The Prewar Intelligence debate

[crawjo]

I apologize for all the new threads this evening, but I just came across this article in the Washington Post, which presents a fascinating view of the debates that went on in the administration over what evidence to use in presenting the case for war, and what not to use. Mostly this focuses on Powell's work in preparing for the speech to the U.N. last year, but in either event, this is a great piece of reporting.

[BFrank]

That is a good article, crawjo. Thanks.

These paragraphs are particularly enlightening:
The CIA originally drafted a speech for a U.N. presentation, which then went to the White House. But what ultimately emerged -- after Cheney's office had been tasked to assemble the material for the speech -- was much different from the CIA draft.

I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Cheney's chief of staff, deputy national security adviser Stephen J. Hadley and other National Security Council staffers had produced draft language for Powell -- 45 pages on weapons of mass destruction, 38 pages on alleged links to terrorism and 16 pages on Iraq's human rights abuses. But when Powell's staff and intelligence analysts gathered at CIA headquarters in Virginia to go through the material, controversy immediately erupted over some of the charges, officials said. Because the White House had changed so much from the CIA draft, they had to go over it "page by page," one official said.

[Ron Thorne]

Thanks for this link, crawjo.

I'm very curious as to your take on this article, especially since you've only alluded to it as presenting a "fascinating" view ... .

[crawjo]

What I was most struck by in it was Powell's determination that he only go with "rock-solid" evidence, and yet still, all the stuff about the UAV's proved to be wrong.

I do think that the most serious issue to emerge from this is the appalling intelligence failures. I think the result of this is going to be the need for major reform in the CIA. What this also means is that the doctrine behind Bush's war, "pre-emption" is effectively dead for future purposes. If our intelligence is so blatantly untrustworthy, then we can't go around basing wars on it.

The issue is one of credibility. I continue to support the war for humanitarian reasons, but those were not the primary reasons stated for having the war by Bush or even by Tony Blair. So, at the end of the day, I can applaud the result of the conflict while recognizing the serious failures of intelligence and assessment of intelligence that have emerged, and what those failures mean for the future of U.S. foreign policy.

It is good that there is going to be a thorough and independent review of this. We need to know why this happened: whether the main problem was that the Bush administration overemphasized intelligence for political reasons or whether the intelligence itself was simply so far off the mark that no matter what the administration did, if they based anything on what the CIA was saying they were going to be wrong. I found this particular article interesting because it showed the caution Powell exhibited prior to his U.N. speech: personally interviewing CIA analysts, making sure that there were multiple credible sources for any piece of information, insisting that his aides use only things that were "rock solid" and yet still much of it was just wrong. It's rather pathetic, actually. There needs to be an accounting, and hopefully the results of that accounting will come before the November election, so the American people can determine whether Bush is to blame for this or the CIA is to blame for this, or both, or neither, and then judge the president's performance accordingly. I have so resisted the accusations that Bush lied because I believe that the jury is entirely out on that question, since there really isn't much that we know at this point.