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November
13, 2005
Setting
the Record Straight: The Washington Post On Pre-War Intelligence
The
Washington Post Implies That The Presidential Daily Brief (PDB) Was Superior
To The National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) Given To Congress. "But
Bush does not share his most sensitive intelligence, such as the President's
Daily Brief, with lawmakers. Also, the National Intelligence Estimate summarizing
the intelligence community's views about the threat from Iraq was given
to Congress just days before the vote to authorize the use of force in
that country." (Dana Milbank And Walter Pincus, "Asterisks Dot White House's
Iraq Argument," The Washington Post, 11/12/05)
But
The PDB Was The Focus Of Intelligence Reform And Was More "Problematic"
Than The NIE Given To Congress.
The
Robb-Silberman Commission Found The PDB To Contain Similar Intelligence
In "More Alarmist" And "Less Nuanced" Language. "As problematic as
the October 2002 NIE was, it was not the Community's biggest analytic failure
on Iraq. Even more misleading was the river of intelligence that flowed
from the CIA to top policymakers over long periods of time--in the President's
Daily Brief (PDB) and in its more widely distributed companion, the Senior
Executive Intelligence Brief (SEIB). These daily reports were, if anything,
more alarmist and less nuanced than the NIE." (Charles S. Robb And Laurence
H. Silberman, The Commission On The Intelligence Capabilities Of The United
States Regarding Weapons Of Mass Destruction, 3/31/05, Pg. 14)
The
Robb-Silberman Commission Reported That The Intelligence In The PDB Was
Not "Markedly Different" Than The Intelligence Given To Congress In The
NIE. "It was not that the intelligence was markedly different. Rather,
it was that the PDBs and SEIBs, with their attention-grabbing headlines
and drumbeat of repetition, left an impression of many corroborating reports
where in fact there were very few sources. And in other instances, intelligence
suggesting the existence of weapons programs was conveyed to senior policymakers,
but later information casting doubt upon the validity of that intelligence
was not." (Charles S. Robb And Laurence H. Silberman, The Commission On
The Intelligence Capabilities Of The United States Regarding Weapons Of
Mass Destruction, 3/31/05, Pg. 14)
The
Washington Post Implies That There Have Been No Findings On The Use Of
Intelligence. "But the only committee investigating the matter in Congress,
the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, has not yet done its inquiry
into whether officials mischaracterized intelligence by omitting caveats
and dissenting opinions. And Judge Laurence H. Silberman, chairman of Bush's
commission on weapons of mass destruction, said in releasing his report
on March 31, 2005: 'Our executive order did not direct us to deal with
the use of intelligence by policymakers, and all of us were agreed that
that was not part of our inquiry.'" (Dana Milbank And Walter Pincus, "Asterisks
Dot White House's Iraq Argument," The Washington Post, 11/12/05)
But
Congressional And Independent Committees Have Repeatedly Reported No Distortion
Of Intelligence
The
Bipartisan Senate Select Committee On Intelligence Report "Did Not Find
Any Evidence" Of Attempts To Influence Analysts To Change Intelligence.
"Conclusion 83. The Committee did not find any evidence that Administration
officials attempted to coerce, influence or pressure analysts to change
their judgments related to Iraq's weapons of mass destruction capabilities.
Conclusion 84. The Committee found no evidence that the Vice President's
visits to the Central Intelligence Agency were attempts to pressure analysts,
were perceived as intended to pressure analysts by those who participated
in the briefings on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction programs, or did
pressure analysts to change their assessments." ("Report On The U.S. Intelligence
Community's Prewar Intelligence Assessments On Iraq," U.S. Senate Select
Committee On Intelligence, 7/7/04, Pg. 284-285)
The
Robb-Silberman Commission Finds "No Evidence Of Political Pressure." "These
are errors serious errors. But these errors stem from poor tradecraft
and poor management. The Commission found no evidence of political pressure
to influence the Intelligence Community's pre-war assessments of Iraq's
weapons programs. As we discuss in detail in the body of our report, analysts
universally asserted that in no instance did political pressure cause them
to skew or alter any of their analytical judgments. We conclude that it
was the paucity of intelligence and poor analytical tradecraft, rather
than political pressure, that produced the inaccurate pre-war intelligence
assessments." (Charles S. Robb And Laurence H. Silberman, The Commission
On The Intelligence Capabilities Of The United States Regarding Weapons
Of Mass Destruction, 3/31/05, Pg. 50-51)
The
British Butler Report Finds "No Evidence" Of Intelligence Distortion.
"In general, we found that the original intelligence material was correctly
reported in [Joint Intelligence Committee] assessments. An exception was
the '45 minute' report. But this sort of example was rare in the several
hundred JIC assessments we read on Iraq. In general, we also found that
the reliability of the original intelligence reports was fairly represented
by the use of accompanying quali cations. We should record in particular
that we have found no evidence of deliberate distortion or of culpable
negligence. We examined JIC assessments to see whether there was evidence
that the judgements inside them were systematically distorted by non-intelligence
factors, in particular the in uence of the policy positions of departments.
We found no evidence of JIC assessments and the judgements inside them
being pulled in any particular direction to meet the policy concerns of
senior of cials on the JIC." ("Review Of Intelligence On Weapons Of Mass
Destruction," Report Of A Committee Of Privy Counsellors, 7/14/04, Pg.
110
END
Image
above
National
World War II Memorial
Memorial
Day weekend, May 29, 2004
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