Bush Investigates Bush: Blames CIA for "Dead Wrong" WMD Intelligence

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A special presidential commission headed by conservative Lawrence Silberman attempted yesterday to absolve the Bush administration for its mismanagement of prewar intelligence, but admitted that analysts "worked in an environment that did not encourage skepticism about the conventional wisdom" and where daily intelligence briefings "seemed to be 'selling' intelligence – in order to keep…the First Customer interested." Largely, the report blames America's spy agencies for intelligence it calls "dead wrong" in the run-up to war with Iraq, sidestepping the larger issue involving the Bush administration's role in that failure. In fact, Silberman did not even interview the president, relying instead on Bob Woodward's book for proof that Bush "did ask tough questions." The report ignores a voluminous body of evidence suggesting the Bush administration blatantly pressured analysts, dismissed conflicting data and grossly overstated a shaky case in an effort to mislead the American people to war.

ROBERTS HAILS REPORT: The lack of any serious assessment of the Bush administration's attempts to manipulate prewar intelligence is no accident. President Bush and his Congressional allies have gone out of their way to make sure no such investigation takes place. The Silberman Commission specifically pointed out it was "not authorized to investigate how policymakers used the intelligence assessments they received from the Intelligence Community." Another report, headed by Senate Intelligence Committee chairman Pat Roberts (R-KS), was supposed to be devoted to precisely that question, but the relevant phase of that report was deferred until after the election, and then put on the "back burner." Yesterday, Roberts told AP, "We have now heard it all regarding prewar intelligence," adding it would be a "monumental waste of time" to investigate further.

FORGETTING THE OFFICE OF SPECIAL PLANS: Amazingly, Silberman's report on prewar intelligence does not so much as mention the "Office of Special Plans" (OSP), the shadow agency of Pentagon analysts staffed by "ideological amateurs to compete with the CIA and its military counterpart, the Defense Intelligence Agency." State Department officials claimed the OSP pressured them to "shape intelligence to fit policy," particularly with regard to "the al Qaeda connection and nuclear weapons issue[s]." Silberman's report claims to have found "no evidence to dispute that [analysts came to] their own independent judgments." Perhaps they didn't talk to the two State Department officials who told Mother Jones that OSP officials "routinely pushed lower-ranking staff around on intelligence matters." Or former CIA official and intelligence specialist Melvin Goodman, who said, "People were being pulled aside [and being told], 'We saw your last piece and it's not what we're looking for'…It was pretty blatant."

PRESIDENT'S INTELLIGENCE DEFICIT: President Bush says he based his decision to go to war in Iraq on the "best intelligence possible" – it is now clear the president actually based his decision on the worst possible intelligence. This is not for lack of other options. IAEA director Mohamed El Baradei said nuclear experts had found no indication Iraq tried to import high-strength aluminum tubes for centrifuge enrichment of uranium, and U.N. weapons inspector Hans Blix said his team had not uncovered any weapons. That intelligence was criticized and ignored.

IGNORING THE CAVEATS: In addition, analysts throughout the U.S. intelligence community dissented or added qualifiers regularly to the "dead wrong" intelligence, which provided the basis for the war. Those dissents were never communicated to the American public. For instance, in February 2001, the CIA delivered a report to the White House reading: "We do not have any direct evidence that Iraq has used the period since Desert Fox to reconstitute its weapons of mass destruction programs." Nevertheless, President Bush stated unequivocally in October 2002, "Iraq is reconstituting its nuclear weapons program." In February 2003, Secretary of State Colin Powell announced to the UN that "Iraq has tried to obtain high-strength aluminum tubes which can be used to enrich uranium in centrifuges for a nuclear weapons program." In fact, in October 2002, experts from the Department of Energy said the tubes were ill-suited for uranium enrichment. And the IAEA stated in 2003 that the tubes were "not likely related" to nuclear weapons.

SPECIAL PROMOTION: Next week, the Senate will hear testimony from one of the architects of prewar intelligence – unmentioned in the Silberman report – John Bolton. Bolton was an important part of the OSP, with one State Department official saying pressure to distort intelligence came "in particular from [John] Bolton's office." Of course, that kind of fine behavior has earned Bolton a promotion from President Bush, who now wants the former undersecretary of state to be America's ambassador to the U.N. In the run-up to war, Bolton was especially dismissive of U.N. intelligence estimates. In a 2002 Congressional hearing, Bolton called El-Baradei's report "impossible to believe" and disparaged international investigators for failing to find "critical elements of Iraq's chemical and biological weapons program."

NO PROGRESS: At a press conference to present the report, the Silberman commission warned the United States still "knows 'disturbingly little' about the weapons programs and threats posed by many of the nation's most dangerous adversaries" and that "flaws we found in the intelligence community's Iraq performance are still all too common." The panel noted intelligence problems have still "not been fixed, three years after al Qaeda struck America" and implored President Bush to clarify the role of the new intelligence director, something he has resisted. The panel also found, despite President Bush's claims that proliferation was a "centerpiece" of his national security strategy, "the United States has not made collection of loose nukes a high priority." Panel members agreed, "Biological weapons are also the mass casualty threat the intelligence community is least prepared to face."

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