The recent UK memo included the "smoking gun" language that "the intelligence was fixed around the policy".
The following excerpt from a NY Times article of 9/11/2002 shows that there was no urgency at all to provide the rigorous testing of evidence against Saddam that should have occurred before the US invaded Iraq. Bush's demands that Congress pass the IWR were made BEFORE a current NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE ESTIMATE was available to him. This proves he pre-judged the evidence to fit the outcome he was seeking.
(Note: the link shown below may require a password)
Source:
http://infoweb.newsbank.com/iw-search/we/InfoWeb?p_action=doc&p_docid=101922A95788AB9D&p_docnum=1&p_queryname=2&p_product=NewsBank&p_theme=aggregated4&p_nbid=E55W4AGEMTExNjI3MTI2MC4xNTA5OTQ6MToxMjpuY2RtaW51dGVtYW4********************************
U.S. Lacks Up-to-Date Review of Iraqi Arms
New York Times, The (NY)
September 11, 2002
Author: ERIC SCHMITT and ALISON MITCHELL
Senior intelligence officials acknowledged today that the government had not compiled an updated, cross-agency assessment of Iraq's nuclear, chemical and biological weapons capacities, although the Bush administration is pressing for a quick statement of support for military action against Saddam Hussein.
Intelligence officials, responding to repeated complaints from Senate Democrats, said today that they were working on the authoritative document. The last such thorough assessment on Iraq's clandestine weapons was produced about two years ago, Senate and administration officials said today.<skip>
But the administration has not yet prepared what is called a national intelligence estimate, the intelligence community's most definitive written judgment on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction programs. The document contains the coordinated intelligence assessments from the Pentagon, State Department, Central Intelligence Agency and other government entities and any significant dissenting views.<skip>
"What did we learn from Sept. 11? That we had a failure of coordination of America's intelligence capability," said Senator Richard J. Durbin, an Illinois Democrat on the Intelligence Committee. "Now we're being asked to consider going to war and vote on it within days, and we learn that our intelligence community has not coordinated their efforts to put together this critical document that's essential for us to make this decision."<skip>
But Senator John Kerry, a Massachusetts Democrat on the Foreign Relations Committee, said there was no cross-agency judgment on Iraq's unconventional arsenal. "What I'm looking for," he said, "is the latest compilation that cross-analyzes agency assessments, that really gives you the best, state-of-the-art, up-to-date, full analysis of where they are." The national intelligence estimate represents the consensus of the full range of intelligence agencies produced by a rigorous cross-agency review.<skip>********************************
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