Friday, July 09, 2004
It was the CIA's fault
The Central Intelligence Agency greatly overestimated the danger presented by deadly unconventional weapons in Iraq because of runaway assumptions that were never sufficiently challenged, the Senate Intelligence Committee said today.
In a long-awaited report that goes to the heart of President Bush's rationale for going to war and is certain to intensify political debate on Iraq, the committee said that prewar assessments of Saddam Hussein's supposed arsenal of chemical and biological weapons, and his desire to have nuclear weapons, were wildly off the mark.
Okay, but that's only part one. There's more to come.
U.S. Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., says the Senate Intelligence Committee will concentrate on the administration of President George W. Bush for the second half of its report on pre-war intelligence.
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"I think it's also clear that they were shaping intelligence in order to meet the policy needs of the administration. There can't be much doubt about that," said Levin.
Levin said the report paints only half the picture, focusing critically on the CIA for its assessment that wrongly claimed Iraq was hiding illegal weapons. He added that the report doesn't examine what he called the administration's exaggerations about the intelligence they received.
posted by chris at 4:20 PM
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