POLITICS: Senate Committee Report Blasts CIA; War Based on False Intelligence

The Senate Intelligence community harshly criticized the CIA and, specifically, Director George Tenet, on pre-Iraq intelligence in a report released today after a year of investigation into the war in Iraq. Tenet is accused of skewing data to make the threat appear more immediate and has been lambasted for allowing the 2003 State of the Union address to contain erroneous claims that Iraq attempted to purchase uranium from Africa.
CIA analysists are accused of engaging in false "groupthink" to misinterpret vague evidence of nuclear and biological weapons as a certain threat and to ignore doubts over the claims of WMDs.
The intelligence that ultimately sent the US to war was deemed "false" and "misleading."
CIA Director George Tenet submitted his resignation on June 3rd. His last day is this Sunday, July 11th.



"The information that sent the country to war was flawed."

The 511-page report covers the events leading up to the war in Iraq.

There is no conclusive proof that the CIA had intelligence on Iraq's weapons programs after 1998. The agency is accused of providing "false information" on many aspects of the Iraq war.

The bipartisan report laid blame squarely on the CIA and other intelligence agencies, effectively absolving President Bush and his administration of claims that they pressured analysists to fit reports to their expectations.

"This 'group think' dynamic led Intelligence Community analysts, collectors and managers to both interpret ambiguous evidence as conclusively indicative of a WMD program as well as ignore or minimize evidence that Iraq did not have active and expanding weapons of mass destruction programs," the report concluded.

The head of the committee, Sen. Pat Roberts (R-KS), called this a "global intelligence failure" and said "As the report will show, they were also unreasonable and largely unsupported by the available intelligence."

The committee's final word after their investigation - the CIA misled the administration and the country and caused what appears to have been an unnecessary war.

The House Intelligence Committee report on the same subject is expected in about a month. Likewise, the independant 9-11 Commission is expected to release its final report by the end of the month.

Related News Stories:
CNN
Transcript of Report's Press Conference

[edit on 9-7-2004 by Banshee]

[edit on 11-7-2004 by Nerdling]

Hopefully, this report will accomplish two things:
1. Put to rest the "Bush Lied" accusations
and most importantly
2. Stop the finger pointing, and begin the process of incorporating the changes necessary to ensure it never happens again.

Buck does not stop at Bush? Then were? President owes it to his troops to know the facts and press for absolute sureness of information before commiting thier lives to war. Only the President bears that responcibility.

What now?

Unjustified war..? does this mean Saddam is legitamate ruler of Iraq?
Yea he was bad guy, but brought down by illegal war?

Is Bush responcible for unjustified war? Someone has to be.

This is amazing that we even put this out to public. It is sure to bring even more world condemnation agaisnt the war.

I am not sure our constitution allows us to commit war agaisnt another nation just because the leader is a bad guy, or inhumane. I think our military was made to support and defend the United States, and no other reason and I think they just said there was no threat from Iraq?

We can't justify it soley on his actions agaisnt the Kurds because we continued to support Iraq during that period.

Not looking good for the Bush admin..

Our entire leadership mislead? to war..? Wow time to clean it all out? (by vote of course).

X




[edit on 9-7-2004 by Xeven]

[edit on 2004-7-10 by Teknik]

Banshee wrote

The bipartisan report laid blame squarely on the CIA and other intelligence agencies, effectively absolving President Bush and his administration of claims that they pressured analysists to fit reports to their expectations

I was under the impression that the term"pressured" was the subject of much debate in the Senate Committee which eventually decided on a very narrow interpretation of the word., ie did any analyst receive direct pressure, whether written or verbal.

I was also under the impression that although it was within the remit of the Senate Committee to look into the Bush Administrations part in this intelligence report, for some reason this was left for investigation by a second phase report. The second phase of investigations will not report until after the Presidential elections. The investigation has only recently started, but is following some interesting leads.

Senator Rockefeller

" The central issue of how intelligence on Iraq was, in this senator's opinion, exaggerated by the Bush administration officials was relegated to that second phase, as yet unbegun, of the committee investigation, along with other issues.

We've done a little bit of work on the number three guy in the Defense Department, Douglas Feith, part of his alleged efforts to run intelligence past the intelligence community altogether, his relationship with the INC and Chalabi, who was very much in favor with the administration wanting them to come on in. And was he running a private intelligence failure, which is not lawful.

As a result, the committee's report fails to fully explain the environment of intense pressure in which the intelligence community officials were asked to render judgments on matters relating to Iraq when the most senior officials in the Bush administration had already forcefully and repeatedly stated their conclusions publicly. "

The investigation into Douglas Feith of the Defense Department who is alleged to have run an unlawful intelligence operation should be watched with interest.


zero lift

i have not read the report itself, but i will not accept this as proof that bush himself (and his cabinet) are blameless. last i checked the armed forces and the cia both fell under the executive, and our foreign policy is not made based solely on the cia's intelligence. this war was a long time coming.

-koji K.

All this prove is that bush had his eyes on Iraq even before he became the president and ones he became president his mind was already set to invade Iraq and finish what daddy bush left behind, Sadam. Bush is like a child in a temper tantrum he wanted to prove a point in his father�s eyes.

It is the CIC responsibility to know the facts before he sends our forces to war.The buck needs to stop at his desk. To blame just the CIA for incorrect info is wrong. This not releasing the rest of the investigation till after the election is wrong. What are they hiding? We've turned a country with a horrible ruler into a hot bed of anti american terroism, before this war our generals felt that Iraq was contained an we should finish in afghanistan,but Rummy an Bush knew better,so now we have a hot bed in afghanistan, Irag an looks to soon be North Korea.

First Chalabi, now the CIA. Who's fault is it going to be next? He could blame God. Wasn't it God who told him to invade Iraq?

ESIT: After the 9/11 failures, Bush should of cleaned house.

[edit on 9-7-2004 by curme]

Yea, do you really believe Bush was oblivious to this? C'mon give the guy some credit, he should know whats going on. Not only that, his dad was the head of the CIA and they still have contacts. Not surprising George Tenet resigned already. Geez, these aren't just random coincedences you know, this was all planned.

[edit on 9-7-2004 by Jamuhn]

The war button pusher, Bush, is either a liar or stupid. Either he realized that the evidence concerning the threat of Iraq was crap or he was too stupid to check the evidence to make sure he wasn't going to start something based upon now proven false claims. If he didn't lie, does a man who doesn't fact check for something so serious as war really need to stay in office to get a chance for a repeat performance?

It is obvious that Cheney was trotting over to the CIA regularly and twisting their arms behind their backs to find "info" so that we could go to war against Iraq. He was putting them on the spot to come up with ANYTHING!! Sounds pretty fishy! Isn't that a good reason why Bush wants to be sure to keep Cheney on the ticket?

Woohoo! They've found their scapegoat then it seems. What amazes me most is the short memories people seem to have. Remember when this war was about to begin? Millions took to the streets demanding that this war did not happen, there was outrage.

Now if you're the President of the country that instigated this war and you knew the outrage that was being aimed at your decision, you'd damn well better be sure that the intelligence is 100% correct. To say that he never knew for a second that the intelligence was flawed either means he is stupid or a liar, or probably both.

Don't let them pass the buck yet again, they should not be allowed to weasel their way out of it yet again.

Originally posted by John Nada

Now if you're the President of the country that instigated this war and you knew the outrage that was being aimed at your decision, you'd damn well better be sure that the intelligence is 100% correct.

True! You better know where all the "T"s are crossed and where all the "i"s are dotted. When you send American military into harms way and billions of American dollars and run the risk of alienating about every ally we have ...you better know what is what! It is obvious they saw what they wanted and made up the rest!

If this is true, it seems to me that the CIA is a defective and evil product. It destroyed the credibility of a nation, killed tens of thousands of people and cost this country almost 200 billion dollars badly needed to stave off an economic depression.
If that isn't TREASONOUS behavior, I don't know what is.

The organization should be dismantled, its books and operations opened up to the public. Operatives and executives tried in public for crimes against humanity.

The world should never be lead again to such disasterous ends by a group of evil, unpatriotic madmen. SICKENING, SICKENING, SICKENING.......



Then I awakened from my blissful dream and realized that the 'the empire never ended'.
Then I decided that the REAL problem was that the CIA's budget wasn't enough and we should all give more money so it could do a better job of protecting us.....bah....bah....then I ate some more grass...bah...bah...then I tried talking to the other sheep but they had nothing more to say then, "if you haven't done anything wrong, nothing will happen to you".
This made me sad. I wandered over to a wolf that lay in the middle of a group of sheep. I thought this strange and inquired to the wolf how he could be here and not killing and eating the sheep surrounding him.
He looked at me with eyes that hid a calm, old light and told me that, "the lesson to be learned from power was the avoidance of it."

This so stunned me that I sat back on my hind legs and closed my eyes...the veil of maya lifted from my mind, the darkness had turned to light. I felt the sun shining on my face, warming my body...it caused a tear to roll down my cheek and a smile to part from my lips....... and I was free.

no
more
grass
for
me, guys................

I still believe Bush was wrong to invade.

This was the same intelligence that Clinton got for 8 years. Republicans have been screaming that since it first came out there might be a problem.

The difference, Clinton did not invade another country. Bush did and ot fight a war, not respond to an attack but because he chose too. He could have waited 6 more months, he could have ordered the guard and reserve to deploy at home, lock up the country (protect the borders) and allow inspections to continue. He would have protected us and allowed the process to continue. Instead he took the most drastic action a president can take, he sent our troops to war. And he did so with a pre-emptive invasion.

He has to be accountable for his actions. I believe history will write this as an unjustifed invasion. Maybe the end result was good with Saddam out of power but you cannot deny that of the 3 reasons to go to war, WMD-Al Queda and Bad Dictator 2 of the 3 have been proven false.

What is the cost of this Zionist/JUDEO-Christian terrorists orchestrated act of unprovoked armed aggression against a fully sovereign Iraq up to so far...$130 billion? Weeell, the Bush Regime should've consulted with me, I could've saved the American taxpayer - after deducting my customary consultation service fees - $100 billion easy.

Faulty intelligence, my tight derriere. The CIA, et.al., were coerced into delivering erroneous 'intelligence' reports & analysis to bolster the Zionist/JUDEO-Christian terrorist foreign policy agenda of defending the welfare state of Israel's interests - everyone knew it was a load of bull. In point of fact, even if the intelligence was accurate and Iraq indeed was developing WMDs for its national defense that's purely the prerogative of sovereign states Right to do so. No third party consensus or approval is required nor need be sought.

This is the substance of the erudite consultation I would have provided to the Bush Regime for a mere $30 billion. If they had only contracted my services and adopted my sage advice, no unprovoked act of state sponsored terror, or the needless bodily injury and loss of Iraqi non-combatants & American cannon fodder lives, or the wanton destruction of Iraqi critical infrastructure and private property would've have been necessitated. Heck, I might have even been patriotic about it and shaved a few billion off the tab.

"When-will-they-ever-learn...when-will-they-ever-learn...."(lyrics from some dumb song on the radio)



[edit on 10-7-2004 by neomoniker]

[edit on 10-7-2004 by neomoniker]

I heard on CNN yesterday that the the rest of the report would not be released untill after the November election. They did not give the reason.

Did anyone else hear this report??? Wondering?? Why the wait