CIA gave bad Iraq WMD info

[FlaSoxxJim]

Here's the link to the ABC News piece:

 

http://abcnews.go.com/wire/Politics/ap20040709_997.html

 

It's not really news to those following the stories. But a fairly scathing bipartisan report nonetheless is another blow to the credibility of Tenet, the CIA, and the administration. The adminsitration has some room to distance themselves from allegations of intentionally misleading the public by blaming intelligence, and scapegoat Tenet's resignation takes affect Sunday.

 

Still, there continues to be this insistance within the administration that the massive intelligence failure and the flawed justification for war is just not a big deal...

 

State Dept. spokesperson Richard Boucher said the report showed that some material Secretary of State Colin Powell used to try to induce the United Nations to support war with Iraq was flawed.  But, Boucher said, "The basic case was a correct one. Iraq wanted weapons of mass destruction." He said there was no reason for Powell to apologize for his U.N. presentation.

 

How can someone straight-faced equate WANTING weapons of mass destruction and HAVING them and expect it to wash?

 

The story says the report goes into some datail on how the bad intelligence led analysts to "inflate snippets of questionable information into broad declarations that Iraq had chemical and biological weapons." The two examples they provided of this are below.

 

For example, speculation that the presence of one specialized truck could mean an effort to transfer chemical weapons was puffed up into a conclusion that Iraq was actively making chemical weapons, the report said.

 

Analysts also concluded that Iraq had a mobile biological weapons program based mainly on the since-discredited claims of one Iraqi defector code-named "Curve Ball," it said. American agents did not have direct access to Curve Ball or his debriefers, but the source's information was expanded into the conclusion that Iraq had an advanced and active biological weapons program, the report said.