Tuesday, February 10, 2004
A spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down
The public version of the U.S. intelligence community's key prewar assessment of Iraq's illicit arms programs was stripped of dissenting opinions, warnings of insufficient information and doubts about deposed dictator Saddam Hussein's intentions, a review of the document and its once-classified version shows.
As a result, the public was given a far more definitive assessment of Iraq's plans and capabilities than President Bush and other U.S. decision-makers received from their intelligence agencies.
The stark differences between the public version and the then top-secret version of the October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate raise new questions about the accuracy of the public case made for a war that's claimed the lives of more than 500 U.S. service members and thousands of Iraqis.
The two documents are replete with differences. For example, the public version declared that "most analysts assess Iraq is reconstituting its nuclear weapons program" and says "if left unchecked, it probably will have a nuclear weapon within this decade."
But it fails to mention the dissenting view offered in the top-secret version by the State Department's intelligence arm, the Bureau of Intelligence and Research, known as the INR.
That view said, in part, "The activities we have detected do not, however, add up to a compelling case that Iraq is currently pursuing what INR would consider to be an integrated and comprehensive approach to acquire nuclear weapons. Iraq may be doing so, but INR considers the available evidence inadequate to support such a judgment."
The alternative view further said "INR is unwilling to ... project a timeline for the completion of activities it does not now see happening."
There's so much more.
BONUS! Compare and contrast the two versions from the privacy of your own home! Here's the official version and here's the public one.
posted by chris at 1:40 PM
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