1 Boring Old Man

National Intelligence Estimates
Council on Foreign Relations
by Greg Bruno and Sharon Otterman
May 14, 2008

Controversy Surrounding 2002 NIE on Iraq

^{Drawing partly from existing agency and interagency papers, the prewar estimate on Iraq’s weapons program determined that Iraq “is reconstituting its nuclear program,” “has chemical and biological weapons,” and was developing an unmanned aerial vehicle “probably intended to deliver biological warfare agents.” Yet most of the key judgments have since been debunked as inaccurate, false, or misleading.}

^{The principal reason for the failure was faulty analysis based on outdated intelligence. According to the Senate committee’s July 2004 report, analysts who wrote the NIE relied more on an assumption that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction (WMD) than on an objective evaluation of the information they were reviewing. This group-think dynamic, the report states, led analysts, intelligence collectors, and managers to “interpret ambiguous evidence as conclusively indicative of a WMD program” and led them to “ignore or minimize evidence that Iraq did not have an active and expanding program.” This problem was compounded by a lack of reliable information from inside Iraq. After UN weapons inspectors left Iraq in 1998, the U.S. intelligence community did not have any human intelligence sources in Iraq collecting information about WMD.}

^{Other criticism included poor information sharing among intelligence agencies, substandard management, and a stepped-up time frame due to the threat of war. President George W. Bush asked Congress in mid-September 2002 to pass a resolution granting the U.S. broad authority to use military action against Iraq. But no NIE existed on the status of Iraq’s WMD program and much uncertainty surrounded the claims being made by Bush administration officials regarding the threat posed by Iraq’s WMD. In requesting the NIE on “an immediate basis,” Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) wrote to the director of central intelligence that she “deeply believe[d] that such an estimate is vital to congressional decision-making, and most specifically, [to] any resolution which may come before the Senate.”}

^{Not all agencies involved concurred with the NIE’s conclusions. Two footnotes have come to public attention. In one, the State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research dissented from the intelligence community’s majority view that Baghdad was reconstituting its nuclear-weapons program, saying there was not enough evidence to reach that conclusion. In particular, it raised doubts about whether a large shipment of aluminum tubes sought by Iraq was intended for centrifuges to enrich nuclear fuel, as asserted by other agencies. In another footnote, the U.S. Air Force’s director for intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance questioned whether the unmanned aerial vehicles being developed by Iraq were “probably” intended to deliver biological agents. Instead, he said that would be an unlikely mission for such aircraft…}

• Iraq has largely rebuilt missile and biological weapons facilities damaged during Operation Desert Fox and has expanded its chemical and biological infrastructure under the cover of civilian production.

Operation Desert Fox was a joint US/UK bombing attack on Iraq in December 1998 touted to "degrade" Hussein’s WMD production. It was undertaken without UN approval or mandate. Hussein never "expelled" the UN Inspectors. They left so as not to be bombed. The targets were designed to weaken Hussein’s regime, not to "degrade" his weapons program. In fact, we couldn’t identify actual weapons sites to bomb. So this statement in the NIE was a myth on top of a myth. Desert Fox was actually part of the US/UK "Regime Change" meme undermining the UN Inspection Program [and some even thought it was an attempt to divert attention from Clinton’s impeachment hearings].

^{According to Department of Defense personnel with whom Arkin spoke, Central Command chief Anthony Zinni insisted that the U.S. only attack biological and chemical sites that "had been identified with a high degree of certainty." And the reason for the low number of targets, said Arkin, was because intelligence specialists "could not identify actual weapons sites with enough specificity to comply with Zinni’s directive." Dr. Brian Jones was the top intelligence analyst on chemical, biological and nuclear weapons at the Ministry of Defence. He told BBC Panorama in 2004 that Defence Intelligence Staff in Whitehall did not have a high degree of confidence any of the facilities identified, targeted and bombed in Operation Desert Fox were active in producing weapons of mass destruction. Jones’ testimony is supported by the former Deputy Chief of Defence Intelligence, John Morrison, who informed the same program that, before the operation had ended, DIS came under pressure to validate a prepared statement to be delivered by then Prime Minister Tony Blair, declaring military activity an unqualified success. Large-scale damage assessment takes time, responded Morrison, therefore his department declined to sign up to a premature statement. "After Desert Fox, I actually sent a note round to all the analysts involved congratulating them on standing firm in the face of, in some cases, individual pressure to say things that they knew weren’t true". Later on, after careful assessment and consideration, Defence Intelligence Staff determined that the bombing had not been all that effective. Within days of speaking out on the program, Morrison was informed by former New Labour cabinet minister Ann Taylor that he was to lose his job as Chief Investigator to the Intelligence and Security Committee.}

• Since inspections ended in 1998, Iraq has maintained its chemical weapons effort, energized its missile program, and invested more heavily in biological weapons; in the view of most Agencies, Baghdad is reconstituting its nuclear weapons program.