Are the expectations we have for the accuracy of covert US Intelligence unrealistic?

[Sevastopol]

@GIGObuster

…

That proposal BTW was not voted on when Bush realized he did not have the votes.

@Sevastopol

Further consider that when it came to the vote of the UN Security Council concerning Iraq, you know the one where Bush said everyone would have to lay their cards on the table, there was a solid reason why the US couldn’t get the majority it wanted and piked.

:dubious:

@GIGObuster

…When one realizes that the memos came from July 2002, then that and the items mentioned before, shows IMHO a concerted effort to mislead the American people. These are good reasons why this administration needs to be subjected to two or more investigations with subpoena power and putting many of their members under oath, but since Republicans with their “see no evil” mentality continue to enable this administration, it is clear to me what it needs to be done in the next elections…

“Say Dick, the OSP aside, we’ve got the obedient drones in the intelligence game don’t we? Men who’ll tow the administration line?”

“People of bad character, Mr President?” Committed Republicans in the military? Reams of them!"

“How about a black man too? They’ve got gravitas - that Colin guy.”

“You sure you want to burn up your best negro?”

“Fuck Saddam! We’re taking him out!”
(the preceding is illustrative direct speech and does not altogether record actual dialogue.)

[Sevastopol]

@John Mace

Actually, it was just the opposite. it went from WMDs to WMD dvelopment to WMD devlopment related programs.

Which is just what I indicated. The target was redefined as larger and closer, in the sense of easier to achieve. So:

@John Mace

That makes no sense. Your last sentence contradicts your first one.

This was simply a misunderstanding of my post.

@John Mace

Look, you can rant all you want about the decision to go to war. I never supported it, so I’m not going to disagree. The one and only thing I’m saying is that I don’t believe the intelligence agencies of other countries (UK, France, Germany) had concluded no WMDs existed. If you think otherwise, let’s see a cite. France and Germany didn’t object to the war because they thought there were no WMDs, they thought the war was unnecessary even if there were WMDs…

I agree.

To take this back to the OP: Where we differ is on the role of the intelligence community. Bush claimed the US intelligence agencies independently supported each and every conclusion about Iraq he voiced to the public.

What Bush said about Iraq before the war was far more than a mere failure to account for 1990’s produced weapons.

Your position appears to be:

1- the mere failure to account and possibility of continued possession was the main issues.
2 - Bush did in fact have independent support of US intelligence for what he said.

My position is:

1 - the failure to account and possible residue of Chem/Bio weapons were not the main issues that Bush presented.
2 - Such support as Bush had from US intelligence was not arrived at independently or professionally.

[Happy_Clam]

You disagreee with what? That other countries didn’t believe the WMDs were there?

Specifically, I was responding to the “Most countries believed that Iraq had WMD somewhere” line, which, to judge by the responses in this thread, is basically untrue.

[Ravenman]

@Happy Clam

Specifically, I was responding to the “Most countries believed that Iraq had WMD somewhere” line, which, to judge by the responses in this thread, is basically untrue.

@Sevastopol

Other intelligence agencies made objective, professional assessments of that evidence.

Would someone please point me to the evidence that foreign intelligence agencies judged that Saddam had no WMD or WMD programs? One or two cites would be fantastic.

I’ll note that I have already provided a cite that the French intelligence agencies in January 2003 believed that Saddam has prohibited arms, although Chirac did not agree with that assessment.

[John_Mace]

@Sevastopol

What Bush said about Iraq before the war was far more than a mere failure to account for 1990’s produced weapons.

That’s true, but it doesn’t follow that alleged “reconstitution” efforts were the main thrust of his argument. The existence of WMD’s were the sine qua non for Bush’s casus belii. Claiming that SH was still developing new WMDs was more like icing on the cake. I’m not sure how important that distinction is, though, since both claims were wrong.

[gonzomax]

Almost everything Powell said was not true.Ritter and the other inspectors went where the administration sent them and found nothing.Wilson had already told them that the uranium in Niger was false.They showed an artistic rendition of a weapons lab.It was theater.The truth was available on the internet.The response is to laugh and poke fun at the netters…It now comes out that the intelligence was given to them.The plan was to go to war. Remember in Bushs speech when he named the axis of evil.Afghanistan,Iraq,I.ran and N,Korea.He attacked Afghanistan.Then Iraq.So why are we surprised Iran is after nuclear weaponswHAT WOULD YOU DOif youwere them.

[Voyager]

@John Mace

That’s true, but it doesn’t follow that alleged “reconstitution” efforts were the main thrust of his argument. The existence of WMD’s were the sine qua non for Bush’s casus belii. Claiming that SH was still developing new WMDs was more like icing on the cake. I’m not sure how important that distinction is, though, since both claims were wrong.

No. The justification for going to war was that the WMDs posed an imminent threat, and that we could not wait for continued inspections. I’m quite sure that no intelligence agency anywhere claimed that there were no WMDs at the time (which is the crucial factor - not what they believed a year or two years before.) It is possible that the results of the inspections were making the European intelligence agencies reduce their estimate of the probability of the existence of a significant number of WMDs. Bush and company reacted to this information by accelerating the drive to war.

One of the criticisms of the way the White House and Pentagon handled intelligence before the war was that there was a path from the Pentagon office to Bush without analysis of the likelihood of the intelligence being true. That’s what bit them about the tubes. You can’t take intelligence from someone like Chalabi without considering ulterior motives.

My answer to the OP is no. However, it appears that any expectations that this Administration will act based on a fair analysis of intelligence, as opposed to filtering it so they can do what they want, is unrealistic.