Reply #2: Also interesting was the three former CIA agents who testified [View All]

[Say_What]

before the Democratic Policy Cmte. Hearing on Intelligence Leaks last weekend on CSPAN. One of the things they repeated several times was how Cheney and co. went to the CIA to meet with junior agents and insinuate that they weren't finding WMD because they weren't looking in the right places, etc. etc. The 30 year CIA veteran, Cannistraro, said in all of his years he had never seen anything like it. That Cheney/Bush Co. would not take no for an answer and that they consistently use intimidation etc., to try to manipulate the CIA.

Here's the transcript.

<clips>

...CANNISTRARO: Yes. I've had some experience in that, Senator.

And it's clear that when the analysts are being interviewed, there is

always some senior person there with us, congressional affairs person,

someone from the General Counsel's Office. And that could be

construed by the person who's doing the testifying as subtle pressure

not to be too candid, not to be too frank.

I've read the newspaper reports, but I've also talked to former

colleagues of mine who are still active and who lived through some of

this period of what I would call intimidation and pressure. Yes, they

say it's intimidation, they say it's pressure.

The fact that it's manifested by a very senior official, vice

president of the United States -- the first time in my 27 years in

intelligence, the first time I have ever heard of a vice president of

the United States going out to CIA and sitting down with desk-level

analysts. President and vice president coming out, making a speech,

cutting a ribbon? Absolutely. A commemoration ceremony.

But sitting down and debating with junior-level analysts, and

pushing them to find support for something he personally believes,

that Saddam was trying to acquire uranium, that, to me, is pressure and that's intimidation.

...CANNISTRARO: Well, I think that underlies the purpose of the

visits is that the vice president, as well as other senior officials

in the administration, were convinced of this because they were

getting separate information. They were getting information from an

intelligence operation that has been described in various ways.

There are euphemisms being used to describe it, but there was an

intelligence collection operation at the Department of Defense in the

undersecretary of policy's office and they were getting intelligence

information from other people outside the intelligence community;

information which was not vetted with the community, which was not

coordinated with the intelligence community, not even with DIA.

And much of this information we now know, in retrospect, was

fraudulent. Some of it was fabricated, some of it was just so

speculative it should not have ever risen to the level of being

reported. But a lot of this information made its way into

policymakers' public statements.

Yes I think look there was an underground war going on within the

administration, certainly between the Pentagon and the CIA. I'm a

private citizen now and so I think I can comment on it as an observer

outside government, but it was very clear to me that was going on.

Part of it was the underlying contempt for the CIA by

professional ideologues who believed that the agency was a squishy

place that came up with soft judgments and didn't look hard enough for

the information. Their mantra was: ``You're not going to find

anything unless you know what you're looking for.'' Well, if you know

what you're looking for, you are going to find it because you're

predisposed to find it. And that's against the intelligence effort.

But I think that's the fundamental problem here is that

policymakers at the NSC, at the Defense Department and the White

House itself already believed in something and they were looking for the

supporting intelligence data. Sometimes they got it. Many times they did not get

it. And when they didn't get it it was again subjected to criticism and contempt.

There's no question that, you know, intelligence agencies and

policy-makers should have a dynamic relationship; it's not that their

assumptions should not be queried or second-guessed. That's fine.

Policy-makers should be keeping the intelligence community on its toes.

``Are you looking for this? Are you looking for that?'' You know,

``Put more resources here. Put more resources there. Reexamine your

assumptions.'' That's fine. I've seen it that happen. I saw it happen

in the Reagan administration. Saw it happen with Bill Casey, who was

originally accused of distorting intelligence for policy-makers.

Never, never did Casey ever drop to the level that we've seen

today. He fought with analysts about the subject of whether the Soviet Union was involved with supporting terrorism. The analysts challenged him and challenged him quite effectively, and Casey backed off. That doesn't seem to happen today.

<http://democrats.senate.gov/news/transcript-cia.html>