After the March 2003 invasion, as the case for Iraq's possession of trigger-ready WMD fell apart, the Washington debate turned to who was at fault for the shoddy intelligence.
In testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee on June 25, 2003, Army Lt. Gen. John Abizaid offered a clue when he compared the accuracy of tactical intelligence in the Iraq war versus the faulty strategic intelligence.
"Intelligence was the most accurate that I have ever seen on the tactical level, probably the best I've ever seen on the operational level, and perplexingly incomplete on the strategic level with regard to weapons of mass destruction," said Abizaid, who heads the U.S. Central Command, which is responsible for Iraq.
In other words, the intelligence handled by low-level personnel was excellent. It was the intelligence that went through senior levels of the Bush administration that failed.
The WMD issue really came down to two questions: Was the CIA's intelligence analysis that bad or did the White House cherry-pick the intelligence that it wanted to march the country off to war? The answer appears to be that both points were true. A thoroughly politicized CIA slanted the intelligence in the direction that Bush wanted and the White House then trimmed off any caveats the CIA may have included.
The CIA's internal complaint that it was just the victim of administration ideologues was undercut by its own analytical products, including a post-invasion report claiming that two captured Iraqi trailers were labs to produce chemical or biological weapons. That claim later collapsed as evidence emerged to show that the labs were for making hydrogen for artillery weather balloons. [For an early critique of this CIA report, see Consortiumnews.com's "America's Matrix."]
Plus, while Tenet and other CIA officials noted that they objected to other bogus administration claims, such as the assertion that Iraq was seeking yellowcake uranium from Niger, those protests were mostly half-hearted and made behind closed doors. Bush was only forced to back off the yellowcake claim, which he cited in his 2003 State of the Union Address, after former Ambassador Wilson went public with evidence that the allegation was a fraud.
'Stovepipe'
Yet it's also true that the Bush administration didn't want to chance having its Iraqi WMD allegations vetted by any serious intelligence professionals. So, at the State Department, Pentagon and White House, senior political officials created their own channels for accessing raw or untested intelligence that was then used to buttress the charges.
In a New Yorker article about CIA analysts on the defensive, journalist Seymour Hersh described this "stovepiping" process of sending raw intelligence to the top. Intelligence agencies have historically objected to this technique because policy makers will tend to select unvetted information that serves their purposes and use it to discredit the more measured assessments of intelligence professionals.
"The analysts at the CIA were beaten down defending their assessments," a former CIA official told Hersh. "And they blame Tenet for not protecting them. I've never seen a government like this." [See Hersh's "The Stovepipe," The New Yorker, Oct. 27, 2003]
Pillar wrote that the battle between the intelligence analysts and the policymakers came to a head over the White House desire to assert that Saddam Hussein was connected to al-Qaeda, a claim that the intelligence analysts had rejected despite repetitious demands from Vice President Cheney's office that the CIA corroborate the supposed link.
"The administration's rejection of the intelligence community's judgments became especially clear with the formation of a special Pentagon unit, the Policy Counterterrorism Evaluation Group," Pillar wrote. "The unit, which reported to Undersecretary of Defense Douglas Feith, was dedicated to finding every possible link between Saddam and al-Qaeda, and its briefing accused the intelligence community of faulty analysis for failing to see the supposed alliance."
But the intelligence analysts weren't the only ones coming under attack for pointing out evidence that didn't conform to the Bush administration's propaganda. From the start of its drive to invade Iraq, the administration treated going to war like a giant public relations game, with the goal of manufacturing consent or at least silencing any meaningful opposition.
Evidence that undermined Bush's conclusions was minimized or discarded. People who revealed unwanted evidence were personally discredited or intimidated. When former Ambassador Wilson reported that he had been assigned by the CIA to investigate the Niger yellowcake claims and found them bogus, administration officials leaked the fact that Wilson's wife, Valerie Plame, was an undercover CIA officer. The leak destroyed Plame's career and may have put at risk agents who worked with her.
'Slime and Defend'
In testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee on June 25, 2003, Army Lt. Gen. John Abizaid offered a clue when he compared the accuracy of tactical intelligence in the Iraq war versus the faulty strategic intelligence.
"Intelligence was the most accurate that I have ever seen on the tactical level, probably the best I've ever seen on the operational level, and perplexingly incomplete on the strategic level with regard to weapons of mass destruction," said Abizaid, who heads the U.S. Central Command, which is responsible for Iraq.
In other words, the intelligence handled by low-level personnel was excellent. It was the intelligence that went through senior levels of the Bush administration that failed.
The CIA's internal complaint that it was just the victim of administration ideologues was undercut by its own analytical products, including a post-invasion report claiming that two captured Iraqi trailers were labs to produce chemical or biological weapons. That claim later collapsed as evidence emerged to show that the labs were for making hydrogen for artillery weather balloons. [For an early critique of this CIA report, see Consortiumnews.com's "America's Matrix."]
Plus, while Tenet and other CIA officials noted that they objected to other bogus administration claims, such as the assertion that Iraq was seeking yellowcake uranium from Niger, those protests were mostly half-hearted and made behind closed doors. Bush was only forced to back off the yellowcake claim, which he cited in his 2003 State of the Union Address, after former Ambassador Wilson went public with evidence that the allegation was a fraud.
'Stovepipe'
Yet it's also true that the Bush administration didn't want to chance having its Iraqi WMD allegations vetted by any serious intelligence professionals. So, at the State Department, Pentagon and White House, senior political officials created their own channels for accessing raw or untested intelligence that was then used to buttress the charges.
In a New Yorker article about CIA analysts on the defensive, journalist Seymour Hersh described this "stovepiping" process of sending raw intelligence to the top. Intelligence agencies have historically objected to this technique because policy makers will tend to select unvetted information that serves their purposes and use it to discredit the more measured assessments of intelligence professionals.
"The analysts at the CIA were beaten down defending their assessments," a former CIA official told Hersh. "And they blame Tenet for not protecting them. I've never seen a government like this." [See Hersh's "The Stovepipe," The New Yorker, Oct. 27, 2003]
Pillar wrote that the battle between the intelligence analysts and the policymakers came to a head over the White House desire to assert that Saddam Hussein was connected to al-Qaeda, a claim that the intelligence analysts had rejected despite repetitious demands from Vice President Cheney's office that the CIA corroborate the supposed link.
"The administration's rejection of the intelligence community's judgments became especially clear with the formation of a special Pentagon unit, the Policy Counterterrorism Evaluation Group," Pillar wrote. "The unit, which reported to Undersecretary of Defense Douglas Feith, was dedicated to finding every possible link between Saddam and al-Qaeda, and its briefing accused the intelligence community of faulty analysis for failing to see the supposed alliance."
But the intelligence analysts weren't the only ones coming under attack for pointing out evidence that didn't conform to the Bush administration's propaganda. From the start of its drive to invade Iraq, the administration treated going to war like a giant public relations game, with the goal of manufacturing consent or at least silencing any meaningful opposition.
Evidence that undermined Bush's conclusions was minimized or discarded. People who revealed unwanted evidence were personally discredited or intimidated. When former Ambassador Wilson reported that he had been assigned by the CIA to investigate the Niger yellowcake claims and found them bogus, administration officials leaked the fact that Wilson's wife, Valerie Plame, was an undercover CIA officer. The leak destroyed Plame's career and may have put at risk agents who worked with her.
'Slime and Defend'
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