Intelligence Failures
From the Washington Post:The House and Senate intelligence committees have unearthed a series of failures in prewar intelligence on Iraq similar to those identified by former weapons inspector David Kay, leading them to believe that CIA analysts and their superiors did not seriously consider the possibility Saddam Hussein no longer possessed weapons of mass destruction, congressional officials said.
The committees, working separately for the past seven months, have determined that the CIA relied too heavily on circumstantial, outdated intelligence and became overly dependent on satellite and spy-plane imagery and communications intercepts.
Like Kay, the committees have found that CIA operatives and analysts failed to detect that the Iraqi chain of command for developing chemical, biological and nuclear weapons had fallen apart, and that Iraqi scientists and others were engaged in their own campaign to deceive the Iraqi leader, telling him they had weapons that did not exist.
"It was like a runaway train," said Sen. Pat Roberts (R-Kan.), chairman of the Senate intelligence committee, referring to the CIA's assessment of Iraq's weapons program. "Once it left the station, it kept going faster and faster. Some analysts may have been trying to slow it down, but it just kept going."
The White House, meanwhile, edged closer to acknowledging flaws in the intelligence on Iraq but continued to say it is not yet possible to draw final conclusions about Hussein's weapons. On CBS's "Early Show," national security adviser Condoleezza Rice said, "What we have is evidence that there are differences between what we knew going in and what we found on the ground." But, she added, "that's not surprising in a country that was as closed and secretive as Iraq, a country that was doing everything that it could to deceive the United Nations, to deceive the world."
Matt's Chat
Looks like we might be finally getting somewhere... These politicians must understand that this can't be politicized into oblivion. If they do, they place the nation at risk. That doesn't play well in an election year...Mark's Remarks
Ah, the Clinton/Liberal method to intelligence--let the tech do it. Just like Clinton's idea of effective warfare--let the missiles do it, and just hit baby food factories and empty tents. Thanks to that blithering idiot, we have ineffective intelligence, and we became overly dependent on things that were not certain. This man should not just be wanted for war crimes over Kosovo, but he should be tried for crimes here...his regime was a travesty, and it has been culpable in the intelligence failures leading to 9/11, and so on.
