Cheney, Wilson and the Senate Intelligence Report on Iraq
31 October 2005 1:10 am by Taylor Marsh
Cheney, Wilson and the Senate Intelligence Report on Iraq
With all the Republican spin, misinformation and down right lies about Joseph
Wilson being rehashed. Let\’s review how it all began. Wilson\’s
letter is offered in a previous post. Putting it all in context, you must
remember that the \”REPORT ON THE U.S. INTELLIGENCE COMMUNITY\’S
PREWAR INTELLIGENCE ASSESSMENTS ON IRAQ,\” to which Wilson was responding,
was steered by the Republican majority. The American people, being an idealistic
brood, finds it hard to imagine that one political party
can actually shape the view of history. That only happens when others remain silent.
A couple of notes before you read on. First, the Roberts, Bond and Hatch comments
to which Wilson refers in
his letter appear on around page 441 of the
\”REPORT ON THE U.S. INTELLIGENCE COMMUNITY\’S PREWAR INTELLIGENCE ASSESSMENTS
ON IRAQ.\” For those of you interested, you can find the CIA
discussion on \”the former ambassador\” and Winpac on around pg. 39 (that is, what Republicans wanted us to know);
\”Curveball\” appears on around pg. 148; and the Niger forgeries around pg.
57. (NOTE: These page notations have changed throughout, because the link is now hosted by GlobalSecurity.)
Here\’s one comment from Republican Senators Roberts, Bond and Hatch that booms
loudly in the b.s. department today in light of what we now know,
especially after Scooter Libby\’s indictment. Because as we are all painfully
aware, this whole tale revolves around the case made for war.
\”In the end, what the President
used to make the extremely difficult decision to go to war is what he got from
the Intelligence Community, and not what he or Administration officials tried
to make it. …\”
In the report, the Democrats\’ responses appear at the end (after pg. 441). Vice Chairman
Rockefeller, Senators Levin and Durbin directly refute what appears in the body
of the report about the CIA. This is only one instance of conflict between what
Democrats learned and what made it in the body of the report.
\”The (CIA) Omsbudsman told the Committee
that he felt the \”hammering\” by the Bush administration on Iraq intelligence
was harder than he had previously witnessed in his 32-year career with the agency.
Several agents he spoke with mentioned pressure and gave the sense that they
felt the constant questions and pressure to reexamine issues were unreasonable.
…\”
That \”hammering\” came from Vice President Dick Cheney,
something that is flatly denied in the body of the report, as well as by Senator
Roberts in interview and interview.
In the Democratic senators\’ comments, they state that Director
Tenet concurred that \”some agency officials\” had raised the issue
of \”repetitive tasking\” with him \”personally.\” However,
again, this was omitted in the body of the report. This is what must be understood
when Republicans bandy about the Senate Report. When you hear Republicans offering
up their \”facts,\” be aware that the report is shaded to favor the
Bush administration.
With that in mind, when the U.S. Intelligence Community didn\’t
support what the Administration wanted to postulate about preemption. The Administration
simply went around them. The Democrats outline it in black and white. The \”notes\”
in parenthesis are mine.
\”This did not dissuade the
Pentagon policy shop, however. They simply took their case directly to the
White House. (note: This is the \”stovepiping\”
that Seymour
Hersh educated us all on.) On September 16, 2002, two days before the Intelligence
Community disseminated its terrorism assessment, Pentagon policy officials presented
their alternative analysis to the Deputy National Security Adviser (Stephen
Hadley) and the Vice President\’s Chief of Staff (Scooter Libby). This time the
staffers re-inserted the slide critical of the Intelligence Community\’s analytical
approach to the issue and included additional information on the alleged meeting
in Prague between Atta and the Iraqi intelligence service not in the version
briefed to Director Tenet. Furthermore, the CIA was kept in the dark about the
Pentagon\’s intentions. Director Tenet was not told by the Pentagon that this
alternative analysis would be subsequently briefed to the White House and remained
ignorant of that fact until March 4, 2004, when it was revealed to him at an
Intelligence Committee hearing.\”
It was this meeting in Prague on which New York columnist William
Safire would opine at length supporting this fantasy rendezvous, which turned
out to be utterly false. The same meeting that Stephen Hayes would offer up
in his fictional accounts, including his book, \”The
Connection: How Al Qaeda s Collaboration with Saddam Hussein Has Endangered
America.\”
In Senator Durbin\’s comments at the end of the report, page 508,
he states that the members of the Intelligence Committee weren\’t allowed access
to \”a one page President\’s Summary, which was completed and disseminated
for the October 2002 NIE (National Intelligence Estimate), Iraq\’s Continuing
Programs for Weapons of Mass Destruction.\” They could only take notes
on the summary. However, the CIA informed Durbin and the Committee that \”80
copies of the President\’s Summary were distributed to the White House.\”
There is no mention of this in the body of the report. Shortly afterwards, Bush would give his speech in Ohio, which would open out on the vote for war.
I will continue later, in another post. The intel failures laid bare in the report are
staggering, but in addition to those failures is a consistent effort to put
forth a version of the truth that does not include all of the facts. It is through
this lens the American people should view the criticism, I would say slander,
of Joseph Wilson, as the Administration judges his trip through the eyes of
people wanting to tell a story that he would not verify. Through this lens you come to understand why Valerie Plame became the Vice President\’s instrument to get at Wilson. But Dick misjudged the man. To be sure, Mr. Wilson
did make some mistakes along the way, but the attempt to mislead the American
people to believe a greater threat resided in Iraq than was true didn\’t come
from him. It was led out of Vice President Dick Cheney\’s office. Wilson simply
got in their way and Scooter Libby was discharged to do something about it.
