Well it looks like the intelligence was flawed. Even the Washington Post is claiming the CIA didn't roll over to political pressure. Of course we have to get the political posturing in. The article admits that the intelligence provided to the administration was the best we had, but then goes on to say the inquiry doesn't address allegations the Bush administration misued intelligence and exaggerated the threat. How in blue blazes do you misuse the intelligence and exaggerate the threat if you belive the intelligence to be correct? See what I mean, it's all politics and it's getting in the way of fixing the problem. I guess we're supposed to believe the administration somehow knew the CIA was wrong, but went ahead and invaded Iraq anyway? How were they supposed to know that? Looks to me like it was action taken on the best information that was available.
Jeff
Inquiries find no evidence CIA bowed to pressure on Iraq data
By WASHINGTON POST
01/31/2004
WASHINGTON - Congressional and CIA investigations into the prewar intelligence on Iraq's weapons and links to terrorism have found no evidence that CIA analysts colored their judgment because of perceived or actual political pressure from White House officials, according to intelligence and congressional officials.
Richard Kerr, a former deputy CIA director who is leading the agency's review of its prewar Iraq assessment, said an examination of the secret work done by CIA analysts showed that it remained consistent over many years.
"There was pressure and a lot of debate, and people should have a lot of debate, that's quite legitimate," Kerr said. "But the bottom line is, over a period of several years," the analysts' assessments "were very consistent. They didn't change their views."
Kerr's findings mirror those of investigations being conducted separately by the House and Senate intelligence committees, which have interviewed, under oath, every analyst involved in assessing Iraq's weapons programs and terrorist ties.
The panel chairmen, Sen. Pat Roberts, R-Kan., and Rep. Porter J. Goss, R-Fla., and other congressional officials said in recent interviews that they found no evidence that analysts shaded their findings to more closely fit the White House's known desire to create the strongest, most urgent case for war with Iraq.
The conclusion that analysts didn't buckle under political pressure doesn't answer the question of why the intelligence reports were so flawed. Nor does it address allegations - made by Democrats in Congress and Democratic presidential candidates - that top officials in President George W. Bush's administration misused intelligence and exaggerated the threat posed by Iraq.
On Wednesday, former chief U.S. weapons inspector David Kay told a Senate committee that he no longer believed Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction in the months leading up to the war. And he called for an independent inquiry into why U.S. intelligence agencies believed the opposite.
There have been instances in which intelligence analysts said they sensed pressure to reach certain conclusions, but the House and Senate investigators said there was no indication they bowed to such wishes.
Last year, for example, some analysts at the CIA complained to senior officials when Vice President Dick Cheney made multiple trips to CIA headquarters to question their studies of Iraq's weapons programs and alleged links to al-Qaida.
And analysts at the Defense Intelligence Agency told investigators they sensed pressure when civilian Defense Department leaders constantly questioned why their analysis had found only tentative links between al-Qaida and Iraq.
Neither the CIA inspector general nor the agency's ombudsmen received any complaints about outside meddling, a senior intelligence official said.
The CIA maintains that it is still too early to say that its assessment was wrong because the search for weapons is not over.
Sorry couldn't resist teasing a little to lighten things up.