Data Backing Iraq War Called Uncertain, Weak (Sunday WashPost)

[Newsjock]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A10928-2003Sep27.html

By Dana Priest
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, September 28, 2003; Page A01
WASHINGTON — Leaders of the House intelligence committee have criticized the U.S. intelligence community for using largely outdated, ``circumstantial'' and ``fragmentary'' information with ``too many uncertainties'' to conclude that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction and ties to al-Qaida.

Top members of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, which spent four months combing through 19 volumes of classified material used by the Bush administration to make its case for the war on Iraq, found ``significant deficiencies'' in the community's ability to collect fresh intelligence on Iraq, and said it had to rely on ``past assessments'' dating to when U.N. inspectors left Iraq in 1998 and on ``some new `piecemeal' intelligence,'' both of which ``were not challenged as a routine matter.''

``The absence of proof that chemical and biological weapons and their related development programs had been destroyed was considered proof that they continued to exist,'' the two committee members said in their letter Thursday to CIA Director George Tenet. The Washington Post obtained a copy this weekend.


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[annagull]

1. Whoa, it's war now!

The CIA is asking for an investigation of the WH, the Congress is laying the bogus intel at Tenet's feet. This is going to get very interesting now. Glad to see the editors at the WP have finally run this on the front page. Geez.

[Davis_X_Machina]

2. Tenet's the sacrificial lamb.

He's a Clinton appointee.

No other heads will roll.

Remember who has the majority on that committee.

It's DeLay's creature.

[thebigidea]

6. Tenet must have serious dirt on those devils

remember when he looked like he was going to take the fall for the 16 words crap? An "apology" that actually vindicated him kinda?

maybe something to do with 9/11 warnings, maybe the Iraq war WMD fabrication of evidene, maybe he just picked up some useful info on the Bushies just by doing their filthy work day in, day out.

[lfairban]

3. This is a vindication of the peace activists . . .

. . . and a condemnation of the brain dead idiots that condemned us as unpatriotic.

[BigBadVodoDaddy]

4. huh?

``The absence of proof that chemical and biological weapons and their related development programs had been destroyed was considered proof that they continued to exist,''

I admit I am just a old Indiana boy, but something is wrong with that thinking, yes I know duh!

[Rose Siding]

5. Same old

Goss and Harmon are still arguing. Guess who will win.

[leesa]

7. Duh, ya think?

Of course we knew this BEFORE Bush's thugs invaded Iraq.