Powell Questions WMD Intel
From the Miami Herald:The Iraqi National Congress, a U.S.-funded group of former Iraqi exiles, supplied the four defectors whose claims that Saddam Hussein had mobile biological warfare facilities now are being questioned by Secretary of State Colin Powell.
Returning from a visit to Germany and Belgium, Powell on Friday acknowledged that the information that underpinned the charge, which he called ''the most dramatic'' part of his United Nations presentation, is now in doubt, as is the veracity of the defectors who supplied it.
Powell's questioning of the defectors' claims puts added pressure on a bipartisan commission named by President Bush in February to examine the quality and use of prewar intelligence that Hussein had secret stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons and was developing nuclear weapons in violation of a U.N. ban.
'It appears not to be the case, that [the defectors' information] was that solid,'' Powell said aboard his aircraft. ``The commission that is going to be starting its work soon, I hope will look into these matters to see whether or not the intelligence agency had a basis for the confidence that they placed in the intelligence at that time.''
Matt's Chat
For me, this war wasn't just about WMD, but I would like some answers on how the intelligence community totally blew it. I don't by the "Bush/Rove/Rumsfeld/Neo-Con/HALLIBURTON/Whoever-Else-Libs-Think-Is-Evil" Plot/Conspiracy Theory. The WORLD'S intelligence communities were way off base.I can hear hamsters now, "but Matt, the UN, France, Germany, and Russia didn't go for it." Yes, all four of those bodies were on Saddam's Oil for Food payroll. That's not convincing evidence in my opinion.
So what happened? And how can we fix it? Couple this with the 9/11 intelligence fiasco and I think our intelligence community is in for a real wake up call.
Mark's Remarks
The Intelligence Agencies of the world were fooled.....Britain, even France and Russia, though they are circumspect because they were on Saddam's Hush Money list. Instead of playing the blame game, we should be focusing on fixing intel. Of course, though, to do that; we have to realize that the 1990s destroyed much of our intelligence gathering ability and decimated our ranks of sources in the community. And, just out of curiosity, who was in power in the 1990s? Yep, you know the answer. Therefore, let's simply acknowledge that regime as a miserable failure and move on to fixing what failed.
