In the run-up the war, the administration relied on what's called a National Intelligence Estimate for Iraq. NIE are supposed to represent the combined judgements of all major intel agencies. But something funny happened with the NIE for Iraq. The classified report, which was compiled in a matter of weeks rather than the usual months, played up threats and played down caveats. Then a declassified versio, which was released before the the war,went a step further, eliminating caveats while adding hyperbolic phrases. For an example, let's turn to the LAT (one of the few papers that covered the report's morphing, albiet inside the paper):
The classified NIE stated, for instance, that "Iraq has some lethal and incapacitating BW [biological weapons] agents and is capable of quickly producing … a variety of such agents, including anthrax, for delivery by bombs, missiles, aerial sprayers and covert operatives."
In the unclassified version, the words "potentially against the U.S. homeland" are inserted at the end of the statement.
The LAT story was based on a Senate committee report. As the LAT put it, the committee report "laid out numerous instances in which the unclassified version omitted key dissenting opinions about Iraqi weapons capabilities, [and] overstated U.S. knowledge about Iraq's alleged stockpiles of weapons."
And who exactly was reponsible for the changes? Was it a case of institutional ass-kissing, people at every turn just trying to please the bosses? I'd vote for that. But who knows, it's possible it was something more pernicious. And here-in lies the mystery. Back to the LAT for a moment:
During a briefing before the report was released, one committee aide said the Senate panel had asked [former CIA chief] Tenet and Stu Cohen — who, as acting chairman of the National Intelligence Council, oversaw production of the NIE — who was responsible for inserting those words into the unclassified document. 'They did not know and could not explain,' said the aide, speaking on condition of anonymity."
And there the question lies for the moment.
P.S. One reason this sexing-up scandal hasn't hit the frontpages: It's a bit hard to compare the more carefully written classified NIE with its public version. Why? Well, the classified version has been released but--slight bump in the road here--79 of the 93 pages have been completely blacked out.
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