[Vision2020] 03-31-05 Washington Post: WMD Commission ReleasesScathing Repor

[Donovan Arnold]

Wayne,

This is not news, it is olds. Hint--The root word of news is "new". :)

Donovan J Arnold

>From: "Art Deco" <deco at moscow.com>
>To: "Vision 2020" <vision2020 at moscow.com>
>Subject: [Vision2020] 03-31-05 Washington Post: WMD Commission 
>ReleasesScathing Report
>Date: Thu, 31 Mar 2005 10:07:47 -0800
>
>[Pat:  Let me know if you get a script error, please.]
>
>
>washingtonpost.com
>
>WMD Commission Releases Scathing Report
>Panel Finds U.S. Intelligence on Iraq's Weapons Was 'Dead Wrong'
>By Katherin Shrader
>The Associated Press
>Thursday, March 31, 2005; 12:25 PM
>
>
>America's spy agencies were "dead wrong" in most prewar assessments about 
>weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and know disturbingly little about 
>current nuclear threats, a presidential commission said Thursday.
>
>"Our collection agencies are often unable to gather intelligence on the 
>very things we care the most about," the panel concluded in an unsparing 
>report.
>
>It recommended dozens of organizational changes, and said President Bush 
>can implement most of them without congressional action. It also urged the 
>president to back up John Negroponte, his choice to be the new director of 
>national intelligence, in any bureaucratic turf battles ahead.
>
>"The central conclusion is one which I share. America's intelligence 
>community needs fundamental change," Bush said at the White House after 
>receiving the critique from a commission he was at first reluctant to 
>appoint.
>
>He said he had directed Fran Townsend, his White House-based homeland 
>security adviser, to "review the commission's finding and to assure that 
>concrete actions are taken."
>
>Bush read a prepared statement, flanked by retired Judge Laurence 
>Silberman, a Republican, and former Democratic Sen. Charles Robb of 
>Virginia, co-chairmen of the panel.
>
>The president then strode from the room, leaving the two men behind to 
>field questions on the report that criticized past performance -- but 
>didn't stop there.
>
>"Across the board, the intelligence community knows disturbingly little 
>about the nuclear programs of many of the world's most dangerous actors," 
>the report said.
>
>The commission also called for sweeping changes at the FBI to combine the 
>bureau's counterterrorism and counterintelligence resources into a new 
>office.
>
>Robb and Silberman agreed they had found no evidence that senior 
>administration officials had sought to change the prewar intelligence in 
>Iraq, possibly for political gain.
>
>Robb said investigators examined every allegation "to see if there was any 
>occasion where a member of the administration or anyone else had asked an 
>analyst or anyone else associated with the intelligence community to change 
>a position they were taking or whether they felt there was any undue 
>influence. And we found absolutely no instance."
>
>In the months preceding the Iraq war, Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney 
>repeatedly invoked Saddam Hussein's presumed possession of weapons of mass 
>destruction as a reason to invade.
>
>The report was the latest tabulation of intelligence shortfalls documented 
>in a series of investigations since the terror attacks of Sept. 11, 2001 
>against the United States. Numerous investigations have concluded that spy 
>agencies had serious intelligence failures before the attacks. Thursday's 
>report concluded that the problem still has not been fixed, three years 
>after al Qaeda struck America.
>
>"The flaws we found in the intelligence community's Iraq performance are 
>still all too common," it said.
>
>At the news conference, Robb was particularly blunt when it came to turf 
>wars within the intelligence bureaucracy. Negroponte "needs the full and 
>unequivocal backing" of the president, he said, adding that there are "very 
>distinguished and proud agencies whose culture will work against change."
>
>The report said "The daily intelligence briefings given to you (Bush) 
>before the Iraq war were flawed. Through attention-grabbing headlines and 
>repetition of questionable data, these briefings overstated the case that 
>Iraq was rebuilding its WMD programs."
>
>In an implicit swipe at the Bush administration, Senate Minority Leader 
>Harry Reid, D-Nev., said the report did not review how federal 
>policy-makers used the intelligence they were given.
>
>"I believe it is essential that we hold both the intelligence agencies and 
>senior policy-makers accountable for their actions," Reid said.
>
>The unclassified version does not go into significant detail on the 
>intelligence community's assessment of countries such as Iran, North Korea, 
>China and Russia because commissioners did not want to tip the U.S. hand 
>about what is known. Those details are included in the classified version.
>
>Sen. Pat Roberts, chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said he 
>was pleased by the report and indicated that it concludes all inquiries 
>into intelligence used to make the case for going to war with Iraq.
>
>"I don't think there should be any doubt that we have now heard it all 
>regarding prewar intelligence," the Kansas Republican said. "I think that 
>it would be a monumental waste of time to re-plow this ground any further."
>
>Rep. Ike Skelton of Missouri, the top Democrat on the House Armed Services 
>Committee, said the failures were widespread.
>
>"I don't think you can blame any one person, although the buck does stop at 
>the top of every one of these agencies," Skelton said. "But quite honestly, 
>the fault is spread out across all the agencies."
>
>Bush appointed the commission a year ago, signing on to the idea of an 
>independent investigation only belatedly. The White House had said it 
>wanted to give the weapons search in Iraq more time.
>
>But pressure grew from Republicans and Democrats alike after the former 
>chief U.S. weapons inspector in Iraq, David Kay, resigned saying the prewar 
>estimates of weapons in Iraq, which Bush used to justify war there, "were 
>almost all wrong." Even then, the White House insisted the commission's 
>mandate be broadened to other nations, prompting criticism that the panel 
>might be too overloaded to thoroughly examine its original subject, Iraq.
>
>"We conclude that the intelligence community was dead wrong in almost all 
>of its prewar judgments about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction," the 
>report said. "This was a major intelligence failure."
>
>The main cause was the intelligence community's "inability to collect good 
>information about Iraq's WMD programs, it said, and serious errors in 
>analyzing what information it could gather and a failure to make clear just 
>how much of its analysis was based on assumptions rather than good 
>evidence.
>
>"On a matter of this importance, we simply cannot afford failures of this 
>magnitude," the report said.
>
>On al Qaeda, the commission found that the intelligence community was 
>surprised by the terrorist network's advances in biological weapons, 
>particularly a virulent strain of a disease that the report keeps secret, 
>identifying it only as "Agent X."
>
>
>© 2005 The Associated Press
>_____________________________________________________
>  List services made available by First Step Internet,
>  serving the communities of the Palouse since 1994.
>                http://www.fsr.net
>           mailto:Vision2020 at moscow.com
>¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯