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November 20, 2005

Want to hide something from Congress?

Put it in a reading room. Apparently none of them read very much.

From CNN:

STEPHEN HADLEY, NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISER: They were looked at by the Silberman-Rob Commission. They were looked at by the Senate Intelligence Committee. Both of them concluded that there was no manipulation of intelligence.

ENSOR: But, in fact, no commission or committee has yet spoken on whether the White House misrepresented pre-war intelligence. The Senate Intelligence Committee, under pressure from Democrats, is working on it. The orders to the Silverman Commission from the White House specifically left it out.

LAURENCE SILBERMAN, FORMER CHAIRMAN, IRAQ WMD COMMISSION: Our executive order did not direct us to deal with the use of intelligence by policy makers and all of us were agreed that that was not part of our inquiry.

ENSOR: There is, however, plenty of blame to go around. Congress may have voted on Iraq without doing its homework. Members could read the 92-page national intelligence estimate by signing in at a reading room to do so. "The Washington Post" reported that no more than six senators and a handful of house members took time to read beyond the five-page executive summary.

From former Senator Bob Graham:

Tenet objected, saying that his people were too committed to other assignments to analyze Saddam Hussein's capabilities and will to use chemical, biological and possibly nuclear weapons. We insisted, and three weeks later the community produced a classified NIE.

There were troubling aspects to this 90-page document. While slanted toward the conclusion that Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction stored or produced at 550 sites, it contained vigorous dissents on key parts of the information, especially by the departments of State and Energy. Particular skepticism was raised about aluminum tubes that were offered as evidence Iraq was reconstituting its nuclear program. As to Hussein's will to use whatever weapons he might have, the estimate indicated he would not do so unless he was first attacked.

Under questioning, Tenet added that the information in the NIE had not been independently verified by an operative responsible to the United States. In fact, no such person was inside Iraq. Most of the alleged intelligence came from Iraqi exiles or third countries, all of which had an interest in the United States' removing Hussein, by force if necessary.

The American people needed to know these reservations, and I requested that an unclassified, public version of the NIE be prepared. On Oct. 4, Tenet presented a 25-page document titled "Iraq's Weapons of Mass Destruction Programs." It represented an unqualified case that Hussein possessed them, avoided a discussion of whether he had the will to use them and omitted the dissenting opinions contained in the classified version. Its conclusions, such as "If Baghdad acquired sufficient weapons-grade fissile material from abroad, it could make a nuclear weapon within a year," underscored the White House's claim that exactly such material was being provided from Africa to Iraq.

Posted by Mike at November 20, 2005 01:57 PM

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