More
Evidence Bush Misled Nation
07/07/2003
If you blinked--or were busy
buying hot-dogs and beer for a Fourth of July cookout--you might have missed the
latest evidence that George W. Bush misrepresented the threat from Iraq as he
guided the country into invasion and occupation in the Middle East.
The day before Independence
Day, Richard Kerr, a former CIA deputy director who is leading a review of the
CIA's prewar intelligence on Iraq's unconventional weapons, held a series of
interviews with journalists and revealed that his unfinished inquiry had so far
found that the intelligence on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction had been
somewhat ambiguous, that analysts at the CIA and other intelligence services had
received pressure from the Bush administration, and that the CIA had not found
any proof of operational ties between al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein's regime.
In other words, Bush
lied.
Bush had said that
intelligence gathered by the United States and other nations had
determined--"no doubt"--that Hussein possessed WMDs, and he had
declared that the Iraqi dictator was "dealing" with al Qaeda. Kerr's
statements undermined these vital assertions Bush had made to justify the war.
Kerr was not trying to be
difficult. His remarks were primarily pro-CIA. He maintained that the agency had
been right to tell Bush and top administration officials that Hussein was
seeking WMDs. He said that intelligence analysts had resisted pressure and had
done a fine job, considering the limited amount of material they had to work
with. Kerr noted that US intelligence analysts had been forced to rely upon
information from the early and mid-1990s and had little hard evidence to
evaluate after 1998 (when UN weapons inspectors left the Iraq). The material
that did come in after then was mostly "circumstantial" or
"inferential," he said. It was "less specific and detailed"
than in earlier years, "scattered." Speaking to The Washington Post,
he commented, "It would have been very hard to conclude those [WMD]
programs were not continuing, based on the reports being gathered in recent
years." And he noted that CIA intelligence reports included the
"appropriate caveats" regarding their less-than-definitive
conclusions. (An unclassified CIA report released last October said, without
qualification, "Baghdad has chemical and biological weapons." But its
supporting material was nuanced, and Kerr noted that intelligence analysts
usually pointed out that their information was not perfect.)
Though Kerr did not say so
outright, his findings indicate that there was no hard-and-fast intelligence
that Iraq possessed ready-to-go chemical or biological weapons. Yet that is what
Bush, Dick Cheney, Colin Powell, Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, Ari Fleischer
and other administration officials had asserted repeatedly. In his interviews,
Kerr remarked that US intelligence analysts were right to assume, based on older
evidence and more recent circumstantial material, that Iraq was maintaining its
unconventional weapons programs. But developing weapons is not the same as
possessing weapons. Bush and his advisers did not argue that the United States
was compelled to go to war--rather than support more intrusive
inspections--because Hussein had ongoing weapons programs; they claimed the
United States had to invade because it was imminently threatened by actual
weapons that were in Hussein's mitts (and that he could slip at any moment to
his partners in al Qaeda).
Before the war, there was
little doubt that Hussein had a fancy for mass-killing weapons and was defying
UN disarmament resolutions in part to maintain programs to develop such awful
devices. Yet a desire for WMDs and a development program are not as threatening
as the real things, and Bush and his colleagues said the intelligence
showed--without question--Hussein was armed with biological and chemical
weapons, was close to building a nuclear bomb, and was in league with Osama bin
Laden. Kerr's comments offer further proof none of this was true.
So did front-page headlines
scream, "Former Deputy CIA Director Contradicts Bush's Key War
Claims"? Nope. Kerr's remarks were treated more as a hiccup than a
bombshell. A search of the Lexis-Nexis newspaper database turned up only three
stories that were published; they appeared in the Post, The Los Angeles Times,
and The San Diego Union-Tribune. And the headlines focused on Kerr's rah-rahing
for the CIA. "Basis for Arms Claims Affirmed" (the Post).
"Official Backs Prewar Claims" ( The Los Angeles). "Internal
Review Backs CIA on Iraqi Weapons" ( The San Diego Union-Tribune). Each
piece emphasized Kerr's endorsement of the CIA's analysts, rather than the fact
that his findings revealed that the Bush administration had misrepresented the
work of the analysts. As of this writing, The New York Times has not published a
word about Kerr's preliminary findings. You think it's a coincidence that Kerr
spoke to reporters the day prior to a long holiday weekend? You don't have to be
James Bond to figure that out.
Slowly, official material is
seeping out that confirms the allegation that Bush and his national security
crew misled the country into war. Last week, Representative Jane Harman, the
ranking Democrat on the House intelligence committee, referred to preliminary
findings of a review being conducted by her committee. This examination, like
Kerr's, has found that the intelligence analysts had attached caveats and
qualifiers to their assessments of the WMD threat from Iraq (which Bush never
bothered to mention) and that there had been no good intelligence linking
Hussein with bin Laden. (Click here
to read more about her remarks.)
Perhaps Kerr is right and
that US intelligence analysts had good cause--if not good evidence--to conclude
that Hussein was still on the prowl for WMDs. A cynic, though, might wonder
whether this former senior CIA official (who was a longtime analyst for the
agency) is being overly kind to his alma mater. Nevertheless, the issue at hand
is what Bush and his administration told the public. Kerr's remarks add to the
case against Bush. They are another signal that thorough investigations could
end up establishing that the accusation that Bush lied needs no qualifiers or
caveats.
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