Nearly three years after the start of the war in Iraq, the notion that the White House cherry-picked intelligence and made up their minds about an invasion regardless of what the facts warranted is no longer new. It’s not even controversial.
And yet, there’s still something uniquely powerful about the top CIA official in charge of intelligence in the Middle East confirming our worst fears.
The former CIA official who coordinated U.S. intelligence on the Middle East until last year has accused the Bush administration of “cherry-picking” intelligence on Iraq to justify a decision it had already reached to go to war, and of ignoring warnings that the country could easily fall into violence and chaos after an invasion to overthrow Saddam Hussein.
Paul R. Pillar, who was the national intelligence officer for the Near East and South Asia from 2000 to 2005, acknowledges the U.S. intelligence agencies’ mistakes in concluding that Hussein’s government possessed weapons of mass destruction. But he said those misjudgments did not drive the administration’s decision to invade.
“Official intelligence on Iraqi weapons programs was flawed, but even with its flaws, it was not what led to the war,” Pillar wrote in the upcoming issue of the journal Foreign Affairs. Instead, he asserted, the administration “went to war without requesting — and evidently without being influenced by — any strategic-level intelligence assessments on any aspect of Iraq.”
“It has become clear that official intelligence was not relied on in making even the most significant national security decisions, that intelligence was misused publicly to justify decisions already made, that damaging ill will developed between [Bush] policymakers and intelligence officers, and that the intelligence community’s own work was politicized,” Pillar wrote.
As the WaPo’s Walter Pincus noted, Pillar, who served five presidents over his 28-year career, is the first senior intelligence officer to “directly and publicly” condemn the administration’s handling of intelligence.
Oddly enough, just yesterday, the Republican Policy Committee, made up of some of the leading conservative lawmakers on the Hill, published a report (.pdf) lashing out at White House critics for disparaging the president’s handling of pre-war intelligence on Iraq.
As the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence moves forward on its Phase II investigation of the pre-war intelligence in Iraq, critics of the war continue to reissue their statements that the President “manufactured,” “distorted,” “misrepresented,” “exaggerated,” “concealed,” and “misused” intelligence to justify the war…. When the facts surrounding these issues are examined, it becomes clear that it is not the President who is misrepresenting information; rather, it is the critics.
Note to the Republican Policy Committee: you may want to pull this before it causes you too much further embarrassment. (This assumes, probably incorrectly, that the RPC is capable of shame.)
As for Pillar, the CIA’s point man on Middle Eastern intelligence has offered a devastating critique. Three quick thoughts:
First, if these were normal times, and the nation had a functioning Congress, Pillar’s perspective would be enough to launch a massive investigation and multiple hearings on Capitol Hill. The “I” word would be used by serious people. Of course, these are not normal times and Pillar’s name will probably be forgotten by next week.
Second, Pillar’s critique would be considered earth-shaking news by the national media if a) news outlets weren’t already juggling other Bush scandals making headlines this week (Katrina, Abramoff, warrantless searches, Plame leak, a breathtakingly irresponsible budget, etc.) and b) the news outlets didn’t find it necessary to split their time between real news and covering some British guy accused of murdering his wife.
And third, the GOP smear machine will go after Pillar in 3…2…1…