Bad Sourcing (Isikoff in Newsweek)

[huckleberry]

U.S. agencies may have relied on fabricators and Saddam’s own spies for intelligence on Iraq

WEB EXCLUSIVE
Newsweek
Updated: 5:18 p.m. ET Feb. 11, 2004

Feb. 11 - Broadening an internal review of prewar intelligence on Iraq, the CIA is reexamining the credibility of four Iraq defectors whose claims were cited by Secretary of State Colin Powell last year as crucial evidence that Saddam Hussein had developed a system of mobile laboratories and factories to produce biological-warfare agents, NEWSWEEK has learned.

snip

In his otherwise vigorous defense of the agency’s performance at Georgetown University last week, CIA director George Tenet first alluded to the fact that were serious credibility problems with one Iraqi defector who made claims about the purported mobile weapons labs. Tenet said that the CIA had “recently discovered that relevant analysts in the community missed a notice that identified a source we had cited as providing information that, in some cases was unreliable, and in other cases was fabricated.”

U.S. officials say Tenet was referring to the source identified in Powell’s speech as an “Iraqi major who defected.” Powell said the defector had “confirmed that Iraq has mobile biological-research laboratories.” According to several U.S. intelligence officials, the “major” was introduced to U.S. intelligence by the Iraqi National Congress, an exile group with close ties to Pentagon civilians and the office of Vice President Dick Cheney. After initial debriefing by the Defense Intelligence Agency in the winter of 2002, officials say, two intelligence reports recounting the “major’s” allegations regarding Iraqi mobile labs were entered into computer databases maintained by the CIA and DIA.


more at
http://msnbc.msn.com/id/4244033/

[tom_paine]

1. Oh, I think we KNOW who the fabricators were

However, making that very credible charge will bring accusations of "Lese Majeste!"

[Bandit]

2. Where are all these "Doubts" coming from? ~ Bush* assured there was

No Doubt Iraq had WMD You wrote that Mr. Isikoff. No Doubts

[UpInArms]

3. a bowl of Chalabi, anyone?

should they not serve him up for dinner soon?

[nixonwasbetterthanW]

4. directed by Wolfowitz & Feith? produced by Chalabi & Cheney?

"I laughed; I cried. He was so (un)believable!"
-- G.W. Bush after screening "The Defector"

...
Officials familiar with the intelligence community’s dossier on the (discredited) “major” say that the paper trail indicates that the defector was first sent to the DIA as an “executive referral.” An administration official says this meant that the defector was referred to the intelligence community by a high-ranking member of the Pentagon’s civilian leadership. The official declined to identify precisely who in the Pentagon leadership made the referral. Before the war, the Iraqi National Congress and its leader, Ahmed Chalabi, established close ties to a number of prominent Pentagon civilians; the group’s boosters are known to have included Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz and Douglas Feith, the undersecretary of Defense for planning.

[Media_Lies_Daily]

5. Another vector pointing toward the office of Dick Cheney...

...first, the "energy meetings", then Valerie Plame, and now these so-called intelligence "sources".

I guess Big Time Dick ought to start getting worried about trips in small planes.

[leftchick]

6. Why the hell can't he say OSP?!?

Because this is OSP....

<Within a few months, however, DIA had further checked out the “major” and concluded that his stories and credentials were so dubious that the agency felt obliged to issue a governmentwide notice branding the defector as a “fabricator” whose information should be avoided. The “fabricator notice,” issued in May 2002, reported that the defector had apparently been “coached by the Iraqi National Congress” on what to tell U.S. interrogators, according to a source who read the document, which remains classified. Despite the fabricator notice, however, the “major’s” information was subsequently cited in a critical October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate on Saddam’s WMD sent to policymakers, in Powell’s U.N. speech and in the CIA’s May 2003 paper announcing that suspect mobile labs had been found.

Officials say intelligence analysts continued to cite the defectors’ information in official statements and papers even though a warning about him had been widely distributed because the fabricator notice was not cross-referenced in intelligence-agency computers with the two intelligence reports that told the defector’s story. Intelligence officials say the mistake was only discovered in the past few weeks: sources close to the CIA say that the problem was discovered by the agency itself during an internal review, though Capitol Hill sources say the agency did not know of the problem until congressional investigators pointed it out.

Officials familiar with the intelligence community’s dossier on the “major” say that the paper trail indicates that the defector was first sent to the DIA as an “executive referral.” An administration official says this meant that the defector was referred to the intelligence community by a high-ranking member of the Pentagon’s civilian leadership. The official declined to identify precisely who in the Pentagon leadership made the referral. Before the war, the Iraqi National Congress and its leader, Ahmed Chalabi, established close ties to a number of prominent Pentagon civilians; the group’s boosters are known to have included Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz and Douglas Feith, the undersecretary of Defense for planning.>

[teryang]

7. Oh those darn computer glitches!

What a crock! Er, I started a war based on fraudulent information. I know I'll blame it on the computer glitches. You know the same glitches that prevented us from preventing 911.

[buycitgo]

8. go curl up and wither like the piece of dried pigshit you are, Mike

bad sourcing?

pretty ironic, don't you think, Mike?

can you say "elves?"

why should anyone believe ANYthing you ever write again.

there. I feel better

now.....how is this article news?

it's been known for a long time that these liars had the ear of Feith's group

christ, aren't most of them WORKING for SAIC?

[salin]

9. Notice - no mention (to help explain the situation) of the OSP

any of these stories that do not specifically mention the intel stovepiping going on under Feith at the OSP - are intentionally leaving out the explanation for "how did this happen." Then again its Isikoff... news/business dictates that we want an exclusive... but personal perspective dictates trying (even if subtly) to sheild the admin from the most damning part of the story.

[bpilgrim]

10. agreed

we are fools to think that by now they don't know the whole story... they are in damage control mode now and are now in the proccess of pulling out ALL the 'boobs' to distract us from the TRUTH about iraq.

http://news.globalfreepress.com/mp3/UNCOVERED.-.The.War.in.Iraq.mp3

psst... pass the word ;->

peace