Ex-CIA officer Paul Pillar, now a professor at Georgetown, has published an article in Foreign Affairs that has confirmed many Americans' suspicions that the Bush White House looked for spy information that supported its plans, rather than making plans that responded to threats revealed by intelligence operations. The report is available at this link to Foreign Affairs. For various commentators' perspectives, see this CNN story summarizing key points in his report, this Slate post providing an overview of the blogosphere's reaction to the story, this Chicago Tribune story, this New York Times story, the LeftCoaster blog, and the New York Review of Books (reviewing Pillar's book on Terrorism and the CIA, among others).
Paul Pillar was the CIA national intelligence officer for the Near East and South Asia from 2000 through 2005. Key claims that he makes in the report include the following:
- Intelligence was misued to justify decisions already made: "In the wake of the Iraq war, it has become clear that official intelligence analysis was not relied on in making even the most significant national security decisions, that intelligence was misused publicly to justify decisions already made."
- The Iraq invasion disregarded strategic assessments about Iraq: The Bush White House invaded Iraq "without requesting--and evidently without being influenced by--any strategic-level intelligence assessments on any aspect of Iraq." The information disregarded included predictions of strife between Sunnis and Shiites and the need to establish security and a beneficial administration immediately upon occupying Iraq.
- The Bush White House pushed a non-existent connection between al Queda and Saddam. According to Pillar, "the administration wanted to hitch the Iraq expedition to the 'war on terror' and the threat the American people feared most, thereby capitalizing on the country's militant post-9/11 mood."
Pillar notes in particular the August 2002 speech by Dick Cheney that asserted that the intelligence community had provided strong evidence that Saddam was close to having operational nuclear weapons. That claim was contrary to the views of the intelligence community, who were left "to register varying degrees of private protest."
Pillar confirmed much of what Richard Clark has already written in his book excoriating the Bush White House for its having decided to go to war in Iraq in the first (pre-9/11) days of the Bush administration and its misuse of intelligence to justify a unilateral, "pre-emptive" war. Pillar underscores the lack of intelligence support for Bush's claim in his 2003 State of the Union address that Iraq was purchasing uranium ore from Africa. That address was an important part of Bush's buildup to war: he clearly recognized a need to deliver some evidence of a link between Saddam and an imminent threat to the United States.
What are Pillar's recommendations for the future? As with all the other issues in the executive branch of government today, he recognizes a problem of accountability to the people. He suggests non-partisan oversight of intelligence operations, with greater accountability to Congress. Regretably, the "reforms" pushed through after 9/11 have moved in the opposite direction, making the intelligence agencies more clearly a part of the "political" operations of the White House by having the heads of the agencies serve at the pleasure of the President.
Congress should pay heed to these reports from former intelligence and national security officials. Their view of the problems at the core of our intelligence operations--especially the ability of White House officials to misuse intelligence in the interest of partisan politics--calls out for reform that makes intelligence operations more accountable to Congress and the people. Their understanding of the pervasive and long-term nature of terrorism, to be understood in terms of small struggles and combatting recruitment more than in military terms seems to consider military might the answer to almost all problems could benefit from.
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