Reply #11: Here is an excellent explanation

[dutchdemocrat]

http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/wot/iraq/politicizedintelligence.html

The Bush administration intentionally “skewed intelligence” so that it would support the case for war.
a Summary.

i According to numerous credible sources, the hawks in the Bush administration “intentionally skewed” intelligence to support their case for war, even instructing scientists who disagreed with the administration’s assertions to keep their dissenting views away from public discourse.



b Evidence.

i The “Waldorf Transcripts”

(A) Summary.

(1) On May 31, 2003 the Guardian newspaper of London published a summary of a leaked transcript of an early February 2003 discussion between U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell and British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw, in which the two officials expressed doubt over the Bush administration’s claims. Powell at one point even expressed concern over the possibility that their statements might later “explode in their faces.” After the transcript was leaked, the Foreign Office denied that the reported meeting had taken place.

(B) Who was involved.

(1) U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell.

(2) British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw.

(C) Where the discussion took place.

(1) The Waldorf hotel in New York.

(D) When the discussion took place.

(1) “hortly before a crucial UN security council session on February 5.”

(2) “ few days after Downing Street presented Mr. Powell with a separate dossier on Iraq's banned weapons.” The dossier was released on Monday, February 3.

(E) Main points of the transcripts.

(1) The British “foreign secretary reportedly expressed concern that claims being made by Mr. Blair and President Bush could not be proved.”

(2) “Much of the intelligence were assumptions and assessments not supported by hard facts or other sources.”

(3) Powell had said during the discussion that he had come away from the meetings with U.S. intelligence officials, “ ‘apprehensive’ about what he called, at best, circumstantial evidence highly tilted in favor of assessments drawn from them, rather than any actual raw intelligence.”

(4) “Mr. Powell told the foreign secretary he hoped the facts, when they came out, would not ‘explode in their faces’.”

(F) Who leaked the transcripts.

(1) “iplomats who supported the war against Iraq even when the evidence about Saddam Hussein's program of weapons of mass destruction was fuzzy, and who now believe they were lied to.”

(2) “People circulating the transcripts call themselves ‘allied sources supportive of US war aims in Iraq at the time’.”

(G) Significance.

(1) “Jack Straw and his US counterpart, Colin Powell, privately expressed serious doubts about the quality of intelligence on Iraq's banned weapons program at the very time they were publicly trumpeting it to get UN support for a war on Iraq.”



ii September 2002 Defense Intelligence Agency report.

(A) Summary.

(1) In September 2002, the Defense Intelligence Agency issued an 80-plus-page classified report titled, “Iraq: Key Weapons Facilities -- An Operational Support Study”, concluding that there was insufficient evidence to substantiate the claim that Iraq had an ongoing chemical weapons program or that Iraq still had biological weapons capabilities.

(B) Excerpts from the summary of the document.

(1) “There is no reliable information on whether Iraq is producing and stockpiling chemical weapons, or whether Iraq has -- or will -- establish its chemical warfare agent production facilities. . .”

(2) Iraq is assessed to possess biological agent stockpiles that may be weaponized and ready for use. The size of those stockpiles is uncertain and is subject to debate. The nature and condition of those stockpiles also are unknown.

(3) “lthough we lack any direct information, Iraq probably possesses chemical munitions, possibly including artillery shells, aerial bombs and ballistic missile warheads.

(4) The summary reported that Iraq “probably possesses bulk chemical stockpiles, primarily containing precursors, but that also could consist of some mustard agent and VX.”

(5) It stated that Iraq's ability to develop nerve agents like VX gas was “constrained by its stockpile of key chemical precursors and the destruction of all known CW production facilities during Operation Desert Storm in 1991 and during subsequent UN inspections.”

(C) Confirmation.

(1) Fox News reported: “Two Pentagon officials who had read the summary confirmed Friday that it said DIA had no hard evidence of Iraqi chemical weapons.”

(D) Statements.

(1) Unnamed defense official interviewed by Reuters on May 6, 2003.

(a) “What this report is saying is that there's not enough reliable information to move things into the category of things we know (about WMDs in Iraq). The way it's briefed is in the category of ‘hey we think this is going on’ (but we don't have absolute proof).”

(2) Vice Admiral Lowell Jacoby, Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency

(a) Jacoby said the report concluded that the agency “could not specifically pin down individual facilities operating as part of the weapons of mass destruction program, specifically the chemical warfare portion”.

(b) “What we're saying is that as of 2002 in September, we could not reliably pin down, for somebody who was doing contingency planning, specific facilities, locations or production that was underway at a specific location at that point in time.”

(E) Excerpts from media reports.

(1) Washington Post.

(a) “ccording to senior intelligence officials, intelligence agencies had no direct evidence such as photographs or stolen Iraqi documents to support a firm conclusion about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction. They said the case was circumstantial, largely because U.N. weapons inspectors had left Iraq in 1998, shutting off the last bit of direct knowledge available to the United States.”

(F) Response from Bush administration

(1) Michael Anton, a spokesman with the White House's National Security Council.

(a) “The entire report paints a different picture than the selective quotes would lead you to believe. The entire report is consistent with the president was saying at the time.”