Subject:
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Counter-Intelligence
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.off-topic.debate
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Date:
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Sat, 7 Jun 2003 22:16:16 GMT
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Viewed:
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221 times
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Some Analysts of Iraq Trailers Reject Germ Use
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/06/07/international/worldspecial/07TRAI.html?pagewanted=print&position=
American and British intelligence analysts with direct access to the evidence
are disputing claims that the mysterious trailers found in Iraq were for making
deadly germs. In interviews over the last week, they said the mobile units were
more likely intended for other purposes and charged that the evaluation process
had been damaged by a rush to judgment.
“Everyone has wanted to find the ‘smoking gun’ so much that they may have wanted
to have reached this conclusion,” said one intelligence expert who has seen the
trailers and, like some others, spoke on condition that he not be identified. He
added, “I am very upset with the process.”
Bush Certainty On Iraq Arms Went Beyond Analysts’ Views
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A26487-2003Jun6?language=printer
During the weeks last fall before critical votes in Congress and the United
Nations on going to war in Iraq, senior administration officials, including
President Bush, expressed certainty in public that Iraq possessed chemical and
biological weapons, even though U.S. intelligence agencies were reporting they
had no direct evidence that such weapons existed.
In an example of the tenor of the administration’s statements at the time, the
president said in the Rose Garden on Sept. 26 that “the Iraqi regime possesses
biological and chemical weapons. The Iraqi regime is building the facilities
necessary to make more biological and chemical weapons.”
But a Defense Intelligence Agency report on chemical weapons, widely distributed
to administration policymakers around the time of the president’s speech, stated
there was “no reliable information on whether Iraq is producing or stockpiling
chemical weapons or whether Iraq has or will establish its chemical agent
production facilities.”
The disparities between the conviction with which administration officials
portrayed the threat posed by Iraq in their public statements and documents, and
the more qualified reporting on the issue by intelligence agencies in classified
reports, are at the heart of a burgeoning controversy in Congress and within the
intelligence community over the U.S. rationale for going to war. The failure of
the United States to uncover any proscribed weapons eight weeks after the end of
the war is fueling sentiment among some Democrats on Capitol Hill and some
intelligence analysts that the administration may have exaggerated the threat
posed by Iraq.
Intelligence Historian Says CIA ‘Buckled’ on Iraq
http://www.reuters.com/printerFriendlyPopup.jhtml?type=topNews&storyID=2891481
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The CIA bowed to Bush administration pressure to hype the
threat of Saddam Hussein’s weapons programs ahead of the U.S.-led war in Iraq, a
leading national security historian concluded in a detailed study of the spy
agency’s public pronouncements.
“What is clear from intelligence reporting is that until about 1998 the CIA was
fairly comfortable with its assessments on Iraq,” John Prados wrote in the
current issue of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists.
“But from that time on the agency gradually buckled under the weight of pressure
to adopt alarmist views,” he said. “After mid-2001, the rush to judgment on Iraq
became a stampede.”
A CIA spokesman, Mark Mansfield, dismissed Prados’ conclusion, saying “The
notion that we buckled under and adopted alarmist views is utter nonsense.”
Snip!
Much of U.S. prewar intelligence findings on Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction
was flimsy but policymakers’ goals were clear, said Mel Goodman, a professor at
the Pentagon’s National War College and director of the Intelligence Reform
Project at the Center for International Policy in Washington.
“To deny that there was any pressure on the intelligence community is just
absurd,” said Goodman, who quit in 1990 as a CIA analyst over alleged skewing of
intelligence.
The Defense Intelligence Agency, in a classified September 2002 report, said it
lacked enough “reliable information” to conclude Iraq was amassing chemical
weapons, even as the administration was pushing for war, an official said on
Friday.
I just wanted to document all of these “lies” for my debate pals.
Reall, it’s a shame we have any newsmedia at all that contradicts the edicts of
our great and trustworthy leader. May he continue to lead us with the same
fervor with which he conducted himself in the Texas Air National Guard!
That is to say, I’d prefer he led us by his conspicuous absence. ::Snicker::
-- Hop-Frog
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