Walter Pincus reports in Friday's Washington Post that Paul R. Pillar, the CIA's retired national intelligence officer for the Near East and Asia, is writing an expose in an upcoming issue of the journal of
Foreign Affairs that
intelligence was 'Misued' to justify war.Pillar's critique is one of the most severe indictments of White House actions by a former Bush official since Richard C. Clarke, a former National Security Council staff member, went public with his criticism
Some choice comments below the fold:
"Official intelligence on Iraqi weapons programs was flawed, but even with its flaws, it was not what led to the war"
the administration "went to war without requesting -- and evidently without being influenced by -- any strategic-level intelligence assessments on any aspect of Iraq."
Pillar wrote that the prewar intelligence asserted Hussein's "weapons capacities," but he said the "broad view" within the United States and overseas "was that Saddam was being kept 'in his box' " by U.N. sanctions, and that the best way to deal with him was through "an aggressive inspections program to supplement sanctions already in place."
"If the entire body of official intelligence analysis on Iraq had a policy implication," Pillar wrote, "it was to avoid war -- or, if war was going to be launched, to prepare for a messy aftermath."
Pillar describes for the first time that the intelligence community did assessments before the invasion that, he wrote, indicated a postwar Iraq "would not provide fertile ground for democracy" and would need "a Marshall Plan-type effort" to restore its economy despite its oil revenue. It also foresaw Sunnis and Shiites fighting for power.
The administration of course declined to comment for the article.
Reading on in Foreign Affairs, there's even more:
The most serious problem with U.S. intelligence today is that its relationship with the policymaking process is broken and badly needs repair.
A MODEL UPENDED
The proper relationship between intelligence gathering and policymaking sharply separates the two functions.
...
The Bush administration's use of intelligence on Iraq did not just blur this distinction; it turned the entire model upside down. The administration used intelligence not to inform decision-making, but to justify a decision already made.
This article goes on to discuss the politicization of intelligence and finally some words on how to fix the intelligence-policy relationship.
Will this finally be the straw that breaks the Bush administration's back?