Advisory Board Faults White House on Iraq Nuke Claim (Drudge Flash)

[VolcanoJen]

As reluctant as I am to post a Drudge story, this might actually get interesting... another SOTU problem, and the Washington Post is going big with it tomorrow???

http://www.drudgereport.com/flash1.htm (emphasis mine)

ADVISORY BOARD FAULTS WHITE HOUSE ON IRAQ NUKE CLAIM
Tue Dec 23 2003 21:18:19 ET

The President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board has concluded that the White House made a questionable claim in January's State of the Union address about Saddam Hussein's efforts to obtain nuclear materials because of its desperation to show that Saddam had an active program to develop nuclear weapons, the WASHINGTON POST is planning to report in a Page One Exclusive on Wednesday.

Newspaper sources tell DRUDGE, the POST will splash:

After reviewing the matter for several months, the intelligence board, chaired by former national security adviser Brent Scowcroft, has determined that there was "no deliberate effort to fabricate." Instead, the board believes the White House was so anxious "to grab onto something affirmative" about Saddam's nuclear ambitions that it disregarded warnings from the intelligence community that the claim was questionable.

Developing...

[kysrsoze]

1. Hmmm, guess I'll believe it when I see it

would be nice though, wouldn't it?

[lilmonkey]

3. nice but...

it's Christmas Eve. no one will be paying attention.

how convenient....
x(

[VolcanoJen]

2. SOTU: The "nuclear" parts

That pesky 2003 State of the Union speech... here are the paragraphs where Bush referred to "nuclear" and "Iraq:"

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/01/20030128-19.html

The International Atomic Energy Agency confirmed in the 1990s that Saddam Hussein had an advanced nuclear weapons development program, had a design for a nuclear weapon and was working on five different methods of enriching uranium for a bomb. The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa. Our intelligence sources tell us that he has attempted to purchase high-strength aluminum tubes suitable for nuclear weapons production. Saddam Hussein has not credibly explained these activities. He clearly has much to hide.

<snip>

With nuclear arms or a full arsenal of chemical and biological weapons, Saddam Hussein could resume his ambitions of conquest in the Middle East and create deadly havoc in that region. And this Congress and the America people must recognize another threat. Evidence from intelligence sources, secret communications, and statements by people now in custody reveal that Saddam Hussein aids and protects terrorists, including members of al Qaeda. Secretly, and without fingerprints, he could provide one of his hidden weapons to terrorists, or help them develop their own.

[stevedeshazer]

4. *raise your hand*

If you knew that the President has a Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board, and that it was created under the Clinton Administration.

*not raising hand*

What's the best time to release negative information? (A) The day before Christmas, the slowest news day of the year.

If you chose (A), you may well be right.

As VolcanoJen points out, the current chairman is none other than Brent Scowcroft. That gives pause right there.

[grasswire]

5. isn't this contradictory?

The headline reads "fault" but in the body is this:

the intelligence board, chaired by former national security adviser Brent Scowcroft, has determined that there was "no deliberate effort to fabricate." Instead, the board believes the White House was so anxious "to grab onto something affirmative" about Saddam's nuclear ambitions that it disregarded warnings from the intelligence community that the claim was questionable.


Sounds like a whitewash to me.

[VolcanoJen]

6. It's the "Sexed-Up" slap-on-the-wrist.

It's not entirely a whitewash, as the board insists the administration disregarded the concerns of the intelligence community (feel safer?), and also seems to think the adminstration was "desperate" to link a nuclear thread to Saddam Hussein.

It's not a rosy picture this board is painting, but they do stop short of calling them liars and deceivers. Wouldn't be gentlemanly, on an otherwise slow news day, I suppose...

[stevedeshazer]

7. Yup, "newspeak"

he intelligence board, chaired by former national security adviser Brent Scowcroft, has determined that there was "no deliberate
effort to fabricate." Instead, the board believes the White House was so anxious "to grab onto something affirmative" about
Saddam's nuclear ambitions that it disregarded warnings from the intelligence community that the claim was questionable.

Scowcroft says there was "no deliberate effort to fabricate."

But the board believes the White House was so anxious "to grab onto something affirmative" about Saddam's nuclear ambitions that it disregarded warnings from the intelligence community that the claim was questionable.

I went with the headline, but in the context it doesn't make sense.

[VolcanoJen]

8. UPDATE: Washington Post story/link

White House Faulted on Uranium Claim

If you have a moment, read the entire article. Really good stuff here... 16 words, revisited.

(emphasis mine)

Excerpt:

The President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board has concluded that the White House made a questionable claim in January's State of the Union address about Saddam Hussein's efforts to obtain nuclear materials because of its desperation to show that Hussein had an active program to develop nuclear weapons, according to a well-placed source familiar with the board's findings.

<snip>

The source said that at the time of the State of the Union speech, there was no organized system at the White House to vet intelligence, and the informal system that was followed did not work in the case of that speech. The White House has since established procedures for handling intelligence in presidential speeches by including a CIA officer in the speechwriting process.

The board shared its findings with Bush earlier this month. It is the first government body to complete its inquiry into an episode that buttressed criticism by lawmakers and others that the administration exaggerated intelligence to make the case for war. Word of its findings has also circulated within the White House and on Capitol Hill. The White House declined to comment on the board's findings.

<snip>

The findings of the advisory board do not appear to add many new details about the uranium episode, but they make it clear that the White House should share blame with the CIA for allowing the questionable material into the speech. CIA Director George J. Tenet and deputy national security adviser Stephen J. Hadley have accepted responsibility for allowing the assertion into the address.

[Blaze Diem]

9. ...and the difference is..what???

......."anxious "to grab onto something affirmative"

......."deliberate effort to fabricate."

[amber dog democrat]

10. just another straw for

the camel's back. Eventully this Bush & Junta administration is going to unravel big time. Its just a matter of time.

Hubris & Karma...

The chickens are about to roost.

[0007]

16. Listening to the Nixon tapes last night, some were exposed for the first ,

time since 1973. I remember Nixon saying at the time the tapes would exonerate him when reviewed. The tapes were so damaging to Nixon I can understand why they waited 30 years for the public to listen to this crazy man.

Yes, junior & Junta administration is gonna unravel big time and it is a matter of time. But when and how long do we have to wait?

[pinto]

11. CNN again portrays 16 word issue as "a goof" quotes unamed WH

advisor as saying the US public has "moved on" from the issue.....
12:40 pm PST.

[grasswire]

12. that infuriated me

a goof -- I heard it.

[MaineDem]

13. Convenient time for news to be buried

Christmas Eve...

I did see a news flash on the bottom of the CNN screen. This better get some coverage!

[buycitgo]

14. the link goes to a different story now

about afghan nukes

is their a WP story on this?

yes there is....just saw it above...oops

[w4rma]

15. “a four-person Pentagon team...self-mockingly called the Cabal”

Bush 'skewed facts to justify attack on Iraq'

A growing number of US national security professionals are accusing the Bush Administration of slanting the facts and hijacking the intelligence apparatus to justify its rush to war in Iraq.

A key target is a four-person Pentagon team that reviewed material gathered by other intelligence outfits for any missed bits that might have tied Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein to banned weapons or terror groups.

This team, self-mockingly called the cabal, “cherry-picked the intelligence stream” in a bid to portray Iraq as an imminent threat, said Patrick Lang, a former head of worldwide human intelligence gathering for the Defence Intelligence Agency, which coordinates military intelligence.
…
The INC, which brought together groups opposed to Saddam, worked closely with the Pentagon to build a case against Iraq. “There are current intelligence officials who believe it is a scandal,” Mr Cannistraro said.
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/05/31/1054177765483.html

Cheney Investigated Forged Niger Uranuium Document

As though this were normal! I mean the repeated visits Vice President Dick Cheney made to the CIA before the war in Iraq. The visits were, in fact, unprecedented. During my 27-year career at the Central Intelligence Agency, no vice president ever came to us for a working visit.

During the '80s, it was my privilege to brief Vice President George H.W. Bush, and other very senior policy makers every other morning. I went either to the vice president's office or (on weekends) to his home. I am sure it never occurred to him to come to CIA headquarters.

The morning briefings gave us an excellent window on what was uppermost in the minds of those senior officials and helped us refine our tasks of collection and analysis. Thus, there was never any need for policy makers to visit us. And the very thought of a vice president dropping by to help us with our analysis is extraordinary. We preferred to do that work without the pressure that inevitably comes from policy makers at the table.

Cheney got into the operational side of intelligence as well. Reports in late 2001 that Iraq had tried to acquire uranium from Niger stirred such intense interest that his office let it be known he wanted them checked out. So, with the CIA as facilitator, a retired U.S. ambassador was dispatched to Niger in February 2002 to investigate. He found nothing to substantiate the report and lots to call it into question. There the matter rested – until last summer, after the Bush administration made the decision for war in Iraq.
…
http://feeds.bignewsnetwork.com/?sid=6e9d5502599dc6a2
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=5858&mesg_id=5858&page=

Plans For Iraq Attack Began On 9/11

(CBS) CBS News has learned that barely five hours after American Airlines Flight 77 plowed into the Pentagon, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld was telling his aides to come up with plans for striking Iraq — even though there was no evidence linking Saddam Hussein to the attacks.

That's according to notes taken by aides who were with Rumsfeld in the National Military Command Center on Sept. 11 – notes that show exactly where the road toward war with Iraq began, reports CBS News National Security Correspondent David Martin.
…
Now, nearly one year later, there is still very little evidence Iraq was involved in the Sept. 11 attacks. But if these notes are accurate, that didn't matter to Rumsfeld.

“Go massive,” the notes quote him as saying. “Sweep it all up. Things related and not.” (Sec. of Defense Donald Rumsfeld hours after 9/11 attack)
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2002/09/04/september11/main520830.shtml
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=53315&mesg_id=53315&page=

A call to maintain CIA independence.

As the White House searches for every possible excuse to go to war with Iraq, pressure has been building on the intelligence agencies to deliberately slant estimates to fit a political agenda. In this case, the agencies are being pressed to find a casus belli for war, whether or not one exists.

“Basically, cooked information is working its way into high-level pronouncements, and there's a lot of unhappiness about it in intelligence, especially among analysts at the CIA,” Vince Cannistraro, the agency's former head of counterterrorism, told The Guardian, a London newspaper.

This confirms what Knight-Ridder reporters found: “A growing number of military officers, intelligence professionals and diplomats privately have deep misgivings about the administration's double-time march toward war,” the news service reported recently. “They charge that the administration squelches dissenting views and that intelligence analysts are under intense pressure to produce reports supporting the White House's argument that Saddam poses such an immediate threat to the United States that pre-emptive military action is necessary.”
…
http://www.usatoday.com/news/opinion/2002-10-24-oped-bamford_x.htm

U.S. Insiders Say Iraq Intel Deliberately Skewed
…
The DIA was “exploited and abused and bypassed in the process of making the case for war in Iraq based on the presence of WMD,” or weapons of mass destruction, he added in a phone interview. He said the CIA had “no guts at all” to resist the allegedly deliberate skewing of intelligence by a Pentagon that he said was now dominating U.S. foreign policy.

Vince Cannistraro, a former chief of Central Intelligence Agency counterterrorist operations, said he knew of serving intelligence officers who blame the Pentagon for playing up “fraudulent” intelligence, “a lot of it sourced from the Iraqi National Congress of Ahmad Chalabi.”
…
They believe the administration, before going to war, had a “moral obligation to use the best information available, not just information that fits your preconceived ideas.”

CHEMICAL WEAPONS REPORT 'SIMPLY WRONG'

The top Marine Corps officer in Iraq, Lt. Gen. James Conway, said on Friday U.S. intelligence was “simply wrong” in leading military commanders to fear troops were likely to be attacked with chemical weapons in the March invasion of Iraq that ousted Saddam.

Richard Perle, a Chalabi backer and member of the Defense Policy Board that advises Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, defended the four-person unit in a television interview.
…
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=578&ncid=578&e=2&u=/nm/20030530/ts_nm/iraq_intelligence_dc

CIA had doubts on Iraq link to al-Qaida

The debunking of the Bush administration's pre-war certainties on Iraq gathered pace yesterday when it emerged that the CIA knew for months that a connection between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaida was highly unlikely.

As President George Bush was forced for the second time in days to defend the decision to go to war, a new set of leaks from CIA officials suggested a tendency in the White House to suppress or ignore intelligence findings which did not shore up the case for war.
…
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,974182,00.html

Ex-CIA Officers Questioning Iraq Data

A small group composed mostly of retired CIA officers is appealing to colleagues still inside to go public with any evidence the Bush administration is slanting intelligence to support its case for war with Iraq.

Members of the group contend the Bush administration has released information on Iraq that meets only its ends -- while ignoring or withholding contrary reporting.

They also say the administration's public evidence about the immediacy of Iraq's threat to the United States and its alleged ties to al-Qaida is unconvincing, and accuse policy-makers of pushing out some information that does not meet an intelligence professional's standards of proof.

“It's been cooked to a recipe, and the recipe is high policy,” said Ray McGovern, a 27-year CIA veteran who briefed top Reagan administration security officials before retiring in 1990. “That's why a lot of my former colleagues are holding their noses these days.” ---
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20030314/ap_on_go_pr_wh/us_iraq_intelligence_4
http://www.democraticunderground.com/duforum/DCForumID61/18413.html

Public was misled, claim ex-CIA men

A GROUP of former US intelligence officials has written to President Bush claiming that the US Congress and the American public were misled about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction before the war.

The group’s members, most of them former CIA analysts, say that they have close contacts withsenior officials working inside the US intelligence agencies, who have told them that intelligence was“cooked” to persuade Congress to authorise the war.

The manipulation of intelligence has, they say, produced “a policy and intelligence fiasco of monumental proportions”. They write in the letter to Mr Bush: “While there have been occasions in the past when intelligence has been deliberately warped for political purposes, never before has such warping been used in such a systematic way to mislead our elected representatives into voting to authorise launching a war.

“You may not realise the extent of the current ferment within the intelligence community and particularly the CIA. In intelligence, there is one unpardonable sin — cooking intelligence to the recipe of high policy. There is ample indication that this has been done in Iraq.”
…
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,5944-698028,00.html

MEMORANDUM FOR: The President
FROM: Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity
http://www.commondreams.org/views03/0207-04.htm

U.S. diplomats also tried to stop this invasion:

U.S. Diplomat's Letter of Resignation
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/02/27/international/27WEB-TNAT.html

Letter of Resignation (Mary Wright)
http://www.snopes.com/politics/soapbox/marywright.asp

U.S. Mongolian Diplomat Resigns Over Iraq (Fourth U.S. Diplomat)
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&cid=542&e=84&u=/ap/20030327/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/war_diplomat_resigns_2

Third U.S. Diplomat Resigns Over Iraq Policy
http://truthout.org/docs_03/032303G.shtml

Second US Diplomat Resigns in Protest
http://www.wagingpeace.org/articles/03.03/0314krieger_diplo_resign.htm
U.S. diplomat resigns over Iraq war plans
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N10105063.htm

Niger-Uranium Timeline
http://www.deanforamerica.com/site/PageServer?pagename=niger_timeline

THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION AND WMDs: THEN AND NOW
http://www.deanforamerica.com/site/PageServer?pagename=bush_wmd_summary