David Corn: Senate WMD Report Whacks CIA, Not Bush. But read on...

[KoKo]

Senate WMD Report Whacks CIA, Not Bush
by David Corn

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he United States went to war on the basis of false claims. More than 800 Americans and countless Iraqis have lost their lives because of these false claims. The American taxpayer has to pay up to $200 billion--and maybe more--because of these false claims. The United States' standing in the world has fallen precipitously because of these false claims. Two days before the war, when George W. Bush justified the coming invasion of Iraq by saying "intelligence gathered by this and other governments leaves no doubt that the Iraq regime continues to possess and conceal" weapons of mass destruction, he was dead wrong. And when he later claimed his decision to attack Iraq had been predicated upon "good, solid intelligence," he was dead wrong.



The Senate intelligence report indirectly indicts Bush. It notes that there was one area where the intelligence community was correct: the supposed relationship between Hussein and Al Qaeda. "The Central Intelligence Agency," the report says, "reasonably assessed that there were likely several instances of contacts between Iraq and al-Qaida throughout the 1990s, but that these contacts did not add up to an established formal relationship." This means that when Bush said before the war that Saddam Hussein was "a threat because he's dealing with Al Qaeda," he was not basing this significant assertion on the findings of the US intelligence community. And he ignored the intelligence when he called Saddam Hussein "an ally" of Al Qaeda during his May 1, 2003, speech aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln.

The Senate intelligence committee also reports that the CIA's "assessment that Saddam Hussein was most likely to use his own intelligence service operatives to conduct attacks was reasonable, and turned out to be accurate." Yet before the war the Bush White House declared there was a "high risk" that Hussein would hand over his WMDs to terrorists--presumably Al Qaeda--who would use them against the United States. What was the basis for this claim? Not the available intelligence. And the report notes that the CIA's "assessments on Iraq's links to terrorism were widely disseminated" to policymakers. Perhaps Bush neglected to read them--as he neglected to read the National Intelligence Estimate. (Don't believe that? Click here.)

Even without the Senate intelligence committee doing a single stitch of work regarding Bush's use of the intelligence, this report demonstrates that Bush hyped the threat to get his war. And weeks ago, when the independent, bipartisan 9/11 commission declared it had not found evidence of "collaborative relationship" between Hussein and Al Qaeda, Bush and Cheney insisted that there had been a "relationship." The Senate intelligence committee report is yet another reason to dismiss anything Bush and Cheney have to say on this subject.
http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20040719&s=cornweb2

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1. This is right on.

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But the case is already undeniable. Bush and his lot overstated the overstatements of the intelligence community.

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Corn says what needs to be said. The report is absolutely devastating. If Bushco is not voted out, they will be forced out by law within the next year.

Great article. Thanks for the post.