Ex-Cia Official : The Intelligence Data was Misused

Finally an honest man in a sea of cowards.

Ex-CIA Official Faults Use of Data on Iraq
Intelligence 'Misused' to Justify War, He Says

By Walter Pincus
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, February 10, 2006; Page A01

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.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/20...

Now to a lot of us, this aint "News". We've been saying this for years. It's nice to see that someone from a position to know is finally saying it, and it makes me wonder how John McCain feels about all those intelligence officials who "looked him in the Eye and said they didn't feel any pressure to manipulate the intelligence" to meet the goals of President Bush. Apparently it didn't matter what they thought or said, Bush was going to do what he was going to do anyway. (Again, not a surprise - because Bush has admitted this too).

No, I have just one question for Senator Roberts (head of the Senate intelligence committee that two freaking years ago was suppose to investigate what Mr. Pillar has just told the Washington Post) -- "How's Phase II of the WMD investigation come along, eh? I think we just might have a witness for you..."

Vyan