CIA admits lack of specifics on Iraqi weapons before invasion

[Randi_Listener]

The US Central Intelligence Agency has acknowledged it "lacked specific information" about alleged Iraqi weapons of mass destruction when it compiled an intelligence estimate last year that served to justify the US-led invasion of Iraq.

But it said that and other uncertainties surrounding the case had been fully presented to President George W. Bush and other US policymakers in the October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate, a document often referred to by members of the Bush administration as a basis of their claim that Iraq had an arsenal of weapons of mass destruction.



I think the CIA has had just about enough of thiw White House farce. Look for more leaks in the future.

edit: (link) http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/afp/20031130/wl_afp/us_iraq_cia&cid=1512&ncid=1480

[arcane1]

1. we should rate this a "5"

for what it's worth

good find

[Randi_Listener]

2. 5

I just dropped a "5" on it.

[Gloria]

5. Likewise... in the time I was signing in, the tally went from 13 to 25

votes....and a 4.75 rating...

[sablefish]

7. good find indeed.. It looks like he is drunk

I am a musician.. an acoustic song writer type.. who want's to do tunes about the news.. so all you guys and gals who have music in your bones and want to direct your talents.. You can talk with me... and we can consider where to put our efforts I want you to know me.. this is what I realy want to do.

[BuckeFushe]

10. It's the end of the world as we knew it

And I don't feel fine.

[R Hickey]

23. I can write lyrics

If you can give me the non-political lyrics to any song, then I believe I could change the words into rhyming, left-leaning, news-relevant lyrics.

[markses]

3. Shocking

:eyes:

Of course, as some say - "Everybody *knew* before the invasion that Iraq had WMD! Opinion was unequivocal on THAT!" Yeah huh...

[caledesi]

4. Just "fived" it. nt

[0007]

6. Yeah, this will bite junior in the ass!

Can't wait for the senate to crank up again and listen to dems beat the holy hell out of the repukes for the Orrin Hatch leak.

[BuckeFushe]

8. What a lovely end to Shrub's weekend

It will be interesting to see how he spins it on the Talking head shows tomorrow morning.

[Jester_11218]

9. What a surprise

It's called sarcasm. Come on in.

[maggrwaggr]

11. American people say: "we don't care!"

unfortunately nobody gives a rats ass anymore. Nobody wants to think this "caring and decent" man would lie to them. So now they're all saying "well Iraq needed to be liberated".

Ugh. Ugh. Ugh.

[BuckeFushe]

12. As long as there is an 'us' people will care

Watergate took a year. We're patient, we've had to be.

[leQ]

13. as that article demonstrates

time is on our side.

[monobrau]

25. By Jingo!

As long as we're killing "sand niggers", who cares if there are WMD? They're just heathens worshipping a moon god!

[Randi_Listener]

26. As the bodies hit the floor...

Shitbag doesn't give 2 fucks about the outcome as long as the oil is safe.

[UpInArms]

14. here's the Stuart Cohen statement

http://www.cia.gov/cia/public_affairs/press_release/2003/pr11282003.html

excerpt:

Myth #1: The Estimate favored going to war: Intelligence judgments, including NIEs, are policy neutral. We do not propose policies and the Estimate in no way sought to sway policymakers toward a particular course of action. We described what we judged were Saddam's WMD programs and capabilities and how and when he might use them and left it to policymakers, as we always do, to determine the appropriate course of action.

Myth #2: Analysts were pressured to change judgments to meet the needs of the Bush Administration: The judgments presented in the October 2002 NIE were based on data acquired and analyzed over fifteen years. Any changes in judgments over that period were based on new evidence, including clandestinely collected information that led to new analysis. Our judgments were presented to three different Administrations. And the principal participants in the production of the NIE from across the entire US Intelligence Community have sworn to Congress, under oath, that they were NOT pressured to change their views on Iraq WMD or to conform to Administration positions on this issue. In my particular case, I was able to swear under oath that not only had no one pressured me to take a particular view but that I had not pressured anyone else working on the Estimate to change or alter their reading of the intelligence information.

Myth #3: NIE judgments were news to Congress: Over the past fifteen years our assessments on Iraq WMD issues have been presented routinely to six different congressional committees including the two oversight committees, the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, and the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. To the best of my knowledge, prior to this NIE, these committees never came back to us with a concern of bias or an assertion that we had gotten it wrong.

Myth #4: We buried divergent views and concealed uncertainties: Diverse agency views, particularly on whether Baghdad was reconstituting its uranium enrichment effort and as a subset of that, the purposes of attempted Iraqi aluminum tube purchases, were fully vetted during the coordination process. Alternative views presented by the Bureau of Intelligence and Research at the Department of State, the Office of Intelligence in the Department of Energy, and by the US Air Force were showcased in the National Intelligence Estimate and were acknowledged in unclassified papers on the subject. Moreover, suggestions that their alternative views were buried as footnotes in the text are wrong. All agencies were fully exposed to these alternative views, and the heads of those organizations blessed the wording and placement of their alternative views. Uncertainties were highlighted in the Key Judgments and throughout the main text. Any reader would have had to read only as far as the second paragraph of the Key Judgments to know that as we said: "We lacked specific information on many key aspects of Iraq's WMD program."

...more...

from the way that I read this - he is basically stating that the WH and its PNAC crew flat made up lies

[BuckeFushe]

15. Shrub was put on notice by the last paragraph

If we eventually are proven wrong—that is, that there were no weapons of mass destruction and the WMD programs were dormant or abandoned—the American people will be told the truth; we would have it no other way.

[lfairban]

16. current average rating is 4.55 with 97 vote(s)

For more about how we got ourselves into this fine mess, visit the Pre-war secion of My Iraq Links:

http://home.columbus.rr.com/lfairban/Pages/Iraq.html#Pre-war

[Randi_Listener]

17. The Chimp In Chief...

....looks to be on the rope with the CIA swinging at him with a pretty good punch combination.

This isn't going to go away.

This all started with the CIA operative leak that outted a covert agent. The CIA is fucking pissed.

[BuckeFushe]

19. Bingo, bet ya a nickel the CIA wants the leaker exposed

And has now put Chimpy between a rock and a hard place. Expose the leaker and fire him/her/them, and you get the blunt end of the axe on top of deflating your rush to war mantra.

Not only is Chimpy grounded, he's had his blanket taken away.

[Journeyman]

20. Thanks, Larry. . .

I look forward to reading through the links on your homepage. It looks like you've provided a great service there.

[dvddrone]

18. The Agency is kicking his ass...

but good - and rightly so. Bush* has tried to pin every fucking failure of his on the CIA. This is bad craziness on his part.

Since he's too stupid to figure it out for himself, his papa shoulda told him not to mess with the Agency boys. They have no loyalty to Bush* and none to papa Bush either. Their loyalty is to the Agency itself and it's always been that way. This could get very, very interesting over the next year.

GO CIA! (omigod... how totally bizarre... THIS is what that freak has driven me to!)

Elizabeth

[jamesinca]

21. Good for the CIA

I wonder how this will play on the Sunday morning talk shows. Does this blunt or negate his suprise visit to Iraq?

[Randi_Listener]

24. Sunday Morning

I think it will be the first in a long line of CIA leaks about the Iraq intel and dossier information. Say "bye-bye" to the fucking punch drunk monkey.

[UpInArms]

22. related article: Dual studies undermine Washington's basis for war

http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/11/30/1070127272100.html

More than 10 years' work by US and British intelligence agencies on Iraq's chemical, biological and nuclear weapons or programs has "major gaps and serious intelligence problems," according to a new study.

Anthony Cordesman, a Middle East and intelligence expert who is a senior fellow at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies, found that "even a cursory review" of charges the US and British governments made in white papers released before the Iraq war "shows that point after point that was made was not confirmed during the war or after the first months of effort following the conflict."

Although the US has the most sophisticated technical systems for collecting and analysing intelligence, Mr Cordesman found, Iraq shows that US intelligence is "not yet adequate to support grand strategy and tactical operations against proliferating powers or to make accurate assessments of the need to pre-empt." Pre- emption, or waging war to prevent an enemy from attacking, is a key part of George Bush's war on terrorism.

Another new non-governmental report, on the Bush Administration's claim that Iraq was seeking specialised aluminum tubes to use in a centrifuge to create nuclear weapons material, raises questions about whether policymakers ignored qualified critics to promote the Iraqi threat.

...more...

(edited to add link and text - originally kicked for Sunday morning readers)