White Paper Justifying Iraq War Written Three Months before Intel Report Arrived

White Paper Justifying Iraq War Written
Three Months before Intel Report Arrived

A war based on deception and fraud Worldpassion cc

National Security Archive Stunner

Michael Collins
Washington, DC

The National Security Archive released a report Friday Aug. 22, 2008 that sheds even more light on the premeditated lying and deception that took the United States to war in Iraq.   The findings are based on new evidence compiled by Dr. John Prados and published by the National Security Archive.  See "White Paper" Drafted before NIE even Requested , "Scoop" Independent News, Aug. 24, 2008.

Most notably, Prados shows the depth of the deception perpetrated against citizens and Congress regarding the alleged threat to U.S. security posed by Iraq. It had appeared that the White House rewrote the Oct. 1, 2002 National Intelligence Estimate and then issued that doctored report to Congress on Oct. 4, 2002.  Prados reveals convincing evidence that the Oct. 4 White Paper had already been written by July 2002.  He shows that it was only slightly altered after the final NIE arrived. This White Paper served as the basis for the war.

The unavoidable conclusion is that the Bush-Cheney White paper "justifying" the invasion was developed a full three months in advance of the intelligence data and analysis that should have served as the basis for that justification.  The National Security Archive summed it up succinctly:

"The U.S. intelligence community buckled sooner in 2002 than previously reported to Bush administration pressure for data justifying an invasion of Iraq,

"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."  National Security Archive in "Scoop' Independent News, August 24, 2008.

The seemingly endless war in Iraq has become a total disaster on multiple levels for all involved.  The awful toll in human deaths and casualties is largely ignored but real nevertheless.  Over 4,000 U.S. soldiers have been lost in battle and tens of thousands injured.  In excess of one million Iraqi civilians are dead due to civil strife unleashed by the invasion.  The U.S. Treasury is drained and the steep decline in respect for the United States around the world is just beginning to manifest.

The United States political establishment responds with collective denial on a scale that's incomprehensible.  In the presidential campaign, the only sustained public commentary on the war comes from the Republican presidential candidate John McCain who makes the bizarre claim that U.S. is "surrendering" with victory in clear sight.  McCain touts the surge without noting that 4.0 million Iraqis are "displaced from their homes."  Nearly ten percent of Iraq's population is either dead or injured and there are 5.0 million Iraqi orphans.

This pathological view of victory claims the "surge' is a success in the context of a devastated population in an obliterated nation lacking in the most essential supplies and services; a nation where death continues on a shopping spree

The report by Dr. Prados makes it clear that the executive branch was responsible for creating whatever information they found necessary to justify war and they did it by posing security threats from Iraq and demanding that intelligence briefers fill in the details

Summary of Findings by Prados, National Security Archive

"A recently declassified draft of the CIA's October 2002 white paper on Iraqi WMD programs demonstrates that that (the White) paper long pre-dated the compilation of the National Intelligence Estimate on Iraqi capabilities.

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