Silberman: intel community was "absolutely uniform" on WMD

[Cocoa]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A15908-2005Mar31.html

<snip>

QUESTION: Could it have been possible that there was perhaps this culture created inside the intelligence community, knowing that this administration in particular was very eager to deal with Saddam Hussein?

SILBERMAN: Let me try to answer that question, if I can.
The intelligence community was quite resistant to notions that there was an important connection between Saddam and Al Qaida or terrorism. They rejected that notion even though they were questioned on it a number of times.

With respect to weapons of mass destruction, it's the opposite case, it's the opposite situation. The intelligence community was absolutely uniform and uniformly wrong about the existence of weapons of mass destruction.

More…

[Hugin]

1. Do I or don't I distinctly remember someone saying...

"Slam dunk"?

Or something like that...

Hmm...

[tanyev]

3. That's why he got that Medal of Freedom.

[rkc3]

10. And then got shit-canned.

[camitche]

2. This is great story that shows that we were right from the beginning

but it's old news isn't it. I mean there have been many reports starting with david gray, and 9/11 report that have said basically the same thing.

I'll summarize: The intel community had little information and it was wrong. Bush, Rove, etc. used incorrect information and spun it even further with an addition of Iraq thrown in for good times.

[bryant69]

5. The comeback

"Yeah but now the Iraqis are free."

Remember Free Societies don't make war or something.

Bryant
Check it out --> http://politicalcomment.blogspot.com

[rkc3]

13. That and no planes have flown into our buildings.

The stupid SOBs.

[Demit]

4. Funny. I remember reading disparate views in the NYT in late 2002 and

early 03. I'm almost positive there were either op-eds written by intelligence folks or they were quoted in items contradicting the prevailing view. Wasn't there an op-ed about Cheney strong-arming the CIA, having a physical presence over there, to get them to conclude what he wanted them to conclude? This really sounds like that 1984 trope about rewriting history. Damn!

[Cocoa]

8. there was plenty of dissent on WMD

on every aspect, the aluminum tubes, the uranium from Africa, all of it.

For me, this quote destroys any trace of credibility of this commission, not that they had any to begin with.

[NightOwwl]

6. Does anyone else find this statement unsettling?

"The following is a transcript of a joint press conference on Terri Schiavo and Weapons of Mass Destruction"

[dbt]

18. Hmmm. The difference between destruction and

DISTRACTION, I reckon.

[oasis]

7. David Brocks "Blinded By the Right" exposes Silberman as a right wing hack

The type that really turns your stomach. :puke:

[Cocoa]

14. holy shit

I didn't know any of this. It looks like Bush couldn't have picked a more blatant partisan thug if he tried. What a fucking insult, I can't believe the press is even giving this travesty the time of day.

http://www.pfaw.org/pfaw/general/default.aspx?oid=13902

[The_Casual_Observer]

9. Strange that Scott Ritter was making public appearances

as late as mid March 2003 and saying that as far as he knew, Iraq didn't have any WMD, and no proof of these weapons existed. This report is simply a cya whitewash for the chimp administration.

[AlCzervik]

11. This is from a different article but it really highlights

the fact that bush co didn't have bad Intel, it shows that they were deliberately using questionable Intel to sell the war.

How the weapons evidence crumbled
By Bob Drogin, Greg Miller
Washington
March 29, 2004


The Bush Administration's prewar claims that Saddam Hussein had built a fleet of trucks and railway wagons to produce anthrax and other deadly germs were based chiefly on information from a now discredited Iraqi defector codenamed "Curveball", according to current and former intelligence officials.

US officials never had direct access to the defector, and didn't even know his real name until after the war. Instead, his story was provided by German agents, and his file was so thick with detail that US officials thought it confirmed long-standing suspicions that the Iraqis had developed mobile germ factories to evade weapons inspections.

Curveball's story has since crumbled under doubts raised by the Germans and the scrutiny of US arms hunters, who have come to see his code name as particularly apt, given the problems that plagued much prewar intelligence collection and analysis.

UN inspectors first hypothesised that such trucks might exist, officials said. Then they asked former exile leader Ahmed Chalabi, a bitter enemy of Saddam, to help search for intelligence supporting their theory.

Soon afterwards, a young chemical engineer emerged in a German refugee camp and claimed he had been hired to design and build bio-warfare trucks for the Iraqi army.

Based largely on his account, US President George Bush and his aides repeatedly warned of the shadowy germ trucks, and they became a crucial part of the White House case for war - including US Secretary of State Colin Powell's dramatic presentation to the UN Security Council just weeks before the war began.

Only later, US officials said, the CIA discovered that the defector was the brother of one of Mr Chalabi's top aides, and began suspecting that he might have been coached to provide false information. Partly as a result, US intelligence officials and congressional investigators fear that the CIA inadvertently conjured up and then chased a phantom weapons system.

David Kay, who resigned in January as head of the CIA-led group created to find illicit weapons in Iraq, said that of the intelligence failures in Iraq, the case of Curveball was particularly troubling.
http://www.theage.com.au/cgi-bin/common/popupPrintArticle.pl?path=/articles/2004/03/28/1080412234079.html

[sandnsea]

12. The intel community was absolutely MIXED on WMD

They supposed Saddam would make them given the chance, and because they supposed that, they saw WMD threats everywhere. Except for the ones who didn't, which are still being ignored.

Which is why we needed an honest inspections process.

[RaleighNCDUer]

15. There was an honest inspections process.

This administration just SAID there wasn't.

[sandnsea]

16. That's what I was referring to

An honest inspections process that wasn't distorted by the administration and varying stooges.

[oasis]

17. Terri's dead, the Pope is dying and tommorrow's Friday. This report

is doomed to go quietly into the night.