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I was just finishing the draft when a deus ex machina arrived in the form of a major leak to the London Times of official minutes of a briefing of then British Prime Minister Tony Blair at 10 Downing Street on July 23, 2002, eight months before the war on Iraq, and three days after visiting CIA Director George Tenet to confirm for Blair exactly what Bush and Cheney were planning. The Downing Street document destroyed the argument, already being promoted in 2005 by those responsible for the fraud, that intelligence mistakes were to blame for the war in Iraq.
The Downing Street Memorandum
I would like to draw from the first couple of paragraphs of the chapter, since, sadly, they seem relevant today as the historical rewrite about "intelligence errors" is recurring now at the start of Campaign 2016. But first, here is the text of the most damaging part of the Downing Street Memo as "C" -- Richard Dearlove, the head of British intelligence -- reported on recent talks in Washington:
"There was a perceptible shift in attitude. Military action was now seen as inevitable. Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy. The NSC had no patience with the UN route, and no enthusiasm for publishing material on the Iraqi regime's record. There was little discussion in Washington of the aftermath after military action." (emphasis added)
Following is the introduction to my chapter:
"Let's review. It was bad intelligence that forced an unwitting president to invade Iraq, right? The sad fact that so many Americans believe this myth is eloquent testimony to the effectiveness of the White House spin machine. The intelligence was indeed bad -- shaped that way by an administration determined to find a pretext to effect 'regime change' in Iraq."Senior administration officials -- first and foremost Vice President Dick Cheney -- played a strong role in ensuring that the intelligence analysis was corrupt enough to justify, ex post facto, the decision to make war on Iraq. It is not altogether clear how witting President George W. Bush was of all this, but there is strong evidence that he knew chapter and verse. Had he been mousetrapped into this 'preemptive' war, one would expect some heads to roll. None have. And where is it, after all, that the buck is supposed to stop?
"The intelligence-made-me-do-it myth has helped the Bush administration attenuate the acute embarrassment it experienced early last year [2004] when the casus belli became a casus belly laugh. When U.S. inspector David Kay, after a painstaking search to which almost a billion dollars and many lives were given, reported that there had been no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq since 1991, someone had to take the fall.
"Elected was CIA director George Tenet, the backslapping fellow from Queens always eager to do whatever might be necessary to play with the bigger kids. For those of you just in from Mars, the grave danger posed by Iraqi weapons of mass destruction was what President Bush cited as the casus belli for invading Iraq. It was only after Kay had the courage to tell the truth publicly that Bush fell back on the default rationale for the war; namely, the need to export democracy, about which we are hearing so much lately.
"Not surprisingly, the usual suspects in the mainstream media that played cheerleader for the war are now helping the president (and the media) escape blame. Flawed intelligence that led the United States to invade Iraq was the fault of the US intelligence community, explained the Washington Times last July 10 [2004], after regime loyalist Senator Pat Roberts (R-Kan.), chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, released his committee's findings.
"Nine months later, after publication of similar findings by a commission handpicked by the president, the Washington Post's lead headline was 'Data on Iraqi Arms Flawed, Panel Says.' The date was, appropriately, April Fools Day, 2005. In a word, they are playing us for fools. The remarkable thing is that most folks don't seem able, or willing, to recognize that -- or even to mind.
"On May 1, 2005, a highly sensitive document published by The Sunday Times of London provided the smoking gun showing that President Bush had decided to make war on Iraq long before the National Intelligence Estimate was produced to conjure up 'weapons of mass destruction' there and mislead Congress into granting authorization for war.
"The British document is classified 'SECRET AND STRICTLY PERSONAL -- U.K. EYES ONLY.' And small wonder. It contains an official account of Prime Minister Tony Blair's meeting with top advisers on July 23, 2002, at which Sir Richard Dearlove, head of MI6 (the U.K. equivalent to the CIA), simply 'C' in the written document, reported on talks he had just held in Washington with top U.S. officials. Blair has now acknowledged the authenticity of the document.
"As related in the document, Dearlove told Blair and the others that President Bush wanted to remove Saddam Hussein through military action, that this 'was seen as inevitable,' and that the attack would be 'justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD.' He continued: '... but the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy.'
"Dearlove tacked on yet another telling comment: 'There was little discussion in Washington of the aftermath after military action.' British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw concurred that Bush had made up his mind to take military action, but noted that finding justification would be challenging, for 'the case was thin.' Straw pointed out that Saddam was not threatening his neighbors, and his WMD capability was less than that of Libya, North Korea, or Iran.
"As head of MI6, Dearlove was CIA Director George Tenet's British counterpart. We Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS) have been saying since January 2003 that the two intelligence chiefs' marching orders were to 'fix' the intelligence around the policy. It was a no-brainer.
"Seldom, however, does one acquire documentary evidence that this -- the unforgivable sin in intelligence analysis -- was used by the most senior U.S. government leaders as a way to 'justify' a prior decision for war. There is no word to describe our reaction to the fact that the two intelligence chiefs quietly acquiesced in the corruption of our profession on a matter of such consequence. 'Outrage' doesn't even come close."
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