CIA Insider, Tyler Drumheller, Says Administration Ignored Iraq Intelligence

Tyler Drumheller, the former highest ranking CIA officer in Europe, spoke out on 60 Minutes about the Bush Administration's desire to ignore intelligence that conflicted their their preconceived desire to go to war. Among the most important intelligence ignored by the Bush administration was information refuting the "African uranium" story.



One by one we're seeing more indications of an administration that was poised for war in Iraq come "hell or high water". We've discussed this issue with varying success here on ATS, which has mostly resulted in partisan rhetoric. But how many reports like this do we need to see before it's clear this is no longer a partisan issue, but a critical moment in history for the United States?

Related News Links:
www.guardian.co.uk
www.chron.com
www.nytimes.com

Related AboveTopSecret.com Discussion Threads:
Demolishing the WMD Myth
WAR: Powell: Unlikely WMD Stocks Will Be Found in Iraq

SO, thankyou for this!

Exactly, just how much more do we need to convince us?

Its time to end the Republican vs. Democrat stuff and realize this has happened to our country, come together, and unite.

We deserve better. All of us!

I too thank you for this report, Skeptic Overlord. I also agree that partisan bickering is not the way right now. We do need to see that the truth about the second Iraqi War is slowly trickling out. And I hope that people have it in their minds to see that this war was going to happen whether there is credible evidence for it or not.

And that is what makes the soldier suicides, the road bombing deaths, the dehydration deaths of women soldiers at Camp Victory and the ill treatment of detainees more tragic than ever before.



[edit on 23-4-2006 by ceci2006]

We know that many critics said that the government manipulated intelligence to go ahead with the attack on Iraq while making sure that conflicting reports would stay hidden.

Bush excuse has been all alone that Democrats saw and knew about the same intelligent reports that he did.

Now this makes you wonder.

But then some of the documents provided about the intelligence, said that Saddam had indeed about 500 sites in Iraq with MWDs, but congress never got the same amount of data that the president himself had access too.

So all we get from the president is his rhetoric that congress knew about the same intelligence that he did, but it seems that is all a lie as usual.

Cheney occurs had to support his corporate involvement in Iraq with Halliburton and was the most Political figure to support the invasion of Iraq bringing as an excuses that Politicians needed to support our troops already committed in the liberation at the time of Iraq.

Then again why the president kept all the information about Iraq in his personal care and not where it belonged, with congress.

Dear CIA Insider...

Tyler Drumheller, the former highest ranking CIA officer in Europe, spoke out on 60 Minutes about the Bush Administration's desire to ignore intelligence that conflicted their their preconceived desire to go to war

Seen these mentions? When "dear CIA insider" gets around to debunking these, then perhaps what he claims can be taken with validity. When the CIA itself is saying that Saddam had WMDs, there was no ignoring of the Iraqi Intelligence on this matter. Nothing but the CBS looking to raise its rating by attracting the anti-bush and anti-war crowd. Oops, that would undoubtedly include CBS...

The CIA said Saddam had an "active" program for "R&D, production and weaponization" for biological agents such as anthrax.
Iraqi diplomat gave U.S. prewar WMD details: Saddam’s foreign minister told CIA the truth, so why didn’t agency listen?

The Director of the CIA, George Tenet: Iraq and Weapons of Mass Destruction

Tenet defends Iraq WMD intelligence


From Bob Woodard:
Woodward: Tenet told Bush WMD case a 'slam dunk': Says Bush didn't solicit Rumsfeld, Powell on going to war

An exceprt from his book, "Plan of Attack":

With a series of flip charts, McLaughlin showed that Saddam--with near certainty--had lethal chemical and biological weapons, mobile biological weapons production facilities and missiles with ranges far in excess of U.N. ceilings. He was, moreover, thought to be aggressively pursuing such WMD programs. Bush was not overwhelmed. "Nice try," he said, but it's not good enough to convince "Joe Public." Turning to Tenet, Bush posed a critical question: "I've been told all this intelligence about having WMD, and this is the best we've got?" Tenet then weighed in with perhaps the most momentous pronouncement of his career: "It's a slam dunk case!" he enthusiastically informed the President. Wary, Bush pressed the DCI again: "George, how confident are you?" Tenet repeated: "Don't worry, it's a slam dunk." Tenet had sold the President, but Bush was not entirely happy. He informed Andy Card and Condoleezza Rice, each of whom had attended the briefing, "Needs a lot more work" and he warned Tenet several times: "Make sure no one stretches to make our case."
CBS Spinning Again

National Security Council and CIA: Iraq and Weapons of Mass Destruction

The CIA and Iraq's WMD

CIA can't rule out WMD move to Syria

Intelligence war: Pentagon faults CIA finding on Iraqi WMD

The Intelligence on Iraq's WMD


As for the matter of those alleged WMDs:
5 Part Series: In Search of Saddam Hussein's WMD

By a former Ferderal Agent in Iraq:
The Iraqi WMDs That Slipped Through Our Fingers

Saddam's WMD and terrorist connections all proven in one document!

Oh, and look, this is all coming from the same CBS, the same 60 minutes that was discovered to be in breach of ethics not so long ago:

News as infomercial.

In a breach of ethics, CBS News did not reveal on it's extended 60 Minutes coverage that viewers were watching "news" coverage of a publication property owned by Free Press, which is a label under Simon & Schuster who is owned by Viacom, parent of CBS.

ATSNN News Source






seekerof

[edit on 23-4-2006 by Seekerof]

Thanks for this SO!

On March 7, 2003, the head of the United Nations' nuclear watchdog agency announced that the Niger uranium documents were forgeries. The Bush administration went to war in Iraq 12 days later, without acknowledging that one of its main arguments for going to war was false.

Bravo for Drumheller!

"The facts were being fixed" comes to mind. They had the goal in sight and it's clear they used whatever information they could to feed that goal and discarded that which did not.

What troubles me now is that I believe this is happening all over again for Iran.

How nice of this person to come forward... I truly hope many more do btw. Although it seems that many of these people are politically motivated rather by partisan politics than mere love of country or culture it seems. How I wish it was the latter.

Anyways, I don't think this is much of a revelation in that the African uranium story has already been sufficiently discounted before.

That still does not mean that there was no WMD's nor the desire to accumulate them by Saddam either... look at the ranting and raving by the Iranians right now and just past Saddam's face on the camera image...

But the point that the admin wanted regime change is an issue and again one for which I personally do not have a problem but I guess oponents of the White House do. There is an issue of timing here too of course because as events unfolded the underlying issues for going to war changed slightly and in fact broadened.

Still there is divisions in any organization and there may well be those in the CIA and this story likely indicates this.

The sad point about this Iraq war is that most that opposed it did so for less than pristine reasons: they didnt' want to fight themselves, they followed partisan politics, they were left of center politically and or sympathetic to the countries aligned with Iraq at the time. Frankly, I still haven't seen one good argument against the war except for the Cost of it. That in itself is the best reason yet even that could not have been known without hindsite and frankly the resistance in Iraq is likely largely based by leftists wanting to bring down a perceived right-wing White House.

Originally posted by Seekerof
Seen these mentions? When "dear CIA insider" gets around to debunking these,

If you read the material presented by Tyler Drumheller, it's clear that part of the problem was a derth of conflicting information inspired by the administration's desire to select the material that supported their goals, and reject material that didn't.

Funny but Tenet said

CIA analysts' assessments "differed on several important aspects of [Iraq's chemical, biological and nuclear weapons] programs and those debates were spelled out in the estimate. They never said there was an imminent threat.

So if Iraq was not an imminent threat why the Bush administration went ahead with the invasion?

"Rather, they painted an objective assessment for our policy-makers of a brutal dictator who was continuing his efforts to deceive and build programs that might constantly surprise us and threaten our interests," he continued.

Or perhaps that is why the Threat of MWDs took a metamorphosis and then it was that Saddam was planning to build and use them against us? Plus he was such a Brutal dictator that our administration though necessary to attack a sovereign country for that reason?

You know what, it makes not sense and the only explanation for this is. . . that Bush came into power as a president with the Intention to invaded Iraq with Cheney’s Blessing.

So much for the making Tenet argument a good one.

When he even said that the agency may have "overestimated the progress that Saddam was making" on reconstituting a nuclear program.

www.pbs.org...

Get it!!!!! the war with Iraq was a done deal, with right intelligence or not.

[edit on 23-4-2006 by marg6043]

In the words of "Lionel" a progressive radio talk host, :shk:

"They dont get it. They just dont get it"

:shk:

Originally posted by dgtempe



In the words of "Lionel" a progressive radio talk host, :shk:

"They dont get it. They just dont get it"

:shk:

No DG, it is you who don't get it. There are people who have from the beginning, their minds set in this topic and nothing would change their minds. When the administration has done something wrong and I have seen it I have talked about it, but in this issue all that is really being fought for is for political motivations and nothing more.

There are conflicting reports about what "this insider" is saying and other people have been saying too, which gives more credence to the point that "such insiders" are only doing this for "political reasons".



[edit on 24-4-2006 by Muaddib]

BTW, I read something a couple of days ago about the African uranium story that sheds some new light to this, unfortunately i did not save the link. i will try t find it again, but anyways, here is another link on this topic. The following excerpt is how the U.S. intelligence services came to know about the Niger story.

In February 1999, Zahawie left his Vatican office for a few days and paid an official visit to Niger, a country known for absolutely nothing except its vast deposits of uranium ore. It was from Niger that Iraq had originally acquired uranium in 1981, as confirmed in the Duelfer Report. In order to take the Joseph Wilson view of this Baathist ambassadorial initiative, you have to be able to believe that Saddam Hussein's long-term main man on nuclear issues was in Niger to talk about something other than the obvious. Italian intelligence (which first noticed the Zahawie trip from Rome) found it difficult to take this view and alerted French intelligence (which has better contacts in West Africa and a stronger interest in nuclear questions). In due time, the French tipped off the British, who in their cousinly way conveyed the suggestive information to Washington. As everyone now knows, the disclosure appeared in watered-down and secondhand form in the president's State of the Union address in January 2003.

If the above was all that was known, it would surely be universally agreed that no responsible American administration could have overlooked such an amazingly sinister pattern. Given the past Iraqi record of surreptitious dealing, cheating of inspectors, concealment of sites and caches, and declared ambition to equip the technicians referred to openly in the Baathist press as "nuclear mujahideen," one could scarcely operate on the presumption of innocence.

However, the waters have since become muddied, to say the least. For a start, someone produced a fake document, dated July 6, 2000, which purports to show Zahawie's signature and diplomatic seal on an actual agreement for an Iraqi uranium transaction with Niger. Almost everything was wrong with this crude forgery—it had important dates scrambled, and it misstated the offices of Niger politicians. In consequence, IAEA Chairman Mohammed ElBaradei later reported to the U.N. Security Council that the papers alleging an Iraq-Niger uranium connection had been demonstrated to be fraudulent.

www.slate.com...

Muaddib...the point of this thread is that the current administration ignored certain intelligence. I think the most pertinent of which came directly from the IAEA report The Status of Nuclear Inspections in Iraq by IAEA Director General Dr. Mohamed ElBaradei dated March 7, 2003, two weeks prior to the invasion, in which it was clearly stated for even a layman to understand...

Based on thorough analysis, the IAEA has concluded, with the concurrence of outside experts, that these documents - which formed the basis for the reports of recent uranium transactions between Iraq and Niger - are in fact not authentic.

.......

Conclusion

In conclusion, I am able to report today that, in the area of nuclear weapons - the most lethal weapons of mass destruction - inspections in Iraq are moving forward. Since the resumption of inspections a little over three months ago - and particularly during the three weeks since my last oral report to the Council - the IAEA has made important progress in identifying what nuclear-related capabilities remain in Iraq, and in its assessment of whether Iraq has made any efforts to revive its past nuclear programme during the intervening four years since inspections were brought to a halt. At this stage, the following can be stated:


There is no indication of resumed nuclear activities in those buildings that were identified through the use of satellite imagery as being reconstructed or newly erected since 1998, nor any indication of nuclear-related prohibited activities at any inspected sites.

There is no indication that Iraq has attempted to import uranium since 1990.

There is no indication that Iraq has attempted to import aluminium tubes for use in centrifuge enrichment. Moreover, even had Iraq pursued such a plan, it would have encountered practical difficulties in manufacturing centrifuges out of the aluminium tubes in question.

Although we are still reviewing issues related to magnets and magnet production, there is no indication to date that Iraq imported magnets for use in a centrifuge enrichment programme.

This war would be justified with the support of credible evidence. But to date....there is none. So I ask again...what is the point here? We've been given so many differing reasons by this administration that it is utterly ridiculous to consider yet you pull from subjective internet sources for support much like the current administration has pulled from selective intel for rationale. People need to stop hacking at the "tree" and look at the "forest" before we all end up "planted"! And again...keep the paritsanship removed and maybe draw from "the horse's mouth" so to speak. This is about what is good for the American public.

[edit on 24-4-2006 by antipigopolist]

Big Up to mister SkepticOverlord for this!

Shortly before Drumheller's announcement, another CIA insider came out with an article describing the flawed use of the intelligence services and intelligence product by the Bush administration regarding Iraq. Paul R. Pillar, the CIA's National Intelligence Officer in charge of the Middle East from 2000 to 2005, wrote the article in Foreign Affairs last March/April and his article can be found in its entirety on the FA website here: Intelligence, Policy, and the War in Iraq.

In terms of substantive material, he focuses more on the distortions of the Saddam/Terror connections, but his article is not limited to that topic. It deals, as mentioned, primarily with the more general use of intelligence by this administration. He echoes a lot of Drumheller's comments.

His article caused quite a stir.

Some excerpts:

The Bush administration deviated from the professional standard not only in using policy to drive intelligence, but also in aggressively using intelligence to win public support for its decision to go to war. This meant selectively adducing data -- "cherry-picking" -- rather than using the intelligence community's own analytic judgments. In fact, key portions of the administration's case explicitly rejected those judgments....

In the upside-down relationship between intelligence and policy that prevailed in the case of Iraq, the administration selected pieces of raw intelligence to use in its public case for war, leaving the intelligence community to register varying degrees of private protest when such use started to go beyond what analysts deemed credible or reasonable.

The Bush administration's use of intelligence on Iraq... turned the entire model upside down. The administration used intelligence not to inform decision-making, but to justify a decision already made. It went to war without requesting -- and evidently without being influenced by -- any strategic-level intelligence assessments on any aspect of Iraq. (The military made extensive use of intelligence in its war planning, although much of it was of a more tactical nature.) Congress, not the administration, asked for the now-infamous October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on Iraq's unconventional weapons programs, although few members of Congress actually read it. (According to several congressional aides responsible for safeguarding the classified material, no more than six senators and only a handful of House members got beyond the five-page executive summary.) As the national intelligence officer for the Middle East, I was in charge of coordinating all of the intelligence community's assessments regarding Iraq; the first request I received from any administration policymaker for any such assessment was not until a year into the war.

I'll spare posting any more, and apologies if what I have go over the limit of what is acceptable on ATS. Anyone interested in Drumheller's comments should also read Pillar's article.

[edit on 24-4-2006 by koji_K]

Originally posted by SkepticOverlord
If you read the material presented by Tyler Drumheller, it's clear that part of the problem was a derth of conflicting information inspired by the administration's desire to select the material that supported their goals, and reject material that didn't.

In Tyler admitting that the CIA was delivering conflicting information, does it not also serve that Tyler, as with other CIA operatives and analyst, would simply go with one or the other and then run with it?

Chances are, as has been determined, either side of the conflicting information/intelligence could have been wrong. Accordingly, what are or were the consequences if Saddam had no WMD and the U.S. and company remove him anyway? What are the consequences if Saddam had WMD and the U.S. and company failed to act? When decisions are made, everyone is not going to agree with them, therefore because Tyler feels that the administration did not heed his word, the adminstration is now considered to be liars and fabricators who deliberately sought "to select the material that supported their goals, and reject material that didn't." Yeah, thats it....

To simply have some "ex-insiders" come out now and play the 'Hindsight is 20/20' game is ludicrous, that the adminstration recieved 'bad' and conflicting information/intelligence and/or the administration recieved 'good' conflicting information/intelligence--which this 'good' information/intelligence is the stuff the adminstration chose to ignore, based upon Tyler's assertions, serves nothing and represents political agenda determinism. Btw, did those CIA intelligence folders, when passed to the adminstration for deliberation, were they marked/labeled selectively good information/intelligence and bad information/intelligence? If not, then that 'bad' and 'good' information/intelligence--the Tyler 'CIA conflicting information'--being passed to the adminstration for deliberation then forced the administration "to select the material that supported their goals, and reject material that didn't"?

And since I do not watch CBS, NBC, or ABC anymore, per chance, was CBS pushing Tyler Drumheller's book, as well? No doubt in my mind that this particular 60 Minutes segment was based from or upon it.
On the Brink : How the White House Has Compromised American Intelligence

60 Minutes has become nothing but a political agenda driven "News as Infomercial" media outlet.







seekerof

[edit on 24-4-2006 by Seekerof]

Originally posted by Seekerof
To simply have some "ex-insiders" come out now and play the 'Hindsight is 20/20' game is ludicrous, that the adminstration recieved 'bad' and conflicting information/intelligence and/or the administration recieved 'good' conflicting information/intelligence--which this 'good' information/intelligence is the stuff the adminstration chose to ignore, based upon Tyler's assertions, serves nothing and represents political agenda determinism.

Maybe you could address how the IAEA's report delivered 2 weeks prior to invasion fits in with your "Hindsight is 20/20" logic? How soon they forget.

Originally posted by Seekerof
In Tyler admitting that the CIA was delivering conflicting information

He seems to be saying that multiple individuals from several intelligence sources have created an environment where the administration has the ability to pick and choose pieces of intelligence that supports a specific preconceived agenda. If strong evidence conflicted with that agenda, the information was dismissed.

Accordingly, what are or were the consequences if Saddam had no WMD and the U.S. and company remove him anyway?

I would hope that the consequences would be severe, given the reasons presented to the world at large.

What are the consequences if Saddam had WMD and the U.S. and company failed to act?

It's becoming increasingly clear this "straw man" doesn't exist. We're seeing far more indications of intelligence reports indicating a lack of WMD program, than reports that indicate a possible WMD program (at least from what the public can see at this point in time). And hindsight affords an unfortunate view of this period in time, as no weapons have been discovered.

When decisions are made, everyone is not going to agree with them, therefore because Tyler feels that the administration did not heed his word, the adminstration is now considered to be liars and fabricators who deliberately sought "to select the material that supported their goals, and reject material that didn't." Yeah, thats it....

We can all imagine that the information available upon which to make decisions at the time are undoubtedly more complex and varied that we arm-chair analysts have available to us. However, we (US) taxpayers pay a great deal of money to these intelligence agencies and even more to the politicians they inform. We expect an accuracy of results from which intelligent decisions can be made. It's clear there have been catastrophic accuracy problems that have resulted in catastrophically poor decisions that effect not just us but the entire world's stability.

Some may feel comfortable in their arm-chairs dismissing these issues as blameless unfortunate inaccuracies. I do not.

To simply have some "ex-insiders" come out now and play the 'Hindsight is 20/20' game is ludicrous,

How else are we to discover where and when the failures occurred so that a concerted effort can be made to correct the process as well as alleviate the current situation?

Btw, did those CIA intelligence folders, when passed to the adminstration for deliberation, were they marked/labeled selectively good information/intelligence and bad information/intelligence?

As the reports we're seeing indicates, the material supporting a possible WMD program was slim in comparison to what the "on the ground" agents were discovering about the lack of a program. Post-analysis such as this and more official means are the only way to understand what was good, what was bad, and how to prevent the bad material from dominating again.

And since I do not watch CBS, NBC, or ABC anymore, per chance, was CBS pushing Tyler Drumheller's book, as well? No doubt in my mind that the this particular 60 Minutes segment was based from or upon it.

Which is why the issue is presented here for discussion so a more balanced collection of opinions can chime in on this critically important topic. I would hope that anyone who stumbles on this thread would eventually gain a deeper understanding of the realities of the issue that can be presented from one entertainment (er, news) source.

And keep in mind that an "insider" publishing a book of "inside information" is indeed news.

60 Minutes has become nothing but a political agenda driven "News as Infomercial" media outlet.

There are no reliable news outlets any more. All have an agenda to entertain viewers/readers of a certain demographic or psychographic profile.

Many ATS members have some clear agendas as well.

At some point, through exchanges like this, a clearer picture will be presented.

And here is another item, still hot in the news, that gives some insight to how this is "played" if your not fully in the "game". Sorry for the long quote...but I think it is very relevant.

Source

Vice-President Cheney responded to ElBaradei’s report mainly by attacking the messenger. On March 16th, Cheney, appearing on “Meet the Press,” stated emphatically that the United States had reason to believe that Saddam Hussein had reconstituted his nuclear-weapons program. He went on, “I think Mr. ElBaradei frankly is wrong. And I think if you look at the track record of the International Atomic Energy Agency on this kind of issue, especially where Iraq’s concerned, they have consistently underestimated or missed what it was Saddam Hussein was doing. I don’t have any reason to believe they’re any more valid this time than they’ve been in the past.” Three days later, the war in Iraq got under way, and the tale of the African-uranium-connection forgery sank from view.

Joseph Wilson, the diplomat who had travelle to Africa to investigate the allegation more than a year earlier, revived the Niger story. He was angered by what he saw as the White House’ dishonesty about Niger, and in early May he casually mentioned his mission to Niger, and his findings, during a brief talk about Iraq at political conference in suburban Washingto sponsored by the Senate Democratic Polic Committee (Wilson is a Democrat). Another speaker at the conference was the Times columnist Nicholas Kristof, who got Wilson’s permission to mention the Niger trip in a column. A few months later, on July 6th, Wilson wrote about the trip himself on the Times Op-Ed page. “I gave them months to correct the record,” he told me, speaking of the White House, “but they kept on lying.”
The White House responded by blaming the intelligence community for the Niger reference in the State of the Union address. Condoleezza Rice, the national-security adviser, told a television interviewer on July 13th, “Had there been even a peep that the agency did not want that sentence in or that George Tenet did not want that sentence . . . it would have been gone.” Five days later, a senior White House official went a step further, telling reporters at a background briefing that they had the wrong impression about Joseph Wilson’s trip to Niger and the information it had yielded. “You can’t draw a conclusion that we were warned by Ambassador Wilson that this was all dubious,” the unnamed official said, according to a White House transcript. “It’s just not accurate.”
But Wilson’s account of his trip forced a rattled White House to acknowledge, for the first time, that “this information should not have risen to the level of a Presidential speech.” It also triggered retaliatory leaks to the press by White House officials that exposed Wilson’s wife as a C.I.A. operative—and led to an F.B.I. investigation.

[edit on 24-4-2006 by antipigopolist]

Originally posted by antipigopolist
And here is another item, still hot in the news, that gives some insight to how this is "played" if your not fully in the "game". Sorry for the long quote...but I think it is very relevant.

Source

The White House responded by blaming the intelligence community for the Niger reference in the State of the Union address. Condoleezza Rice, the national-security adviser, told a television interviewer on July 13th, “Had there been even a peep that the agency did not want that sentence in or that George Tenet did not want that sentence . . . it would have been gone.” Five days later, a senior White House official went a step further, telling reporters at a background briefing that they had the wrong impression about Joseph Wilson’s trip to Niger and the information it had yielded. “You can’t draw a conclusion that we were warned by Ambassador Wilson that this was all dubious,” the unnamed official said, according to a White House transcript. “It’s just not accurate.”

Not to take the thread off topic, but Pillar, the CIA guy I mentioned in my last quote gives quite a different point of view than Rice...

The best-known example was the assertion by President George W. Bush in his 2003 State of the Union address that Iraq was purchasing uranium ore in Africa. U.S. intelligence analysts had questioned the credibility of the report making this claim, had kept it out of their own unclassified products, and had advised the White House not to use it publicly. But the administration put the claim into the speech anyway, referring to it as information from British sources in order to make the point without explicitly vouching for the intelligence.

And the Senate pre-war intel report confirms that the intelligence agencies did in fact make some "peeps" about the Uranium intel. I hadn't realized Condi had made such a statement, but it seems ill-informed...

[edit on 24-4-2006 by koji_K]