This is what Bush WANTED, further proof

Bloomberg.com: Worldwide

Pre-War Intelligence Acts `Inappropriate,’ U.S. Finds (Update4)

By Tony Capaccio

Feb. 9 (Bloomberg) — U.S. Defense Department officials prepared pre-war intelligence reports that may have exaggerated links between Iraq and al-Qaeda, the Pentagon inspector general said today.

Two offices set up under then-Undersecretary for Policy Douglas Feith before the March 2003 invasion of Iraq produced reports that formed the basis for the administration’s key pre- war claim that Saddam Hussein might provide weapons of mass destruction to the terrorist group.

These actions were authorized by then-Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and his deputy, Paul Wolfowitz, Inspector General Thomas Gimble told the Senate Armed Services Committee.

While “not illegal or unauthorized,” the actions “were inappropriate” because they did not “clearly show the variance with the consensus of the intelligence community,” Gimbel said.

Committee chairman Carl Levin called Gimbel’s report “devastating.” Feith’s operation produced what amounted to “an alternative analysis,” prepared “without the knowledge of the intelligence community,” that was used “to back a decision to go to war,” Levin said.

The committee released only the two-page executive summary of Gimble’s review, which was prepared at the request of Levin, Democrat of Michigan, and Republican Senator Pat Roberts of Kansas, former chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee.

Relationship

Levin and other critics contend that assessments produced by the Pentagon office were skewed to portray an active pre-war relationship between Hussein and the al-Qaeda terrorist organization, while the intelligence community saw virtually none. Following the U.S.-led invasion, al-Qaeda operatives did become active in Iraq, targeting U.S. forces and helping to foment sectarian violence.

“The Feith office is the one that produced the key alternative analysis which provided that material,” Levin said in an interview. “It was key, it was vital, it was what the White House used to make the linkage to terrorist groups.”

Gimbel cited a briefing given in September 2002 at the White House to National Security Adviser Steven Hadley and Lewis Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney’s former chief of staff. The briefing, given without Central Intelligence Agency approval, purported a relationship between Iraq and al-Qaeda that “was not supported by the available intelligence,” Gimbel said.

`Undercut’ CIA

Gimbel said Feith’s staff did not present CIA findings and further “undercut” the intelligence community by presenting a slide that said “there were fundamental problems” with the way the CIA and other analysts assessed information about the alleged Iraq-Iran link.

Levin said he planned to have his staff pursue this meeting, which came as the Bush administration was building the case for war that it would present to Congress and the United Nations.

He said he would have his staff interview the Feith analysts who briefed Hadley and Libby and would seek interviews with these two officials as well. He did not say whether he intended to question Feith.

Feith, now a professor of national security policy at Georgetown University in Washington who’s writing a book on the Iraq war, said the report shows “everything we did was lawful and authorized and we did not mislead Congress.”

“The issue of the appropriate process for policy people to use to criticize intelligence work is minor compared to the key conclusions,” Feith said in a written statement.

Republicans Dissent

Republicans on committee often disagreed strongly with Levin and the report’s findings.

“I strongly disagree,” Christopher Bond of Missouri, said. “How can something that is `authorized’ and `legal’ also be `inappropriate?’ That doesn’t pass the common sense test.”

James Inhofe of Oklahoma dismissed most of Gimble’s report as depicting a “turf battle” between competing bureaucrats.

“These matters have been scrutinized at least three times in the last three years by bipartisan, nonpartisan groups,” Inhofe said. The Senate Intelligence Committee, for example, “unanimously reported that it found that this process, the policy-makers’ probing questions, actually improved the CIA’s process,” he said.

Said Georgia Senator Saxby Chambliss: “I’m trying to figure out why we are here. We are beating this horse one more time.”

Gimbel, in his summary, said that, in future, the Pentagon’s closer relationship with the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, set up in 2005, will “significantly reduce the opportunity for inappropriate conduct of intelligence activities outside of intelligence channels.”

White House, Pentagon Response

White House spokesman Dana Perino told reporters today she couldn’t describe the relationship between Feith and President George W. Bush but that Bush “has long acknowledged that the intelligence leading up to the war in Iraq was inaccurate.”

Air Force Lieutenant Colonel Karen Finn, a Pentagon spokeswoman, said “these matters have been scrutinized at least three times in the last three years by bipartisan and non- partisan groups,” and now the Pentagon Inspector General has concluded that the activities of Feith’s office “ were legal and authorized.”

Defense Secretary Robert Gates responded “I have a problem with that,” when Levin asked his views on the Feith operation during Gates’ confirmation hearing in December.

Levin said the report is valuable because it casts new light on the material the administration used to justify the war.

“If we are not going to repeat the mistakes of the past, there has got to be accountability,” Levin said. “You just repeat mistakes if there is no looking back and trying to find out what the facts were and holding people accountable the best way we can.”

To contact the reporter on this story: Tony Capaccio at acapaccio@bloomberg.net
Last Updated: February 9, 2007 15:58 EST

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