PR Push for Iraq War Preceded Intelligence Finding

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http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0808/S00297.htm


Sunday, 24 August 2008, 2:13 pm
Article: National Security Archive


PR Push for Iraq War Preceded Intelligence Findings

"White Paper" Drafted before NIE even Requested
National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 254

This article is reproduced from www.nsarchive.org with the permission of the National Security Archive. The original URL of this article is: http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB254/index.htm


Washington D.C., August 22, 2008 - The U.S. intelligence community buckled sooner in 2002 than previously reported to Bush administration pressure for data justifying an invasion of Iraq, according to a documents posting on the Web today by National Security Archive senior fellow John Prados.

The documents suggest that the public relations push for war came before the intelligence analysis, which then conformed to public positions taken by Pentagon and White House officials. For example, a July 2002 draft of the "White Paper" ultimately issued by the CIA in October 2002 actually pre-dated the National Intelligence Estimate that the paper purportedly summarized, but which Congress did not insist on until September 2002.

A similar comparison between a declassified draft and the final version of the British government's "White Paper" on Iraq weapons of mass destruction adds to evidence that the two nations colluded in the effort to build public support for the invasion of Iraq. Dr. Prados concludes that the new evidence tends to support charges raised by former White House press secretary Scott McClellan and by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence in its long-delayed June 2008 "Phase II" report on politicization of intelligence.


U.S. Intelligence and Iraq WMD

Compiled and edited by Dr. John Prados
On June 5, 2008 the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI) released a report examining whether the public statements made by U.S. officials, including President George W. Bush, Vice President Richard Cheney, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, and others were consonant with U.S. intelligence information. This report forms part of a second phase of the SSCI’s investigation of Iraq intelligence issues, most especially Saddam Hussein’s possible Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) program, originally approved by the Intelligence Committee in February 2004 but stalled by its Republican majority for several years, until the majority changed with the current 110th Congress. Committee chairman Senator John D. Rockefeller IV (D-WV) then ordered work on this inquiry resumed, and the present report is the result.

The appearance of this long-awaited SSCI “Phase II” report coincided with controversy over the revelations of former White House press secretary Scott McClellan who, in a memoir appearing almost simultaneously, argued that “in the fall of 2002, Bush and his White House were engaging in a carefully orchestrated campaign to shape and manipulate sources of public approval to our advantage.” (Note 1) A review of new evidence along with previously-available documents sheds important new light on this debate. Among the findings: