The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence has completed its report on whether President Bush misrepresented the facts in making a case to go to war with Iraq. The results?
On Iraq’s nuclear weapons program? The president’s statements “were generally substantiated by intelligence community estimates.”
On biological weapons, production capability and those infamous mobile laboratories? The president’s statements “were substantiated by intelligence information.”
On chemical weapons, then? “Substantiated by intelligence information.”
On weapons of mass destruction overall (a separate section of the intelligence committee report)? “Generally substantiated by intelligence information.” Delivery vehicles such as ballistic missiles? “Generally substantiated by available intelligence.” Unmanned aerial vehicles that could be used to deliver WMDs? “Generally substantiated by intelligence information.”
As you read through the report, you begin to think maybe you’ve mistakenly picked up the minority dissent. But, no, this is the Rockefeller indictment. So, you think, the smoking gun must appear in the section on Bush’s claims about Saddam Hussein’s alleged ties to terrorism.
But statements regarding Iraq’s support for terrorist groups other than al-Qaeda “were substantiated by intelligence information.” Statements that Iraq provided safe haven for Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and other terrorists with ties to al-Qaeda “were substantiated by the intelligence assessments,” and statements regarding Iraq’s contacts with al-Qaeda “were substantiated by intelligence information.” The report is left to complain about “implications” and statements that “left the impression” that those contacts led to substantive Iraqi cooperation.
These findings should come as no surprise to anybody who actually paid attention to what was being said six years ago but might be pretty startling to anybody whose sole notions about events come from after the fact analyses and rationalizations of various political actors.
In my view the entire dialogue that has followed the attacks on September 11, 2001 have been tragically, desperately wrong-headed and it went wrong almost from the get-go. That’s how I’ve thought about it for some time. Here, in quick, bullet form, is my take.
• On September 20, 2001 President Bush announced a war on all terrorist groups of global reach.
• There was genuine, sincere, honest disagreement on this.
• Rather than airing the disagreement openly many of those who disagreed elected to remain silent generally for purposes of appearances and political posturing.
• By January 2002 most major news outlets had cast aside any semblance of balance or honesty in anticipation of the 2002 midterm elections.
• Any administration in power at the time would have done much what the Bush Administration has done. Including invading Iraq.
• Our human intelligence on Iraq was lousy.
• The Senate should never have passed the AUMF. If those who disagreed with the breadth of the WOT as declared by GWB had expressed their disagreement at the time they might well not have. The AUMF was passed for reasons of appearances and electoral strategization.
• Lots of mistakes were made in managing the occupation of Iraq, largely motivated by domestic political considerations.
• There was no good way to manage the occupation. The only way to win the game was not to play.
So, what are we left with? The way the people who were in the Senate then and are in the Senate now arrive at their decisions is basically, fundamentally flawed. Fundamental institutional reform is needed—changing hats won’t cut it. We need to open a new can of Senators.
This is from the senate intelligence committee’s page.
The Committee’s report cites several conclusions in which the Administration’s public statements were NOT supported by the intelligence. They include:
Ø 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.
Ø 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.
Ø 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.
Ø 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.
Ø 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.
Ø The Intelligence Community did not confirm that Muhammad Atta met an Iraqi intelligence officer in Prague in 2001 as the Vice President repeatedly claimed.
Is this the same report that Fred Hiatt is citing?
Dave:
Hiatt got spun. Or maybe spun himself.
As for your separate bullet points, I agree with most. But not with this:
Any administration in power at the time would have done much what the Bush Administration has done. Including invading Iraq.
Unlike you, I supported the invasion, but I do not believe the invasion was politically inevitable. I think it’s a pretty far stretch to assume that any president would have done the same. Not every president would have spun and cherry-picked the intel, not every president would have taken such a blinkered approach to the intel, and lacking those distortions it’s hard to see how this “possible” president could have stampeded the body politic the way Mr. Bush did.
As for this:
Lots of mistakes were made in managing the occupation of Iraq, largely motivated by domestic political considerations.
Some of it was domestic politics. But a lot of it was Rumsfeld playing out his own theories and riding his favorite hobby horses.
And I don’t see a basis for this conclusion:
There was no good way to manage the occupation. The only way to win the game was not to play.
Of course we could have managed the occupation with a sufficient commitment of forces. We simultaneously occupied Japan and much of Germany at a time when our population, wealth and power were far smaller relative to the nations under occupation.
We didn’t have to screw it up in Iraq, but we did. We didn’t commit, we made mistakes, and we failed to fix our mistakes in a timely manner.
Despite the imbecility and incompetence we displayed early in Iraq, we have now made progress there. We seem — for now, at least — to be doing just what you say we cannot do: manage a successful occupation.
I think it was Winston Churchill who said that the Americans always do the right thing. When all other alternatives have been exhausted.
Actually, I hope we do develop the political will to do the right thing in Iraq which, as I hope I’ve made clear here over the years, is to stay there until the country is more stable than it is now. I think that will be a generation or more.
As to the success of the occupation, what we’re doing is certainly more successful than what we were doing but I doubt that I will live long enough to see whether the occupation has actually been successful.