Ex-CIA Official Rips Iraq War Case
WASHINGTON -- The former CIA official charged with managing the U.S. government's secret intelligence assessments on Iraq says the Bush administration chose war first and then misleadingly used raw data to assemble a public case for its decision to invade.Can you find the understatement of the year in this article?
Paul Pillar, who was the CIA's national intelligence officer for the Middle East and South Asia from 2000 to 2005, said the Bush administration also played on the nation's fears in the wake of the 2001 terrorist attacks, falsely linking Al Qaeda to Saddam Hussein's regime even though intelligence agencies had not produced a single analysis supporting "the notion of an alliance" between the two.
Instead, Pillar writes in the upcoming issue of the journal Foreign Affairs, connections were drawn between the terrorists and Iraq because "the administration wanted to hitch the Iraq expedition to the `war on terror' and the threat the American public feared most, thereby capitalizing on the country's militant post-9/11 mood."
The specific critiques in Pillar's 4,500-word essay, titled, "Intelligence, Policy and the War in Iraq," are not new. But it apparently is the first time such attacks are being publicly leveled by such a high-ranking intelligence official directly involved behind the scenes--before, during and after the invasion of Iraq nearly three years ago.
Because of his position, Pillar would have had access to, and likely intimate knowledge about, virtually every piece of Iraq-related intelligence maintained across all agencies within the U.S. government.
[...]
But in his essay, the man responsible for coordinating the intelligence community's collective view of Iraq directly challenged the notion that the prevailing wisdom within the nation's spy services supported the decision to invade. In fact, Pillar wrote, "If the entire body of official intelligence analysis on Iraq had a policy implication, it was to avoid war ."
He also wrote that the Bush administration "used intelligence not to inform decision-making but to justify a decision already made"--to topple Hussein's regime.
In making its case, the administration aggressively promoted pieces of "intelligence to win public support for its decision to go to war," Pillar said.
He also said: "This meant selectively adducing data--`cherry-picking'--rather than using the intelligence community's own analytic judgments."
"The specific critiques are not new."
Well, duh.
Most people with brains were stating these very critiques before the war started, but they were marginalized by most in the media as naive, weak liberals at best, unpatriotic America-haters/terrorist lovers at worst.
Official intelligence analysis out of the CIA was recommending a policy to avoid war. I guess we can't blame the CIA for this one, Georgie.
Another duh.
I wonder if the Chicago Tribune editorial board will reconsider their whitewash (disguised as "objective analysis) of the Bush administration's decision to invade Iraq just a little over a month ago.
After all, Paul Pillar is no mere resident of Left Blogistan or member of the new "angry left" that made Preznit Bubble Boy uncomfortable last week at Coretta Scott King's funeral. He "had access to" and "intimate knowledge of virtually every piece of Iraq-related intelligence maintained across all agencies within the U.S. government."
I won't hold my breath for a Tribune flip-flop, but maybe next time the corporate media can ask some questions before a reckless administration starts an unnecessary war. You know, like, do their job, and not worry so much about upsetting the powerful.
One final request/way to make Bush supporters' heads explode: print off copies of the article above so you can hand it to the Bushian cultists when they talk about war critics seeking to "rewrite history." Then, watch them mutter under their breath something about the "left-wing" Chicago Tribune.
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