Here are some things to watch for as you read phase2a. How many times does it say something along the lines of statements before October 2002 weren’t supported by the intelligence, but those afterwards were? How many times does it say statements were supported, but only by a single source that was unreliable? How much more inflammatory are the the unsupported statements than the supported ones?

All this is old news to folks here, but the short summary for the mainstream media is that the administration took real intelligence and slanted it, pressured the IC to support their previous statements, and just flat out made up the the thing that closed the deal on the war (”Saddam has nukes and he’s going to give them to bin Laden”)

[fuming because he has to work and can’t play with the documents]

Thanks, have I got the right document?

3/172

The Committee reviewed only finished analytic intelligence documents, with few exceptions. this did not include intelligence reports “from the field” or less formal communications between intelligence agencies and other parts of the Executive Branch.

I assume this means Cheney didn’t share with the rest of the kids. Again.

The McClatchy team is finally asking the question I’ve been asking for the last two years around here:

Were Pentagon officials duped by Iranian agents?

29/172 Notwithstanding the use of known fabricators, the report concludes that the false statements made by the administration “were substantiated by intelligence information.”

I’ve been skimming, it’s late and time for me to crash. The striking thing is the weak standard the Committee uses to justify the conclusion that the statements were supported by intelligence reports. I’ve read two of the sections fairly carefully, and I would not have concluded that the intelligence “supported” the statements.

Here is what I don’t understand: how does the SSCI decide whether the statements made were substantiated by intelligence community estimates?

I think the answer is that they say one thing, and provide the data, from which those of us with a more jaundiced eye can conclude that Bush et al. were lying. It makes it all the more aggravating that the NYT and others quote the conclusions and not the data.

Let’s see how that works, using the question of Iraq and nuclear weapons. The structure of the report is to set out a speech followed by a discussion of the state of intelligence at that time.

The first speech is Cheney on August 26, 2002. He asserts that Iraq has resumed pursuit of a nuclear weapons development program, and said that Hussein would obtain nuclear weapons fairly soon.

Then the committee says that the consensus in the intelligence community as late as the December, 2001 NIE was that it would take Iraq 5 to 7 years to generate enough fissile material for a nuclear weapon, and that if it could acquire that material, it would take a year to produce a weapon. Both of these term estimates begin when the program is actually reactivated. Over the next several months, there was a shift in the views of the agencies. In April, 2001 the CIA pointed to the purchase of the aluminum tubes and some other dual use equipment as suggesting that Iraq might be reconstituting its nuclear program. Then in August 2002 the CIA issued a new paper saying that the procurement activities indicated that the Iraqis had restarted their nuclear program. The DIA issued several similar assessments that year, including a May report that:

“Although there is no firm evidence of a current nuclear weapon design effort, we judge that continued procurement of dual-use nuclear-related items, key personnel assigned to nuclear weapon-capable sites, construction at nuclear facilities, and Saddam’s interactions with the Iraqi Atomic Energy Commission all indicate that Saddam has not abandoned the nuclear weapon program.”

The DOE disagreed with the CIA’s conclusions about the aluminum tubes, but said that Saddam’s meetings with Iraqi nuclear scientists, and possible attempts to acquire materials from Niger, meant that Iraq might be reconstituting its program, but that the evidence was not conclusive. The INR disagreed. It also agreed with the DOE that the aluminum tubes were rocket casings. The National Ground Intelligence Center, an Army unit, agreed with the CIA.

Even with all this, a DIA report said it would be 5-7 years to produce enough fissile material for a weapon, or less if the fissile material could be obtained from another country, but said that there was no evidence that Iraq was trying to do that.

With this recitation, how is it that the Committee thinks Cheney’s statements were in general supported by the views of the intelligence agencies.

The next speech is Bush’s address to the UN on September 12, 2002. He claims that Iraq has an on-going nuclear weapons program. He cites the aluminum tubes, concealment of information about the pre-Gulf War program, and meetings between Saddam and Iraqi nuclear scientists. He said that Iraq possessed some of the intellectual capital and physical infrastructure necessary for a program, and said that if he got some fissile material, it could build a nuclear weapon in one year.

The Committee has already discussed the aluminum tubes, and the meetings with Iraqi scientists. The intelligence community did not think concealing information about pre-Gulf War nuclear programs was evidence for a reconstituted nuclear program.

The Committee also notes that the consensus of the intelligence community on the state of the Iraqi program was not changed at the date of this speech, although it points out that there was some change during the period.

But George Bush was supported by the evidence.

The next speech is the Mushroom Cloud speech of October 7, 2002. It included the usual stuff, but the phrasing is stronger. He asserts that the evidence indicates that Iraq is reconstituting its nuclear weapons program.

The Committee discusses the October 2002 NIE, in which all agencies but State/INR agree that Iraq was reconstituting its program. Footnote 24 says: Committee staff were also permitted to view a one-page summary of the NIE, which was prepared for the President. This one-page summary stated that “INR judges that the evidence indicates, at most, a limited Irqaqi nuclear reconstitution effort.” 11/172 It further says that the time frame hasn’t changed: 5 years or so, unless they get fissile material from someone else.

But the committee concludes that Bush was supported by the intelligence community.

Then we have the State of the Union address of January 29, 2003. Bush says that Iraq pursued nuclear weapons even while weapons inspectors were in Iraq. He repeated the aluminum tube issue, and he uttered the lying 16 words: “the British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa.”

The first point is absolutely contradicted by the actual intelligence. All agencies assessed that IAEA and UNSCOM had succeeded in destroying the nuclear program. No one thought that Saddam was able to work on nuclear weapons while the inspectors were there. At this point, it wasn’t unanimous that the program had been reconstituted at all, and it was still thought that even if it had it would take 5-7 years to produce a weapon.

The second point had no merit. The third has been discussed to death elsewhere, and no one could have believed it at that point. The NIE said “claims of Iraqi pursuit of natural uranium in Africa are, in INR’s assessment, highly dubious.”

The last speech is Powell’s speech at the UN, February 5, 2003. Powell talks about the aluminum tubes, and other dual-use equipment. State/INR and the DOE had not changed their positions on these issues. The others assessed that the dual-use equipment was for a nuclear program. That equipment is magnets and high-speed balancing machines. Apparently the INR was able to think of some other use for the equipment.

There follows a list of even stronger statements that were untrue or not supported by the intelligence community.

And ta-da, here is the conclusion:

Statements by the President, Vice President, Secretary of State and the National Security Advisor regarding a possible Iraqi nuclear weapons program were generally substantiated by intelligence community estimates, but did not convey the substantial disagreements that existed in the intelligence community.

I think that the material is weakened to get Hagel and Snowe on board. In their additional views, they say “On balance, these reports contain critical information that should unequivocally be publicly released, enabling the public to formulate their own conclusions. They also point to importance of one of the most aggravating things in the report: the notion that the Administration had additional information from other agencies. 100/172