Home > Did Bush pressure CIA?
BY T. CHRISTIAN MILLER AND MAURA REYNOLDS
Friday’s Senate report on intelligence on Iraq drew a new battle line in this fall’s presidential campaign by failing to settle perhaps the most controversial question of all: Did the White House pressure the CIA to concoct reasons to invade Iraq?
The question split the Senate Intelligence Committee’s otherwise bipartisan unanimity on the intelligence failures in Iraq, with Democrats saying they had a "major disagreement" with Republicans over the issue.
Republicans noted in the report’s conclusion that no intelligence analysts said they were pressured. But Democrats objected, saying there was ample evidence that top Bush administration officials had intimidated analysts to twist their judgments about whether Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction.
In the end, the committee decided to put off consideration of the Bush administration’s use of intelligence, assuring the issue a prominent role in the presidential campaign.
"The committee’s report fails to fully explain the environment of intense pressure in which the intelligence community officials were asked to render judgments on matters relating to Iraq when the most senior officials in the Bush administration had already forcefully and repeatedly stated their conclusions publicly," said Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.), the committee’s ranking minority member.
Sen. Pat Roberts (R-Kan.), the committee chair, shot back: "I do not think there is any evidence of undue pressure on any analyst."
The disagreement centered on the definition of "pressure."
Many of the intelligence analysts who came before the committee reported feeling political pressure, especially from the Defense Department, on the links between Iraq and al-Qaida.
Analysts said they were repeatedly told to go back and review old intelligence reports and documents to determine whether they had overlooked connections between the regime of former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden.
However, the committee’s conclusion noted that no analysts reported changing a decision on Iraq, its links to al-Qaida or its threat capabilities because of political pressure.
Instead, many analysts said that the pressure served only to make sure they weren’t missing anything.
Democrats on the committee, while acknowledging that they had unanimously approved the report, said they disagreed there had been no political pressure.
Of particular concern was an intelligence meeting in August 2002 attended by representatives from the office of Doug Feith, the Pentagon’s deputy undersecretary for policy and a fervent proponent of the war. The Pentagon officials criticized the CIA failures to turn up a link between bin Laden and Hussein and presented evidence that they said had been ignored.
Several analysts told the committee it was "unusual" to have the Pentagon representatives attend their meeting, which was an initial gathering to begin a broader look at the links between Iraq and terrorism. Nonetheless, none of the analysts said they changed their conclusions as a result of the Feith employees’ presence.
Democrats, however, said the meeting was a clear indication that the administration had created a climate of pressure that affected analysts.