Providence Journal: "From soup to nuts, US DEAD WRONG on Iraq threat"

[Bluebear]

http://www.projo.com/cgi-bin/bi/gold_print.cgi

"A presidential commission on intelligence gathering before the Iraq war has drawn much the same conclusion as previous investigatory bodies: From soup to nuts, the government's assessment of the Iraqi threat was "dead wrong."

The bipartisan Commission on the Intelligence Capabilities of the United States Regarding Weapons of Mass Destruction, headed by federal Appeals Court Judge Laurence Silberman (a Republican) and former Virginia Sen. Charles Robb (a Democrat), delivered its report last week. Created last year by President Bush, the panel was not authorized to look at how he and others had used intelligence on Iraq to set policy. As a result, unfortunately, the lines of accountability remain blurred. The commission did note that the analysts' working environment "did not encourage skepticism about the conventional wisdom." It found no evidence of efforts to deliberately distort information, but it skirted the issue of whether indirect political pressure helped shape the conclusions used to bolster the case for war.

Primarily, the panel's energies went into belaboring the deficiencies of America's 15 intelligence agencies. Thanks to earlier reports by the 9/11 commission and the Senate Intelligence Committee, Americans are already well versed in these failings. They include wasteful turf battles; duplication of effort; a shortage of effective spies; and a tendency to base analysis on unproved assumptions.

The panel was especially critical of the "President's Daily Brief," a top-secret intelligence review that Mr. Bush did not let the 9/11 commission see. It found these supposedly authoritative documents wildly one-sided and off base. Perhaps most disturbing, the commission said that little improvement has occurred. It found that U.S. intelligence is especially clueless on biological weapons. And it remains too much in the dark on potentially dangerous nuclear programs (North Korea's and Iran's come to mind).

[Must_B_Free]

1. What does this mean to Saddam's trial?

[KG]

2. they weren't 'wrong', they LIED!

i can see a trend ramping up here, to defer the blame of cluster fuck in iraq on 'faulty' intelligence. don't let this become anyones talking point.

'wrong' my ass.

powell got up in front of the UN and LIED his ass off. it was all LIES.

LIES. LIES. LIES.

[in_cog_ni_to]

3. BINGO!

When you have the Vice President of the Ubited States planting his ass at the CIA (for the FIRST TIME IN OUR HISTORY), in his OWN special office, digging up ANY and ALL intelligence that he could possibly use for a REASON to illegally attack Iraq, something is wrong! They fucking lied! WE knew they were lying, THEY knew they were lying! They were just hoping to find something, anything they could call WMD and it never happened. Bastards. They flatout lied and they need to be tried for WAR CRIMES!