraq weapons of mass destruction program in more ominous and threatening terms than the Intelligence Community analysis substantiated. Similarly, public statements of senior officials on Iraqi links to terrorism generally, and al-Qaeda specifically, were often based on a selective release of intelligence information that implied a cooperative, operational relationship that the Intelligence Community did not believe existed."
"High-profile statements in support of the Administration's policy of regime change were made in advance of any meaningful intelligence analysis and created pressure on the Intelligence Community to conform to the certainty contained in the pronouncements."
"Another form of pressure on the Intelligence Community during 2002 came from policymakers repetitively tasking analysts to review, reconsider, and revise their analytical judgments."
The CIA conducted its own independent review on U.S. intelligence on Iraq. Richard Kerr, former Deputy Director of Central Intelligence and leader of the review, stated publicly, "`There was a lot of pressure, no question... The White House, State, Defense were raising questions, heavily on WMD and the issue of terrorism... There was a lot of repetitive tasking. The repetitive requests...came from the CIA's `senior customers,' including the White House, the Vice President, State, Defense, and the Joint Chiefs of Staff.'"
"The Ombudsman told the Committee that he felt the "hammering" by the Bush Administration on Iraq intelligence was harder than he had previously witnessed in his 32-year career with the agency. Several analysts he spoke with mentioned pressure and gave the sense that they felt the constant questions and pressure to reexamine issues were unreasonable."
"When the analytical judgments of the Intelligence Community did not conform to the more conclusive and dire Administration view on Iraqi links to al-Qaeda and specifically the notion that Iraq may have been involved in the September 11th terrorist plot, policymakers within the Pentagon denigrated the Intelligence Community's analysis and sought to trump it by circumventing the CIA and briefing their own analysis directly to the White House."
"The qualifications the Intelligence Community placed on what it assessed about Iraq's links to terrorism and alleged weapons of mass destruction programs were spurned by top Bush Administration officials."
"By the time American troops had been deployed overseas and were poised to attack Iraq, the Administration had skillfully manipulated and cowed the Intelligence Community into approving public statements that conveyed a level of conviction and certainty that was not supported by an objective reading of the underlying intelligence reporting."
http://democrats.senate.gov/dpc/dpc-doc.cfm?doc_name=fs-108-2-210
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