Senate Report on Iraqi WMD Intelligence

frame|right|U.S. Secretary of State [[Colin Powell displays a vial of anthrax during his presentation to the UN Security Council, February 5, 2003. CIA Director George Tenet (left) and UN Ambassador John Negroponte look on from behind. The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence found that many of the allegations in the speech were not supported by the underlying intelligence.]]

The Senate Report on Iraqi WMD Intelligence (formally, the Report of the Select Committee on Intelligence on the U.S. Intelligence Community's Prewar Intelligence Assessments on Iraq) was the report by the United States Senate Select Committee on Intelligence concerning the U.S. intelligence community's assessments of Iraq during the time leading up to the 2003 invasion of Iraq. The report, which was released on July 9, 2004, identified numerous failures in the intelligence-gathering and -analysis process. The report found that these failures led to the creation of inaccurate materials that misled both government policy makers and the American public.

The Committee's nine Republicans and eight Democrats agreed on the report's major conclusions and unanimously endorsed its findings. They disagreed, though, on the impact that statements on Iraq by senior members of the Bush administration had on the intelligence process. The second phase of the investigation, addressing the way senior policymakers used the intelligence, was published on May 25, 2007. Portions of the phase II report not released at that time include the review of public statements by U.S. government leaders prior to the war, and the assessment of the activities of Douglas Feith and the Pentagon's Office of Special Plans.

Background

After the 1991 Gulf War, Iraq agreed to destroy its stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and dismantle its WMD programs. To verify compliance, UN inspection teams were to be given free access to the country. Over the next seven years, inspectors sometimes complained about non-cooperation and evasiveness by the Iraqi government. Iraqi officials in turn complained that some weapons inspectors were acting as spies for foreign intelligence agencies. In 1998, after a critical report on the Iraqi government's noncompliance was issued by UN weapons inspector Richard Butler, U.S. President Bill Clinton announced that he would launch airstrikes on Iraqi targets (see Operation Desert Fox). Butler evacuated his inspectors and the bombing proceeded. After the bombing campaign, Iraq refused to allow weapons inspectors to re-enter the country.

After George W. Bush became president in January 2001, and especially after the September 11 attacks, the U.S. government increased its attention on Iraq. In the first half of 2002, a series of public statements by President Bush and senior members of his administration indicated a willingness to use force, if necessary, to remove Saddam Hussein from power. On October 1, 2002, the CIA delivered a classified National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) assessing the threat represented by Iraq's WMD activities. Three days later, CIA Director George Tenet published an unclassified white paper on the subject of Iraq's WMD capabilities. Over the next two weeks, a joint resolution authorizing the use of force was passed by both houses of Congress.

Over the next several months the U.S. conducted a diplomatic effort at the United Nations, seeking to obtain that body's approval for a new WMD inspection regime, and, potentially, for the use of force to overthrow the Iraqi government. The UN Security Council passed resolution 1441 on November 8, 2002, calling on Iraq to make "an accurate full, final, and complete disclosure" of its WMD programs, and threatening "serious consequences" if it did not comply. In the wake of resolution 1441, Iraq allowed UN weapons inspectors to return to the country. While the inspections were taking place, the U.S. continued to lobby the members of the UN Security Council to pass a resolution explicitly authorizing the use of force against Iraq. As part of that effort U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell gave a presentation to the UN on February 5, 2003, in which he detailed false intelligence gatherings regarding Iraqi WMD. The USA was faced with the opposition of a majority of the Security Council's members, including Germany, France, and Russia, and afterwards abandoned the effort to obtain an explicit use-of-force authorization from the UN.

thumb|400px|President George W. Bush addresses the nation from the Oval Office, March 19, 2003, to announce the beginning of [[2003 invasion of Iraq|Operation Iraqi Freedom. "The people of the United States and our friends and allies will not live at the mercy of an outlaw regime that threatens the peace with weapons of mass murder." The Senate committee found that many of the administration's pre-war statements about Iraqi WMD were not supported by the underlying intelligence.]]

On March 20, 2003, the U.S. and its allies invaded Iraq, an action that led to the overthrow of the government of Saddam Hussein.

Over the ensuing year, U.S. and allied forces searched for evidence supporting the pre-invasion claims about Iraqi WMD stockpiles and programs. The lead role in this search was played by the Iraq Survey Group (ISG), consisting of investigators from the U.S. Department of Defense and the CIA. Although scattered remnants of Iraq's WMD stockpiles from the time of the 1991 Gulf War were found, the ISG's final report concluded that Iraq did not possess significant WMD capabilities at the time of the invasion of Iraq. The ISG also stated that Iraq had intended to restart all banned weapons programs as soon as multilateral sanctions against it had been dropped.

As these facts were emerging in June 2003, U.S. Senator Pat Roberts (R-KS), chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, announced that the Committee, as part of its regular oversight responsibility, would conduct a "thorough and bipartisan review" of Iraqi WMD and ties to terrorist groups. On June 20, 2003, Senator Roberts and Senator John D. Rockefeller IV (D-WV), the Committee's vice chairman, issued a joint press release announcing that the committee would conduct a detailed review of the Iraqi WMD intelligence process, including the following areas:

the quantity and quality of U.S. intelligence on Iraqi weapons of mass destruction programs, ties to terrorist groups, Saddam Hussein's threat to stability and security in the region, and his repression of his own people;
the objectivity, reasonableness, independence, and accuracy of the judgments reached by the Intelligence Community;
whether those judgments were properly disseminated to policy makers in the Executive Branch and Congress;
whether any influence was brought to bear on anyone to shape their analysis to support policy objectives; and
other issues we mutually identify in the course of the Committee's review.

Investigation committee membership

The following nine Republicans were members of the Committee at the time the investigation was launched: Committee Chairman Pat Roberts (R-KS), Orrin Hatch (R-UT), Michael DeWine (R-OH), Kit Bond (R-MO), Trent Lott (R-MS), Olympia Snowe (R-ME), Chuck Hagel (R-NE), Saxby Chambliss (R-GA), and John Warner (R-VA).

The following eight Democrats made up the rest of the Committee: Vice-Chairman Jay Rockefeller (D-WV), Carl Levin (D-MI), Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), Ronald Wyden (D-OR), Dick Durbin (D-IL), Evan Bayh (D-IN), John Edwards (D-NC), and Barbara Mikulski (D-MD).

Chronology

In the course of the investigation, Committee staff reviewed more than 30,000 pages of documentation provided by the intelligence community. The Committee requested that it be supplied copies of the President's Daily Briefs (PDBs) concerning Iraq's WMD capabilities and ties to terrorism, but the White House denied that request. An article by journalist Murray Waas has described a specific controversy over the PDB for September 21, 2001, which allegedly said that the US intelligence community had "no evidence" linking Saddam Hussein to the September 11 attacks, and "scant credible evidence" that Iraq had any significant collaborative ties with al Qaeda.

Committee staff also interviewed more than 200 people, including intelligence analysts and senior officials with the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), Defense Intelligence Agency, the Department of Defense, and other federal entities involved in intelligence gathering and analysis. The Committee also held a series of hearings on the intelligence concerning Iraqi WMD and ties to terrorism.

On February 12, 2004, Senators Roberts and Rockefeller announced an expansion of the scope of the investigation. The new elements added to the investigation were:

the collection of intelligence on Iraq from the end of the Gulf War to the commencement of Operation Iraqi Freedom;
whether public statements and reports and testimony regarding Iraq by U.S. Government officials made between the Gulf War period and the commencement of Operation Iraqi Freedom were substantiated by intelligence information;
the postwar findings about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction and weapons programs and links to terrorism and how they compare with prewar assessments;
prewar intelligence assessments about postwar Iraq;
any intelligence activities relating to Iraq conducted by the Policy Counterterrorism Evaluation Group (PCTEG) and the Office of Special Plans within the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy; and
the use by the Intelligence Community of information provided by the Iraqi National Congress (INC).

On June 17, 2004, Senators Roberts and Rockefeller announced that the completed report had been unanimously approved by the Committee's members, and that they were working with the CIA on the issue of declassification. The completed report, with blacked-out text ("redactions") made by the CIA, was released on July 9, 2004. The report did not cover most of the new topics announced in the February 12, 2004, press release; instead, those topics were now to be covered in a separate report, to be completed later, covering "phase two" of the investigation.

Phase I conclusions

The 511-page report focuses much of its attention on the October, 2002, classified National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) titled Iraq's Continuing Programs for Weapons of Mass Destruction. The report includes 117 formal conclusions, as well as supporting discussion and background information.

General conclusions on intelligence relating to Iraq's WMD and ties to terrorism

The report's first conclusion points to widespread flaws in the October 2002 NIE, and attributes those flaws to failure by analysts in the intelligence community:

:Most of the major key judgments in the Intelligence Community's October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate (NIE), Iraq's Continuing Programs for Weapons of Mass Destruction, either overstated, or were not supported by, the underlying intelligence reporting. A series of failures, particularly in analytic trade craft, led to the mischaracterization of the intelligence.

Subsequent conclusions fault the intelligence community for failing to adequately explain to policymakers the uncertainties that underlay the NIE's conclusions, and for succumbing to "group think," in which the intelligence community adopted untested (and, in hindsight, unwarranted) assumptions about the extent of Iraq's WMD stockpiles and programs. The committee identified a failure to adequately supervise analysts and collectors, and a failure to develop human sources of intelligence (HUMINT) inside Iraq after the departure of international weapons inspectors in 1998. It also cited the post-9/11 environment as having led to an increase in the intensity with which policymakers review and question threat information.

Niger and the Iraqi nuclear program

Section II of the report discussed the handling of intelligence indicating that Iraq might be attempting to purchase uranium from Niger. The report examined the role played by former ambassador Joseph Wilson in investigating the issue, and the way Wilson's assessment was communicated within the intelligence community. It also discusses the process whereby references to Iraq's uranium-procurement efforts were removed from some speeches at the behest of intelligence officials, but left in President Bush's 2003 State of the Union address. The report concludes that prior to October, 2002, it was reasonable for the intelligence community to assess Iraq may have been attempting to obtain uranium from Africa.

Section III of the report discusses assessments of Iraq's domestic nuclear program. It focuses a significant amount of attention on the intelligence process that took place in the spring of 2001 regarding Iraq's attempts to purchase 60,000 high-strength aluminum tubes. The CIA concluded that the tubes could be intended for constructing centrifuges for a uranium-enrichment program (i.e., for a restarted Iraqi nuclear weapons program); analysts in the Department of Energy and the Department of Defense considered that to be unlikely.

The October 2002 NIE stated that Iraq appeared to be reconstituting its nuclear weapons program. The Committee's report concluded that this view was not supported by the underlying intelligence, and the report agreed with the opinion of the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research, expressed as an "alternative view" in the NIE, that the available intelligence did not make "a compelling case for reconstitution" of the Iraqi nuclear program. The committee reached several conclusions critical of poor communications between the CIA and other parts of the intelligence community concerning this issue.

Biological weapons, chemical weapons, and delivery systems

The sections of the report concerned with assessments of Iraq's biological weapons programs, chemical weapons programs, and delivery systems contain extensive discussion of the problem of inadequate "human intelligence" for intelligence gathering in Iraq. There is discussion of "CURVEBALL," an Iraqi defector who provided much of the information regarding Iraq's alleged mobile bioweapons labs, although much of the material in this part of the report has been redacted. The report concludes that the October 2002 NIE and other statements regarding Iraq's biological and chemical WMD and associated delivery systems were for the most part not supported by the underlying intelligence data supplied to the Committee.

Committee Chairman Pat Roberts told NBC's Tim Russert that "Curveball really provided 98 percent of the assessment as to whether or not the Iraqis had a biological weapon." This was in despite the fact that "nobody inside the U.S. government had ever actually spoken to the informantexcept [for a single] Pentagon analyst, who concluded the man was an alcoholic and utterly useless as a source."

After learning the intelligence provided by Curveball was going to be used as the "backbone" of the case for war, the Pentagon analyst wrote a letter to the CIA expressing his concerns. The Deputy of the CIA Counter Proliferation Unit quickly responded by saying:

"Let's keep in mind the fact that this war's going to happen regardless of what Curve Ball said or didn't say. The Powers That Be probably aren't terribly interested in whether Curve Ball knows what he's talking about."

On April 26, 2006, an article by journalist Alexander Bolton in the Congressional journal The Hill reported that Committee Chairman Pat Roberts (R-KS) was seeking to further divide the phase two report. Under Roberts' new approach, the following components of the report would be released relatively quickly: pre-war intelligence assessments of post-war Iraq, postwar findings in Iraq regarding WMD and ties to terrorism, and the use by US intelligence of information supplied by the Iraqi National Congress. Two components of the report would be delayed: whether public statements before the war by senior government officials were supported by the underlying intelligence, and the role played by the Department of Defense's Office of Special Plans in developing the prewar intelligence.

A September 7, 2006, article by journalist Jonathon Weisman in the Washington Post reported that the part of the phase two report comparing the Bush administration's public statements about Saddam Hussein with the evidence senior officials reviewed in private would not be released before the November 2006 election.

Two volumes of the phase II report were released on September 8, 2006: "Postwar Findings about Iraq's WMD Programs and Links to Terrorism and How they Compare with Prewar Assessments" and "The Use by the Intelligence Community of Information Provided by the Iraqi National Congress."

After Democrats gained a majority in the Senate during the 2006 midterm election, chairmanship of the committee passed to Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-WV). The former chair, Sen. Pat Roberts (R-KS) left the committee; the ranking Republican and vice chairman of the committee is now Sen. Kit Bond (R-MO).

On May 25, 2007, the committee released a volume of the phase II report titled, "Prewar Intelligence Assessments About Postwar Iraq ". This volume of the report includes seven pages of conclusions regarding assessments provided by the intelligence community to U.S. government leaders prior to the Iraq war. The report concludes that the intelligence community had assessed that establishing a stable government in Iraq would be a "long, difficult, and probably turbulent challenge," that Iraqi society was deeply divided and would engage in violent conflict unless an occupying power took steps to prevent it, and that the war would increase the threat of terrorism, at least temporarily. The intelligence community also assessed that a U.S. defeat and occupation of Iraq would lead to a surge in political Islam and increased funding for terrorist groups, and that the war would not cause other countries in the region to abandon their WMD programs.

This volume of the report includes an appendix containing two previously classified reports by the National Intelligence Council (NIC) titled, "Regional Consequences of Regime Change in Iraq" and "Principal Challenges in Post-Saddam Iraq", as well as a long list of recipients within the government of NIC assessments on Iraq. The appendix also contains a number of "Additional Views" in which different members of the committee comment on the history of the committee's work in this area, and criticize what they characterize as the politicization of that work by members of the other party.

Phase II of the report was publicly released on Thursday June 5, 2008 whether statements by US Government officials were substantiated by intelligence reports.

This was a bi-partisan majority report (10-5) and "details inappropriate, sensitive intelligence activities conducted by the DoD's Office of the Undersecretary of Defense for Policy, without the knowledge of the Intelligence Community or the State Department." It concludes that the US Administration "repeatedly presented intelligence as fact when in reality it was unsubstantiated, contradicted, or even non-existent. As a result, the American people were led to believe that the threat from Iraq was much greater than actually existed." These included President Bush's statements of a partnership between Iraq and Al Qa'ida, that Saddam Hussein was preparing to give weapons of mass destruction to terrorist groups, and Iraq's capability to produce chemical weapons.

The Chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, Sen.Jay Rockefeller, stated in press release of report's publication "It is my belief that the Bush Administration was fixated on Iraq, and used the 9/11 attacks by al Qa'ida as justification for overthrowing Saddam Hussein. To accomplish this, top Administration officials made repeated statements that falsely linked Iraq and al Qa'ida as a single threat and insinuated that Iraq played a role in 9/11. Sadly, the Bush Administration led the nation into war under false pretenses. While the report highlights many of the problems with the intelligence and criticizes the Bush Administration for its handling of the lead up to the war and its reasons for doing so, the report also supports in many cases that claims made by the Bush Administration about Iraq's Weapons of Mass Destruction programs were "generally substantiated by the intelligence".

"There is no question we all relied on flawed intelligence. But, there is a fundamental difference between relying on incorrect intelligence and deliberately painting a picture to the American people that you know is not fully accurate."

The Chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, Sen.Jay Rockefeller twice alleged that the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy, or its former head Douglas Feith may have engaged in unlawful activities, Phase II of the report "found nothing to substantiate that claim; nothing unlawful about the "alleged" rogue intelligence operation in the PCTEG, nothing unlawful about the Office of Special Plans, and nothing unlawful about the so-called failure to inform Congress of alleged intelligence activities." Dennis Kucinich D-Ohio introduced a formal resolution to the House of Representatives in an attempt to impeach President George W. Bush from the White House. House Democrats unanimously voted to send it to a committee; a maneuver that essentially killed Kucinich's efforts.

References

External links

Report on the U.S. Intelligence Community's Prewar Intelligence Assessments on Iraq (July 9, 2004). United States Select Senate Committee on Intelligence. http://intelligence.senate.gov
Iraq's WMD Programs: Culling Hard Facts from Soft Myths (November 28, 2003) An article defending the October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on Iraqi WMD. The article is by Stuart A. Cohen, who was acting chairman of the National Intelligence Council at the time the NIE was prepared.
U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell Addresses the U.N. Security Council – whitehouse.gov transcript of Powell's February 5, 2003, presentation to the UN, with links to audio and video.
New York Times (July 9, 2004). News Conference on Senate Intelligence Committee Report (transcript). (The Washington Post has an alternate URL for the same transcript.)
CIA whites out controversy (July 9, 2004) Article on the controversy regarding CIA redactions of the Committee report.
Appearance by Senator Pat Roberts at the Woodrow Wilson Center (March 10, 2005) (includes link to streaming video)
Shaun Waterman (March 10, 2005) Roberts calls for constant change in intel (Washington Times)
Transcript from NBC's Meet the Press appearance by Senators Roberts and Rockefeller (April 10, 2005)
Schmidt, Susan (July 9, 2004). Plame's Input is Cited on Niger Mission washingtonpost.com, p. A09 [registration required]
Charles Babington and Dafna Linzer, GOP Angered by Closed Senate Session, The Washington Post. Article describing the closed Senate session called on November 1, 2005, by Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV).
Mark Mazzetti, Senator Faults Bid to Classify Report on Iraq, New York Times, August 3, 2006. Article describing the current status of phase two of the report, including a complaint by Sen. Pat Roberts that the White House is taking too long to declassify portions of the report that have been completed.
Jonathon Weisman, Panel Set to Release Just Part of Report On Run-Up to War, Washington Post, September 7, 2006. Article discussing the current status of phase two, with two parts due to be released soon (and in fact, those two parts were released September 8), and other portions not to be released before the November, 2006 election.
Analysts' Warnings of Iraq Chaos Detailed, Senate Panel Releases Assessments From 2003 (May 26, 2007)
Latest Intelligence Report Yet Another Smoking Gun on Bush June 6, 2007