WMD verdict: 'Dead wrong'

[Henk Elegeert]

REPLY TO: D66 at nic.surfnet.nl

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/story.jsp?story=625307
News

"
WMD verdict: 'Dead wrong'

The damning verdict of America's official report into the
reasons for going to war in Iraq
By Rupert Cornwell in Washington

01 April 2005

A bipartisan US commission has delivered a devastating
critique of the intelligence assessment of Iraq's pre-war
weapons of mass destruction. It also implied that the
country's spy agencies know "disturbingly little" about Iran
and North Korea.

The intelligence community was "dead wrong" in "almost all
of its judgements" about Saddam Hussein's presumed chemical,
biological and nuclear weapons programmes, declared the
panel, which was set up by President George Bush in February
last year.

It bleakly warned that the United States "simply cannot
afford failures of this magnitude" again. And, as he
formally took delivery of the 400-page report at the White
House, Mr Bush concurred, saying that America's intelligence
community - currently scattered across 15 separate agencies
- needed "fundamental change". He promised that "concrete
actions" would be taken soon.
...

Most alarming, however, is what the report conveyed about
current US knowledge of the suspected nuclear programmes of
Iran and North Korea, which, along with Saddam's Iraq, were
described as the "axis of evil" by Mr Bush and which are
under pressure from Washington to give up their nuclear
ambitions.

"Across the board," the report said, "the intelligence
community knows disturbingly little about the nuclear
programmes of many of the world's most dangerous actors." In
some cases, said the report, "it knows less now than it did
five or 10 years ago". However, the sections of the report
specifically dealing with North Korea and Iran are
classified and are not being made public.
...

The suggested changes included bringing the FBI's
counterintelligence and counterterrorism operations into a
single office directly under the aegis of the DNI. It also
called for a new and lean National Counter-Proliferation
Centre, which would constantly monitor countries suspected
of seeking nuclear and other unconventional weapons.

Among other improvements, the report recommended that
confused lines of authority over information sharing created
by last year's Intelligence Reform Act, setting up the DNI,
should be resolved.
...

The report also dwelled at length on the need for greater
attention to conflicting views among intelligence analysts,
instead of the system which prevailed in the Iraq débâcle,
whereby inconvenient or nuanced pieces of information were
eliminated from an assessment as it made its way up the
bureaucratic ladder.
...
"

**********
Dit bericht is verzonden via de informele D66 discussielijst (D66 at nic.surfnet.nl).
Aanmelden: stuur een email naar LISTSERV at nic.surfnet.nl met in het tekstveld alleen: SUBSCRIBE D66 uwvoornaam uwachternaam
Afmelden: stuur een email naar LISTSERV at nic.surfnet.nl met in het tekstveld alleen: SIGNOFF D66
Het on-line archief is te vinden op: http://listserv.surfnet.nl/archives/d66.html
**********