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Thu 28 Aug, 2003 09:15 am
U.S. misled by bogus pre-war intelligence?
Allied agencies investigating possibly fake defectors, data
BOB DROGIN
Los Angeles Times
WASHINGTON - Frustrated at the failure to find Saddam Hussein's suspected stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons, allied intelligence agencies have launched a major effort to determine if they were victims of bogus Iraqi defectors who planted disinformation to mislead the West before the war.
The goal, according to a senior U.S. intelligence official, "is to see if false information was put out there and got into legitimate channels and we were totally duped on it." He added, "We're reinterviewing all our sources of information on this. This is the entire intelligence community, not just the U.S."
The review was started after a political firestorm erupted earlier this summer about revelations that President Bush's claim in his State of the Union speech that Iraq had sought to import uranium from Niger was based on forged documents.
Although senior CIA officials insist defectors were only partly responsible for the intelligence that triggered the decision to invade Iraq in March, other intelligence officials now fear key portions of the pre-war intelligence may have been flawed.
As evidence, officials say former Iraqi intelligence operatives have confirmed since the war that Saddam's regime sent agents disguised as defectors to the West to plant fabricated intelligence. In other cases, Baghdad apparently tricked legitimate defectors into funneling phony tips about weapons production and storage sites.
"Then, because they believe it, they pass polygraph tests ... and the planted information becomes true to the West even if it was all made up to deceive us," the senior intelligence official said.
Lets not forget that Chalabi and his INC had a direct line to Rumsfeld and co. as long as they told them exactly what they wished to hear.
The admin is going to find someone to blame publicly, that's for sure. But this time it may not work. People are getting more and more skeptical.
How many more people can take "total responsibility?"
Maybe the reason it's called "intelligence" is because their goal in life is to someday develop some.
Perhaps the reason it's called a "community" is because they have to protect each other. From the truth ever coming out.
Anytime I hear the phrase "reliable sources" I imagine some drunk Afghani peasant who's angry at his neighbor and wants a guided missile thrown at him.
Is it just me?
Are the euphemisms really wearing thin, so much that words
are starting to mean the exact opposite of what they used to?
Here, in Australia, a man who resigned from an intelligence organization, in protest, has accused the prime Minister's Office - and hence, by common sense, the Prime Minister - of doctoring intelligence reports to make them more sensational and persuasive.
The PM denies it...
Just posted this on the Let's Get Rid of Bush thread, but it seems appropriate for this one as well:
..In arguing that his office had intervened only in the packaging of the dossier and
had left a senior intelligence adviser, John Scarlett, in charge of all substantive intelligence findings, Mr. Blair claimed an implausibly superfluous role for a leader preparing to take his nation to war. An e-mail note from Mr. Blair's chief of staff, Jonathan Powell, reported that the dossier had gone through a "substantial rewrite" to address points Mr. Blair had personally raised. Mr. Powell earlier told the inquiry that in mid-September last year he had warned Mr. Blair that it would be inaccurate to claim that Iraq posed an imminent threat. Yet one week later, in presenting the dossier to Parliament, Mr. Blair implied just that by saying Mr. Hussein's unconventional weapons programs were "up and running."
The widespread belief in Britain that the government was deliberately misleading about the Iraqi threat explains Mr. Blair's recent downward plunge in the polls. Most Britons now say they no longer trust him to tell the truth. Regaining their trust will not be easy.
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/08/29/opinion/29FRI2.html
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