Senior CIA Analyst Believed Iraq Had No WMD

[babylonsister]

http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/?q=node/22977

Senior CIA Analyst Believed Iraq Had No WMD
Submitted by JonathanSchwarz on Sun, 2007-05-27 03:27. Evidence

I've been reading The Italian Letter by Peter Eiser and Knut Royce. There's some amazing stuff in it about Alan Foley, the head of the CIA's Weapons Intelligence Non-Proliferation and Arms Control Center (WINPAC). WINPAC led the CIA's analysis of Iraq's purported WMD, and so Foley is at the very center of what happened.

But what's even more amazing is how little attention the material about Foley has gotten. The book came out several months ago, but according to Google, this is the first time the below sections have appeared online.

Here's what Foley believed before the war (p. 125):

There were strong indications that Foley all along was toeing a line he did not believe. Several days after Bush's State of the Union speech, Foley briefed student officers at the National Defense University at Fort McNair in Washington, DC. After the briefing, Melvin Goodman, who had retired from the CIA and was then on the university's faculty, brought Foley into the secure communications area of the Fort McNair compound. Goodman thanked Foley for addressing the students and asked him what weapons of mass destruction he believed would be found after the invasion. "Not much, if anything," Goodman recalled that Foley responded. Foley declined to be interviewed for this book.

So why, then, would WINPAC report that Iraq had WMD? Here's the answer (p. 119):

One day in December 2002, Foley called his senior production managers to his office. He had a clear message for the men and women who controlled the output of the center's analysts: "If the president wants to go to war, our job is to find the intelligence to allow him to do so." The directive was not quite an order to cook the books, but it was a strong suggestion that cherry-picking and slanting not only would be tolerated, but might even be rewarded.

Interestingly, this event has appeared in other books, although not with Foley's name attached. This is from Pretext for War by James Bamford:

...within a few months , for many the morale once again began to drop through the floor as they began getting pressure to come up with Saddam Hussein's fingerprints on 9/11 and Al Qaeda.

more...

[mod mom]

1. "If the president wants to go to war, our job is to find the intelligence to allow him to do so."

Sound like trason to me. Don't they take an oath to defend the constitution, not to the president?

This guy needs to be exposed! Thanks for the information.

[Postman]

2. Investigate. Subpoena. Impeach. Incarcerate.

n/t

[KharmaTrain]

3. You Don't Go With The Intelligence You Know...

...but the Intel they want. Sounds like Rummy & Crashcart's modus operandi.

Here's hoping one of the first items on the Congressional agenda once they get back is to start the debate on the revocation of the IWR...then we can get Foley and others under oath and in front of a national audience to explain how the Intel was cooked.

[L. Coyote]

4. Was the Niger forgery designed to ensnare Britain into Bush's War?

THE LIES WERE NECESSARY, OR THE WAR WOULD NOT HAVE HAPPENED AT ALL!!!

Yesterday, while doing a BUSH LIES compilation, this subject came up, plus I noticed something else interesting. Britain nearly did not join the Bush Invasion of Iraq due to the war's illegality. Then, at the last minute their "attorney general" produced a justification which meant that the participants could not be tried for war crimes (at least not in Britian).

I was trying to distract Dem bashers with this lead---Hey, I admit I lied (unlike the Rs):

FROM:
"It it Still a Crime to Lie to Congress." Gonzales Delivers Indictment, Charges BUSH with LYING.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x975882

Army chiefs feared Iraq war illegal just days before start
Martin Bright, Antony Barnett and Gaby Hinsliff
Sunday February 29, 2004 - The Observer
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/iraq/story/0,12239,1158859,00.html

Britain's Army chiefs refused to go to war in Iraq amid fears over its legality ... detailed in unpublished legal documents ....
...... also emerged that Goldsmith was forced hastily to redraft his legal advice to Tony Blair to give an 'unequivocal' assurance to the armed forces that the conflict would not be illegal. .........Without this legal reassurace, military leaders and their troops could have laid themselves open to charges of war crimes. .......

SO, I wonder, DID BUSH'S LIES LEAD OTHER NATIONS TO WAR TOO?

And, the WMD lies are just one thread of the WAR lies, which is just one thread of the BUSH LIES, which is just one thread of our history of POLITICAL LIES, which is just.....

[orpupilofnature57]

5. Britain would be an excellent Witness against shrub!! they hold their..

..Employees responsible!

[L. Coyote]

6. Good Point. k&r too.

[dave_p]

7. Blair led Britain into it

Nobody in government, intelligence or the military on either side of the Atlantic believed the Niger story or the claim that Iraq had a credible WMD capability. Bush & Blair both had to bully their intelligence services into falsifying the case, becasue there was no evidence.

Washington's fabrications didn't influence high-level British failure except as a figleaf for their own groundless warmongering. British ministers were quite capable of coming up with lies of their own to sway public opinion through their own toothless US-style media.

Don't accept the "we fell for the lies" defense from any of the perpetrators. These people knew, and they lied deliberately. Intelligence was twisted from the start, when both governments had been told by inspectors as early as 1996 that Iraq's WMD program was dead.

[L. Coyote]

9. EVEN FAUX NEWS: Report: No Iraq WMDs Made After '91

I'd like to see a timeline of developments on the British side, focused around the legality debate.

=======================
Report: No Iraq WMDs Made After '91
Thursday, October 07, 2004
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,134625,00.html


WASHINGTON — The chief U.S. arms inspector in Iraq has found no evidence of weapons of mass destruction (search) production by Saddam Hussein's (search) regime after 1991.

But the final report by Charles Duelfer (search) concluded that, although the weapons stockpiles were destroyed, Saddam’s government was looking to begin a WMD program again.

Key Findings Report........ http://www.foxnews.com/projects/pdf/Comp_Report_Key_Findings.pdf

The Bush administration invaded Iraq in March 2003 on the grounds that its WMD programs posed a threat to American national security. In his report, Duelfer concluded that Saddam's Iraq had no stockpiles of the banned weapons,..........

[dave_p]

15. Lies, damned lies and opinions

The legality issue only came up in the last weeks before the aggression.

The Attorney General's first opinion of March 7 warned that "In the light of the latest reporting by Unmovic you will need to consider very carefully whether the evidence of non-cooperation and non-compliance by Iraq is sufficiently compelling to justify the conclusion that Iraq has failed to take its final opportunity", adding that "if the majority of world opinion remains opposed to military action, it is likely to be difficult on the facts to categorize a French veto as 'unreasonable'," and that in the event of legal challenges by opponents of the war, "We cannot be certain theat they would not succeed".

Those reservations had miraculously vanished by the time of Goldsmith's second opinion on March 17, the one fed to the public. They lied, and as with the intelligence they applied pressure to eliminate every note of uncertainty. This was a premeditated crime committed in full knowledge of the fraudulent nature of the claims used to justify it.

[L. Coyote]

8. LYING to go to WAR is not funny Mr. Bush

Bush's Iraq WMDs joke backfires - 26 March, 2004
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,134625,00.html


"If George Bush thinks his deceptive rationale for going to war is a laughing matter, then he's even more out of touch than we thought."
John Kerry - Democratic Party challenger for the presidency

US President George W Bush has sparked a political row by making a joke about the failure to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

At a black-tie dinner for journalists, Mr Bush narrated a slide show poking fun at himself and other members of his administration.

One pictured Mr Bush looking under a piece of furniture in the Oval Office, at which the president remarked: "Those weapons of mass destruction have got to be here somewhere."

After another one, showing him scouring the corner of a room, Mr Bush said: "No, no weapons over there," he said.

And as a third picture, this time showing him leaning over, appeared on the screen the president was heard to say: "Maybe under here?"

President Bush in Oval Office
The president could be seen bending over to peer at the floor of the Oval Office

[L. Coyote]

10. Wag The War: How to Fabricate a Real War with Real Bogus Proof

Wag The War: How to Fabricate a Real War with Real Bogus Proof
Written by Heloise - May 26, 2007
http://blogcritics.org/archives/2007/05/26/112517.php

What’s smaller than a mushroom cloud but bigger than a smoking gun? George Tenet’s post-war placation of the press in the form of a book: At The Center Of the Storm: My Years At The CIA. This article is based on his May 6th interview on “Meet The Press” with Tim Russert. It is about what George said about his book and his role in planning the Iraq war. ........

[L. Coyote]

11. Hand on heart, Blair's right = "NEVER part with your illusions,”

Hand on heart, Blair's right
BY AIJAZ ZAKA SYED
26 May 2007
http://www.khaleejtimes.com/DisplayArticleNew.asp?xfile=data/opinion/2007/May/opinion_May89.xml§ion=opinion&col=


"NEVER part with your illusions,” advised Mark Twain. "When they are gone you may still exist, but you have ceased to live."

I am reminded of the inimitable American and his earthy wisdom every time I hear Bush and Blair, the two illustrious leaders of the coalition of the willing, hold forth on the war on terror and why they are still fighting it.........

Is lying to your people, and the rest of the world — hand on heart — that Iraq has the ability to unleash a WMD attack on Britain within '45 minutes' and attacking a defenceless nation 'right'?

According to Britain's own health journal, Lancet, more than 655,000 Iraqis had died in this war until last year, when this report appeared. Hand on heart, is this the 'right' thing to do, Mr Blair? ...........

[ck4829]

12. K&R

[UTUSN]

13. All these vermin spilling NOW should have resigned THEN & screamed their stories THEN

All of them NOW are just as guilty as Shrub & his handlers.

[L. Coyote]

14. Ray McGovern: Four-letter Word for Tenet - LIAR

Ray McGovern: Four-letter Word for Tenet - Liar
Thursday, 24 May 2007, 12:11 pm
Opinion: Ray McGovern
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0705/S00408.htm

....... With nauseating earnestness, Tenet keeps saying: “I believed there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.”

This is a lie. And no matter how many times he says it (after the axiom of his master, George W. Bush, who has stressed publicly that repetition is necessary to “catapult the propaganda”), Tenet can no longer conceal the deceit. Indeed, the only other possibility—that he is (as he complains) being made the useful “idiot” on whom Vice President Dick Cheney and others mean to blame the war—can be ruled out.

Tenet was indeed useful to Cheney and Bush, but he is no idiot. Those who do not rely exclusively on the corporate media for their information know Tenet for what he is—a charlatan. A willing co-conspirator, he did for Bush and Cheney what propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels did for Hitler. The key difference is that Goebbels and his Nazi collaborators, rather than writing books and taking sinecures to enrich themselves, were held accountable at Nuremberg. ...

[WinkyDink]

16. Try 7: TRAITOR.

[L. Coyote]

17. Thank you. BOTH!

[bobthedrummer]

18. Alan A. Foley related cross-post that raises many questions

and leads directly to the WH for answers.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x980204#981597

[bobthedrummer]

19. Kick

[L. Coyote]

20. Kick for the evening crowd.

[bobthedrummer]

21. Kick

[bobthedrummer]

22. .