We have to go back 20 years or so. In the lead up to the 2001 Iraq war, the Neocons in Washington had a ‘favorite” named A. Chalabi who lead the Iraqi National Council (INC), which was basically Kurd portion of Iraq related. The Neocons had all kinds of money placed into the INC including money to have them supply Humint Intelligence. This HUMINT was called dismissively KURDINT within the IC, and considered basically garbage. When Bush came into the White House under the SECDEF (Rumsfield) there was set up an office under OUSD/Policy (Feith) which used all kinds of intelligence, but mostly KURDINT to paint a picture which would support going to war in Iraq. Theses people we all over Washington briefing this story. Many people consider these briefings as the under pinning of getting the American people for the Iraq war.
After the 2nd Iraq war, certain people in Washington realized what had happened, and there was several Congressional investigations which had slightly different results. Finally powerful people were powerful enough to get the DODIG to investigate. The original report was classified SECRET/NOFORN. A declassified version of the report was quickly released. The related final report is titled “ DoD Inspector General Report on Review of the Pre-Iraqi War Activities of the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy(Report No. 07-INTEL-04 ) February 9, 2007. A summary briefing is at: www.dodig.mil/…
In the summary report above it is stated:
Finding:
OUSD(P)'s Use of lntelligence
- The Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy [OUSD(P)] developed, produced, and then disseminated alternative intelligence assessments on the Iraq and al-Qaida relationship, which included some conclusions that were inconsistent with the consensus of the Intelligence Community, to senior decision makers.
- While such actions were not illegal or unauthorized, the actions were,in our opinion, inappropriate given that the products did not clearly show the variance with the consensus of the Intelligence Community and were, in some cases, shown as intelligence products.
- This condition occurred because the OUSD(P) expanded its role and mission from formulating Defense Policy to analyzing and disseminating alternative intelligence. As a result, the OUSD(P) did not provide "the most accurate analysis of intelligence" to senior decision makers.
There are more points that are relevant to the current situation in the DODIG report. I suggest you at least read the summary briefing cited above. There are several pdf files associated with the FOIA declassified original report. The first pdf is at : www.dodig.mil/…
People need to keep the past history in mind, especially when the Trump administration wants to “see the raw intelligence”. You need to ask:
- For what purpose do they want to see the intel?
- Is the Trump administration planning to set up a similar operation within the National Security Council. a policy organization, to do “alternative intelligence”?