Jun 05 2008

Senate Intelligence Committee Phase II Report Released

(2:00PM EST – promoted by Nightprowlkitty)

Reported by David Kurtz at Talking Points Memo the Senate Intelligence Committee has released its “Phase II” report on pre-War Iraq Intelligence-

Report on Whether Public Statements Regarding Iraq by U.S. Government officials Were Substantiated by Intelligence Information

Report on Intelligence Activities Relating to Iraq Conducted by the Policy Counterterrorism Evaluation Group and the Office of Special Plans Within the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy

Both .pdf.

David also attaches portions of a summary press release from the office of Senator Jay Rockefeller.

  • Statements and implications by the President and Secretary of State suggesting that Iraq and al-Qa’ida had a partnership, or that Iraq had provided al-Qa’ida with weapons training, were not substantiated by the intelligence.
  • Statements by the President and the Vice President indicating that Saddam Hussein was prepared to give weapons of mass destruction to terrorist groups for attacks against the United States were contradicted by available intelligence information.
  • Statements by President Bush and Vice President Cheney regarding the postwar situation in Iraq, in terms of the political, security, and economic, did not reflect the concerns and uncertainties expressed in the intelligence products.
  • Statements by the President and Vice President prior to the October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate regarding Iraq’s chemical weapons production capability and activities did not reflect the intelligence community’s uncertainties as to whether such production was ongoing.
  • The Secretary of Defense’s statement that the Iraqi government operated underground WMD facilities that were not vulnerable to conventional airstrikes because they were underground and deeply buried was not substantiated by available intelligence information.
  • The Intelligence Community did not confirm that Muhammad Atta met an Iraqi intelligence officer in Prague in 2001 as the Vice President repeatedly claimed.

Bush lied.

People died.

36 comments

Skip to comment form

  1. I think this is big news.

  2. A comprehensive, detailed, and extremely well sourced account of BushCo’s pre-war lies.

    We can only nope that this document will one day be submitted as Exhibit A at the cabal’s war crimes trial before the International Criminal Court.

  3. Of interest, perhaps, is this:

    Dennis Cimino says he wrote to the ICC 10 times before getting this form letter response.  I [being David Swanson] don’t know what he wrote, but I recommend that you write to them too. Their address is on the letter.

    International

  4. … back in the days of the Republican Rubberstamp Congress when Sen. Pat Roberts kept stonewalling over and over again … I remember when Harry Reid shut down the Senate over this.

    And now all this time later we finally see the report.

    Impeach these bastards.  Now.

  5. The Phase II report is already out?

    Holy shit!  That was fast!

    THANK YOU, Senate Intelligence Committee!

  6. Notice any differences between headlines and the first five paragraphs?

    McClatchy: Senate committee: Bush knew Iraq claims weren’t true

    A long-awaited Senate Select Intelligence Committee report made public Thursday concludes that President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney made public statements to promote an invasion of Iraq that they knew at the time were not supported by available intelligence.

    A companion report found that a special office set up by then Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld undertook “sensitive intelligence activities” that were inappropriate “without the knowledge of the Intelligence Community or the State Department.”

    “Before taking the country to war, this administration owed it to the American people to give them a 100 percent accurate picture of the threat we faced. Unfortunately, our Committee has concluded that the administration made significant claims that were not supported by the intelligence,” said committee Chairman John D. Rockefeller IV, D- W. Va.

    It’s long been known that the administration’s claims in the runup to the Iraq war, from Saddam Hussein’s alleged ties to al Qaida to whether Iraq had an active nuclear weapons program, were incorrect. But the Senate report is the first official examination of whether the president and vice president knew that their claims were incorrect at the time that they made them.

    “There is no question we all relied on flawed intelligence. But, there is a fundamental difference between relying on incorrect intelligence and deliberately painting a picture to the American people that you know is not fully accurate,” Rockefeller said in a statement.

    NY Times: Senate Panel Accuses Bush of Iraq Exaggerations

    In a report long delayed by partisan squabbling, the Senate Intelligence Committee on Thursday accused President Bush and Vice President Cheney of taking the country to war in Iraq by exaggerating evidence of links between Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda in the emotional aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.

    “The president and his advisers undertook a relentless public campaign in the aftermath of the attacks to use the war against Al Qaeda as a justification for overthrowing Saddam Hussein,” Sen. John D. Rockefeller IV, the committee’s Democratic chairman, said in a statement accompanying the 171-page report.

    The committee’s report cited some instances in which public statements by senior administration officials were not supported by the intelligence available at the time, such as suggestions that Saddam Hussein’s Iraq and Osama bin Laden’s al Qaeda were operating in a kind of partnership, that the Baghdad regime had provided the terrorist network with weapons training, and that one of the Sept. 11 hijackers had met an Iraqi intelligence operative in Prague in 2001.

    But the report found that on several key issues, including Iraq’s alleged nuclear, biological and chemical weapons programs, public statements from Mr. Bush, Mr. Cheney and other top officials before the war were generally “substantiated” by the best estimates of the intelligence agencies, though the statements did not always reflect the agencies’ uncertainty about the evidence. All the weapons claims were disproved after invading troops found no unconventional arsenal and little effort to build one.

    Republicans on the committee sharply dissented from some of its findings and attached a detailed minority report that listed pre-war statements by Mr. Rockefeller and other Democrats describing the threat posed by Iraq.

    Once again the NY Times covers for the Bush administration.

    • DWG on June 5, 2008 at 21:11
    • #

    None of what Bush and Cheney told the American people were supported by the available intelligence.  A war that has already cost nearly a trillion dollars and is projected to cost 3 trillion by the time it is over.  A war that has cost the lives of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis.  A war that has been instability to the Middle East. A war that has made no one safer, either in Iraq or in America.  And the war criminals that started lied about it all and got away with it.  

    Can someone explain to me again why Rockefeller wants to give the Telcoms and the Bush administration immunity for violating the FISA laws?  Seems to me when you looking at an administration that lied us into a war, the last you would want to do is let them off the hook on anything.

    Since Johnny McBush wants to run on Iraq, I hope this report will be used in creative ways to bludgeon his candidacy into the ground.

    • brobin on June 5, 2008 at 21:47
    • #

    I’m beginning to sound like a broken record even to myself these days, but dammit, what information has to come forward before Congress will do their damned job!?!

Comments have been disabled.