House asking questions about pre-war intelligence

Someone is finally taking notice of - and asking questions about - the difference between the Bush administrations claims of WMD in Iraq prior to the start of the war, and the lack of any evidence of such WMD now that Saddam Hussein is out of power. The House Intelligence Committee has asked CIA director George Tenet "'"to re-evaluate U.S. intelligence' used by the Bush administration before the war to describe Iraq's weapons programs and its links to terrorist organizations such as al-Qaida." In addition, the CIA is also comparing the information they had, and passed along, pre-war, to what is currently being found in Iraq and learned from former Iraqi officials.

The CIA review, coupled with the letter sent to Tenet by the House intelligence panel, follows criticism that the Defense Department, particularly a new Pentagon intelligence office, and other parts of the Bush administration manipulated intelligence to make the case for war in Iraq. Some members of Congress and intelligence officials are questioning the accuracy of the intelligence describing Iraq's possession of weapons of mass destruction and connections to al-Qaida.

One official who has read a draft of the CIA study said, "There is no question there was a lot of pressure on analysts to support preconceived judgments." But, he added, "the analysts' record is not bad when you consider you have strong policymakers pushing analysts for information that supports their specific views."

Neither study is intended to show how accurately the administration portrayed the evidence they got, which makes it sound like the CIA may well be being set up to be the fall guy so that the Bush administration can claim they were working in good faith on bad intelligence, and thus can't be blamed for having misled everyone in trying to justify the war.

Still, it's a good thing that there's enough concern, especially among the Republican-dominated House, that they're even considering looking into the matter. Hopefully, this time we'll be allowed to know what some of the answers are, unlike the largely-classified report on the Congressional investigation into 9/11.

Posted by thorswitch at May 23, 2003 10:34 AM | TrackBack