Declassified Report: No Al Qaeda Link In Pre-War Iraq
A newly-declassified (but redacted) 400-page Senate Intelligence Committee analysis of pre-war Iraq reports no evidence of a link between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda. It concludes that Hussein "distrusted" al Qaeda and "viewed Islamic extremists as a threat to his regime."
It includes a CIA determination that prior to March 2003, Saddam Hussein ''did not have a relationship, harbor, or turn a blind eye toward [Abu Musab al Zarqawi] and his associates.'' Instead, he "attempted, unsuccessfully, to locate and capture al Zarqawi." A US airstrike killed al Zarqawi this summer.
The document is a scathing indictment of the 2002 National Intelligence Estimate (NIE), the document which presents a unified (some say political) front, reconciling or brushing over difference of opinion among various intelligence agencies. The NIE was used to justify attacking Iraq in March 2003.
Both post-war and pre-war intelligence show "no credible information that Iraq was complicit in or had foreknowledge of the September 11 attacks or any other al Qaeda strikes." Nevertheless, Iraq is the most visible -- and costly -- US action since 9-11. In the name of protecting the US against terrorism, far more money is going to Iraq than to this nation's infrastructure.
Committee Comment
Intelligence Committee Chair Sen. Pat Roberts (R-KS) says pre-war assessment was ''a tragic intelligence failure'' but that there's no news in the report.
Minority Leader Sen. John D. Rockefeller (D-WV) accuses the Administration of ''[exploiting] the deep sense of insecurity among Americans in the immediate aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks, leading a large majority of Americans to believe -- contrary to the intelligence assessments at the time -- that Iraq had a role in the 9/11 attacks.''
From The Report
Other conclusions from the report:
- "Postwar findings do not support the 2002 National Intelligence Estimate judgment that Iraq was reconstituting its nuclear weapons program. Information obtained after the war supports the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research's (INR) assessment in the NIE that the Intelligence Community lacked persuasive evidence that Baghdad had launched a coherent effort to reconstitute its nuclear weapons program." (p 52)
- "Postwar findings do not support the 2002 National Intelligence Estimate judgment that Iraq's acquisition of high strength aluminum tubes was intended for an Iraqi nuclear program. The findings do support the assessments in the NIE of the Department of Engergy's Office of Intelligence and the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research's (INR) that the aluminum tubes were likely intended for a conventional rocket program." (p 52)
- "Postwar findings do not support the 2002 National Intelligence Estimate judgment that Iraq was 'vigorously trying to procure uranium ore and yellowcake' from Africa. Postwar findings support the assessment in the NIE of the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research's (INR) that claims of Iraqi pursuit of natural uranium in Africa are 'highly dubious.'" (p 53)
- "No postwar information indicates that Iraq intended to use al Qaeda or any other terrorist group to strike the United States homeland before or during Operation Iraqi Freedom." The 2002 NIE, however, asserted that Iraq would "probably attempt clandestine attacks" if Hussein felt threatened. (p 111)
The NIE is prepared by the Executive Branch -- all agencies are under the direct control of the President. However, Congress is supposed to provide oversight. Was the 2002 NIE flawed? That's obvious. Was it intentionally misleading ... did it intentionally overstate questionable intelligence? And is the current system for preparing the NIE any better?
Those are the 64-dollar questions that voters should consider this fall, and again in 2008.
See AP, Senate Intelligence Committee, Postwar Findings about Iraq's WMD Programs and Links to Terrorism and How they Compare with Prewar Assessments (pdf) , The Use by the Intelligence Community of Information Provided by the Iraqi National Congress (pdf)
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Comments
Now is the test:
1) The truth about pre-invasion Iraq is out…but will Americans register it? It was possible to know or guess all the contents of this report before the invasion, from close readings of mainstream news sources. But it didn’t matter then. Will the truth matter now?
2) The Bush team election strategy is to sell their most heinous crimes to the american public as virtues, namely: abandonment of the Nuremberg standards of human decency and universal rights. The Rove strategy is no matter what you have done, never allow yourself to be on the defensive, instead, assert the most outrageous violations of Constitutional and international law are positively good. Will Americans buy it? What kind of people have been become?
3) Will Congress ever investigate the two suspicious elections that put these thugs in power? I am most interested in the Ohio vote tallies, which suggest tampering with Diebold voting machines, a company that donated to Republicans and made peculiar promises in correspondence with them.
4) Do we, as a people, have the moral courage to recognize tyranny of precisely the kinds the “founding fathers” hoped to prevent when they wrote the US Constitution? How long can we go on believing it cannot be so, merely because these things are in conflict with our self-image, our collective ego? This government has discredited our most cherished political values abroad: democracy, human rights, and rule of law, which now appear as pure hypocrisy to people who’ve never experienced them (most Chinese, for example). Do we have the moral courage needed to restore our national honor and good name? By that, I mean, do we have the moral courage and determination to impeach these criminals who have so horribly mislead us?
Not sure we’ll get answers to these in my lifetime, I’m afraid.
:-/
Kathy
The answers will come when the USA ends up going to war with the entire rest of the world - like Nazi Germany.
The US is perilously close to loosing ALL its allies, its not a far step to war after that.
Americans are completely unaware of how the entire world is turning against them - courtesy of a US media that is more concerned with telling Americans what they want to hear rather than the truth.
It’s not about politics. . . .its all about the gap between what Americans believe and what is represented by the facts
Although terrorist attacks pose a real enough threat, the paranoia that has gripped the western world since 9/11, 2001 has given certain forces in US politics the chance to do some of the things they’d been dreaming about doing for years. E.g. Introduce the Patriot Act and Invade Iraq. Although I expected a great many people to gobble up the nonsense they were fed by the US government, I must admit I was somewhat surprised to find that such an overwhelming majority of the American people believed without questioning there was a link between Al Queda and the regime of Suddam Hussein. I was saddened by the fact that those who didn’t, were branded unpatriotic by the rest of the American population.and that the US media happily joined in on this. But perhaps, one good thing will come of this. Perhaps the American people as well as the people in my country, the Netherlands, will finally learn to understand that politicians tend to follow their own agenda and will not hesitate to use propaganda to establish their goals. Somehow, I doubt it.
There`s a link missing. Give the government a minute to invent it.
This is an issue very well known. They spread the information that Iraq was reconstituting its nuclear weapons program, and now they have a real case with Iran`s plans.
Matt, Kris … your points are well-taken.
Kathy