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-- Dead wrong about WMDs in Iraq
Dead wrong about WMDs in Iraq
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| WMD Commission Releases Scathing Report Panel Finds U.S. Intelligence on Iraq's Weapons Was 'Dead Wrong' By Katherin Shrader The Associated Press Thursday, March 31, 2005; 12:25 PM America's spy agencies were "dead wrong" in most prewar assessments about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and know disturbingly little about current nuclear threats, a presidential commission said Thursday. "Our collection agencies are often unable to gather intelligence on the very things we care the most about," the panel concluded in an unsparing report. It recommended dozens of organizational changes, and said President Bush can implement most of them without congressional action. It also urged the president to back up John Negroponte, his choice to be the new director of national intelligence, in any bureaucratic turf battles ahead. "The central conclusion is one which I share. America's intelligence community needs fundamental change," Bush said at the White House after receiving the critique from a commission he was at first reluctant to appoint. He said he had directed Fran Townsend, his White House-based homeland security adviser, to "review the commission's finding and to assure that concrete actions are taken." Bush read a prepared statement, flanked by retired Judge Laurence Silberman, a Republican, and former Democratic Sen. Charles Robb of Virginia, co-chairmen of the panel. The president then strode from the room, leaving the two men behind to field questions on the report that criticized past performance -- but didn't stop there. "Across the board, the intelligence community knows disturbingly little about the nuclear programs of many of the world's most dangerous actors," the report said. The commission also called for sweeping changes at the FBI to combine the bureau's counterterrorism and counterintelligence resources into a new office. Robb and Silberman agreed they had found no evidence that senior administration officials had sought to change the prewar intelligence in Iraq, possibly for political gain. Robb said investigators examined every allegation "to see if there was any occasion where a member of the administration or anyone else had asked an analyst or anyone else associated with the intelligence community to change a position they were taking or whether they felt there was any undue influence. And we found absolutely no instance." In the months preceding the Iraq war, Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney repeatedly invoked Saddam Hussein's presumed possession of weapons of mass destruction as a reason to invade. The report was the latest tabulation of intelligence shortfalls documented in a series of investigations since the terror attacks of Sept. 11, 2001 against the United States. Numerous investigations have concluded that spy agencies had serious intelligence failures before the attacks. Thursday's report concluded that the problem still has not been fixed, three years after al Qaeda struck America. "The flaws we found in the intelligence community's Iraq performance are still all too common," it said. At the news conference, Robb was particularly blunt when it came to turf wars within the intelligence bureaucracy. Negroponte "needs the full and unequivocal backing" of the president, he said, adding that there are "very distinguished and proud agencies whose culture will work against change." The report said "The daily intelligence briefings given to you (Bush) before the Iraq war were flawed. Through attention-grabbing headlines and repetition of questionable data, these briefings overstated the case that Iraq was rebuilding its WMD programs." In an implicit swipe at the Bush administration, Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said the report did not review how federal policy-makers used the intelligence they were given. "I believe it is essential that we hold both the intelligence agencies and senior policy-makers accountable for their actions," Reid said. The unclassified version does not go into significant detail on the intelligence community's assessment of countries such as Iran, North Korea, China and Russia because commissioners did not want to tip the U.S. hand about what is known. Those details are included in the classified version. Sen. Pat Roberts, chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said he was pleased by the report and indicated that it concludes all inquiries into intelligence used to make the case for going to war with Iraq. "I don't think there should be any doubt that we have now heard it all regarding prewar intelligence," the Kansas Republican said. "I think that it would be a monumental waste of time to re-plow this ground any further." Rep. Ike Skelton of Missouri, the top Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee, said the failures were widespread. "I don't think you can blame any one person, although the buck does stop at the top of every one of these agencies," Skelton said. "But quite honestly, the fault is spread out across all the agencies." Bush appointed the commission a year ago, signing on to the idea of an independent investigation only belatedly. The White House had said it wanted to give the weapons search in Iraq more time. But pressure grew from Republicans and Democrats alike after the former chief U.S. weapons inspector in Iraq, David Kay, resigned saying the prewar estimates of weapons in Iraq, which Bush used to justify war there, "were almost all wrong." Even then, the White House insisted the commission's mandate be broadened to other nations, prompting criticism that the panel might be too overloaded to thoroughly examine its original subject, Iraq. "We conclude that the intelligence community was dead wrong in almost all of its prewar judgments about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction," the report said. "This was a major intelligence failure." The main cause was the intelligence community's "inability to collect good information about Iraq's WMD programs, it said, and serious errors in analyzing what information it could gather and a failure to make clear just how much of its analysis was based on assumptions rather than good evidence. "On a matter of this importance, we simply cannot afford failures of this magnitude," the report said. On al Qaeda, the commission found that the intelligence community was surprised by the terrorist network's advances in biological weapons, particularly a virulent strain of a disease that the report keeps secret, identifying it only as "Agent X." |
well, the first stage to getting better is admitting you have a problem. 
I'd gloat, but what's the point really? Taking pleasure in the world's greatest superpower being clueless at best?
I'm afraid for the world.
Re: Dead wrong about WMDs in Iraq
Before the War:
Archived: Oil from Iraq: An Israeli pipedream?
How Western greed created Hussein's Iraq
Israeli Intel given to US:
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| In fact, according to Brom, these sources were utterly compromised by Israeli intelligence, which made the case for starting the war and kept it going as long as necessary. The retired general described Israel as a �full partner� in U.S. and British intelligence failures that exaggerated Iraqi President Saddam Hussain�s nuclear, chemical and biological weapons programs in the lead up to the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq. |
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| Originally posted by shaolin_Z here are some more intresting articles about Sadaam/Iraq and the US http://www.democracynow.org/article...03/09/29/155243 http://www.globalpolicy.org/securit...usseinindex.htm |
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| Originally posted by ierxium source(might require registration) There you go people. Now we should support the highly respected Negroponte and forget about these mistakes. 618 pages for a report? My God! It's too long. Not even Katherin read the whole thing. She just quoted stuff from the first pages. |
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| Originally posted by Cal I'd gloat, but what's the point really? Taking pleasure in the world's greatest superpower being clueless at best? I'm afraid for the world. |
Re: Re: Dead wrong about WMDs in Iraq
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| Originally posted by ogvh5150 Before the War: Archived: Oil from Iraq: An Israeli pipedream? How Western greed created Hussein's Iraq Israeli Intel given to US: Exclusive: Saddam key in early CIA plot The Devil in the Details: The CIA and Saddam Hussein How the CIA put the Baath in power CIA report finds no Zarqawi-Saddam link (1998) Officials: Iran Messages About Anti-Saddam Plot Led to FBI Probe of CIA After the War: 1500+ Dead GI's click 15,000+ Dead civilians click 0 Weapons of Mass Destruction (Official: U.S. calls off search for Iraqi WMDs) All warfare is based on deception Sun Tzu The more you read and learn, the less your adversary will know Sun Tzu Knowledge makes a man unfit to be a slave Frederick Douglass You mean this Negroponte: John Negroponte was ambassador to Honduras from 1981-1985. As such he supported and carried out a US-sponsored policy of violations to human rights and international law. Among other things he supervised the creation of the El Aguacate air base, where the US trained Nicaraguan Contras during the 1980's. The base was used as a secret detention and torture center, in August 2001 excavations at the base discovered the first of the corpses of the 185 people, including two Americans, who are thought to have been killed and buried at this base. During his ambassadorship, human rights violations in Honduras became systematic. The infamous Battalion 316, trained by the CIA and Argentine military, kidnaped, tortured and killed hundreds of people. Negroponte knew about these human rights violations and yet continued to collaborate with them, while lying to Congress. President George W. Bush has nominated Negroponte to be US ambassador before the UN. Human Rights organizations in the US and Latin America have joined their voices in asking the US Senate to not ratify his nomination. Please join us! John Dimitri Negroponte (derechos.org) Bush's last controversial act in office was his pardon of six former government employees implicated in the Iran-Contra scandal on December 24, 1992, most prominently former Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger and former US Ambassador to Honduras and to the United Nations and current US Ambassador to Iraq, John Negroponte. George H. W. Bush ("Poppy" on wiki) The CIA has ties to Iran-Contra as well. All the worlds a stage. Shakespeare |
Re: Re: Dead wrong about WMDs in Iraq
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| Originally posted by ogvh5150 You mean this Negroponte: John Negroponte was ambassador to Honduras from 1981-1985. As such he supported and carried out a US-sponsored policy of violations to human rights and international law. Among other things he supervised the creation of the El Aguacate air base, where the US trained Nicaraguan Contras during the 1980's. The base was used as a secret detention and torture center, in August 2001 excavations at the base discovered the first of the corpses of the 185 people, including two Americans, who are thought to have been killed and buried at this base. During his ambassadorship, human rights violations in Honduras became systematic. The infamous Battalion 316, trained by the CIA and Argentine military, kidnaped, tortured and killed hundreds of people. Negroponte knew about these human rights violations and yet continued to collaborate with them, while lying to Congress. President George W. Bush has nominated Negroponte to be US ambassador before the UN. Human Rights organizations in the US and Latin America have joined their voices in asking the US Senate to not ratify his nomination. Please join us! John Dimitri Negroponte (derechos.org) Bush's last controversial act in office was his pardon of six former government employees implicated in the Iran-Contra scandal on December 24, 1992, most prominently former Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger and former US Ambassador to Honduras and to the United Nations and current US Ambassador to Iraq, John Negroponte. George H. W. Bush ("Poppy" on wiki) The CIA has ties to Iran-Contra as well. All the worlds a stage. Shakespeare |
Re: Re: Re: Dead wrong about WMDs in Iraq
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| Originally posted by zig Good post.....about sums it up.... |
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| Originally posted by ierxium I was speaking from Bush's perspective. Personally I don't approve of Negroponte being in office. All I can do is put some sarcasm to avoid foul language in my posts. But you do make good points. |
oh man..
You folks are WAY behind the curve.
The Iraq war was planned in the 90's by these guys. 9-11 let them get the ball rolling.
Check out their "statement of principles".
http://www.newamericancentury.org/
Re: oh man..
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| Originally posted by Capitalizt You folks are WAY behind the curve. The Iraq war was planned in the 90's by these guys. 9-11 let them get the ball rolling. Check out their "statement of principles". http://www.newamericancentury.org/ |
it's common knowledge.
Re: oh man..
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| Originally posted by Capitalizt You folks are WAY behind the curve. The Iraq war was planned in the 90's by these guys. 9-11 let them get the ball rolling. Check out their "statement of principles". http://www.newamericancentury.org/ |
Re: oh man..
| quote: |
| Originally posted by Capitalizt You folks are WAY behind the curve. The Iraq war was planned in the 90's by these guys. 9-11 let them get the ball rolling. Check out their "statement of principles". http://www.newamericancentury.org/ |
Needless to say, I think this report was nothing shy of a whitewash for Bush and the neocons who pushed for this war. For them to come out and state that there was absolutely no influence on the CIA to shift or conflate evidence to go to war, when we've clearly seen CIA officers come out and state just that, and furthermore when it actually wasn't the duty of this particular part of the report to actually investigate such influences, is nothing shy of absurd. As Froomkin writes about Isikof's column in Newsweek:
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| Michael Isikoff writes in Newsweek, reminding readers of a Feb. 4, 2003, e-mail made public by last year's Senate panel on intelligence in which a senior CIA official sharply rebuked an analyst who had expressed skepticism about the reliability of a key informant. "Keep in mind the fact that this war's going to happen regardless of what Curve Ball said or didn't say and that the Powers That Be probably aren't terribly interested in whether Curve Ball knows what he's talking about," the CIA official wrote. So Isikoff asked Silberman why the e-mail wasn't even mentioned in the report, which concluded that "No analytical judgments were changed in response to political pressure." Writes Isikoff: "'What e-mail are you talking about?' Judge Lawrence Silberman, the chairman, testily responded. . . . 'I'm mystified.' Two hours later, after Newsweek supplied the panel with a copy of the e-mail from the Senate report, a commission spokesman explained that the panel was aware of it but chose not to include it because its contents were already known. But its absence from the report raises questions of whether the Silberman panel may have 'cherry-picked' evidence to exclude anything politically embarrassing to the 'Powers That Be.' Not so, says the White House. A senior official says the report lays to rest any notion that the administration lied or falsified intelligence." http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dy...ion/whbriefing/ |
Terri's death put this CIA stuff under the rug. But when all along this WMD intelligence is just blaming the CIA as if they acted alone. Articles or not, there is a complicity by all concerned in the intelligence community.
And if anyone thinks the CIA acted alone on this WMDS issue*, I have a bridge in Brooklyn to sell you.
*For lack of a better word considering the death toll over bad intelligence.
Originally posted by ogvh5150
Before the War:
Archived: Oil from Iraq: An Israeli pipedream?
How Western greed created Hussein's Iraq
Israeli Intel given to US:
Exclusive: Saddam key in early CIA plot
The Devil in the Details: The CIA and Saddam Hussein
How the CIA put the Baath in power
CIA report finds no Zarqawi-Saddam link
(1998) Officials: Iran Messages About Anti-Saddam Plot Led to FBI Probe of CIA
After the War:
1500+ Dead GI's click
15,000+ Dead civilians click
0 Weapons of Mass Destruction
Official: U.S. calls off search for Iraqi WMDs(Jan 2005)
CIAs final report: No WMD found in Iraq(Apr 2005)
Iraq WMD Hunt 'Has Been Exhausted'(Apr 2005)
U.S. study: Iraq likely didn't ship WMD to Syria(Apr 2005)
US closes book on Iraq WMD hunt(Apr 2005)
All warfare is based on deception
Sun Tzu
The more you read and learn, the less your adversary will know
Sun Tzu
Knowledge makes a man unfit to be a slave
Frederick Douglass
All the worlds a stage.
Shakespeare
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