Which Intelligence Agencies believed Iraq had WMD's?

[Tom Bombadil]

Bush is always saying that other Intelligence Agencies supported the US assessment of the WMD threat but the Republicans never specify which agencies they refer to.

My understanding is that only Britain and Israel made similar pre-war assessments. I have yet to read or hear anything that suggests the Intel agencies of Russia, China, France or anyone else for that matter, agreed with the intel?

[niallmac]

1. Israels intel really thought Iraq had WMDs?

At some point they have to produce the intelligence that led them to that conclusion yes?
Or, no?

[Tom Bombadil]

3. I was under the impression

that the US relied on some Israeli intelligence info to bolster its own case for war.

[HysteryDiagnosis]

2. Check ours.... the "real" ours.

www.truthuncovered.com



In his documentary feature, UNCOVERED: The War on Iraq, filmmaker Robert Greenwald chronicles the Bush Administration's determined quest to invade Iraq following the events of September 11, 2001. The film deconstructs the administration's case for war through interviews with U.S intelligence and defense officials, foreign service experts, and U.N. weapons inspectors -- including a former CIA director, a former ambassador to Saudi Arabia and even President Bush's Secretary of the Army. Their analyses and conclusions are sobering, and often disturbing, regardless of one's political affiliations.
Since this film was first released in November 2003 via thousands of house parties organized by MoveOn.org, the issues addressed have become well known, and the arguments made by the experts in the film have been proven. Most recently, by the Downing Street Memos.

This is an important film documenting exactly how the Bush administration hoodwinked the American people into supporting an unnecessary war. A war that has claimed tens of thousands of lives, and continues today.

Read why the director, Robert Greenwald, decided to make this film. See the timeline of the Bush Administration's justification for war, images and excerpts from the film, or the complete transcript (pdf).

[ChairmanAgnostic]

4. CIA, State, NSA

major elements in each of these intel units were convinced that Saddam had NO WMD outside what had been marked, sealed and reported back in the early 1990s.
State, in particular, had this strange way of making the right call about difficult questions, even though they simply used their minds and experience, rather than spend billions on sat-intel, etc.
Of course, Cheney stabbed them in the back, the side, the heart, the head and the groin, to shut them up.

oh, the death of a thousand cuts.

[JJackFlash]

5. Yep, US intel knew that Saddam had nothing to worry about

from the early-mid 1990s.
Powell & Rice both made statements to that effect ... before they started lying their asses off for the Bush Junta.

[evermind]

6. The British verdict on Saddam's WMDs was stage-managed

by the JIC (Joint Intelligence Committee) - not really an intelligence agency as such, but an intelligence co-ordinating body. We don't really know what the intel agencies themselves thought - there seems to have been at least some dissent within MI6 from the official view.

As in most countries, including the US, what the intelligence agencies *believe* and what they *say* are often two different things, especially when political leaders are happier when a particular view is taken.

I think you're right that a more realistic appraisal took place in non-partisan countries, though I don't remember much public skepticism of the US/UK line from intelligence agencies. Certainly the UN inspection process was heading towards a conclusion of no WMDs.

A good source on WMD assessments is http://www.middleeastreference.org.uk :

http://www.middleeastreference.org.uk/iraqweapons.html

In particular

http://www.middleeastreference.org.uk/kamel.html shows that informed parties had good reason to believe US/UK claims were exaggerated.

[Monkey see Monkey Do]

9. add to that 'Operation Rockingham'

which was either a piffling little DIA group analysing WMD intelligence, or a full flung propaganda unit.

[UndergroundRadical]

7. Well, any intelligence with connections to the Pentagon wreaks of....

corruption and special interest. The neocons are basically American Likudniks. They want to overthrow every Muslim government in the Middle East and replace them with pro-Israel "democracies." This is part of the insanity that so many preach against. Basically, our foreign policy has become one with the Likud. And that's a very frightening and dangerous reality.

[W stands for Wacko]

8. VP's Office! The Federalist Society! PNAC! Geez, can't you see?