WASHINGTON --
President Bush and his national security adviser have answered critics of
the Iraq war in recent days with a two-pronged argument: that Congress saw the
same intelligence the administration did before the war, and that independent
commissions have determined that the administration did not misrepresent the
intelligence.
Neither assertion is wholly accurate.
INACCURACIES IN BUSH'S DEFENSE OF LEAD-UP TO WAR
President Bush speaks to military photo-op props on Veterans Day in
Tobyhanna, Pennsylvania, November 11, 2005. (Jason Reed/Reuters)
|
The administration's overarching point is true: Intelligence agencies
overwhelmingly believed that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction,
and very few members of Congress from either party were skeptical about this
belief before the war began in 2003. Indeed, top lawmakers in both parties were
emphatic and certain in their public statements.
But Bush and his aides had access to much more voluminous intelligence
information than did lawmakers, who were dependent on the administration to
provide the material. And the commissions cited by officials, though concluding
that the administration did not pressure intelligence analysts to change their
conclusions, were not authorized to determine whether the administration
exaggerated or distorted those conclusions.
National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley, briefing reporters Thursday,
countered "the notion that somehow this administration manipulated the
intelligence." He said that "those people who have looked at that issue, some
committees on the Hill in Congress, and also the Silberman-Robb Commission,
have concluded it did not happen."
But the only committee investigating the matter in Congress, the Senate
Select Committee on Intelligence, has not yet done its inquiry into whether
officials mischaracterized intelligence by omitting caveats and dissenting
opinions. And Judge Laurence Silberman, chairman of Bush's commission on
weapons of mass destruction, said in releasing his report on March 31, 2005,
"Our executive order did not direct us to deal with the use of intelligence by
policymakers, and all of us were agreed that that was not part of our inquiry."
Bush, in Pennsylvania on Friday, was more precise, but he still implied
that it had been proved that the administration did not manipulate
intelligence, saying those who suggest the administration "manipulated the
intelligence" are "fully aware that a bipartisan Senate investigation found no
evidence of political pressure to change the intelligence community's
judgments."
In the same speech, Bush asserted that "more than 100 Democrats in the
House and the Senate, who had access to the same intelligence, voted to support
removing Saddam Hussein from power."
But Bush does not share his most sensitive intelligence, such as the
President's Daily Brief, with lawmakers. Also the National Intelligence
Estimate summarizing the intelligence community's views about the threat from
Iraq was given to Congress just days before the vote to authorize the use of
force in that country.
In addition, there were doubts within the intelligence community not
included in the NIE. And even the doubts expressed in the NIE could not be used
publicly by members of Congress because the classified information had not been
cleared for release. For example, the NIE view that Hussein would not use
weapons of mass destruction against the United States or turn them over to
terrorists unless backed into a corner was cleared for public use only a day
before the Senate vote.
The lawmakers are partly to blame for their ignorance. Congress was
entitled to view the 92-page National Intelligence Estimate about Iraq before
the October 2002 vote. But, as the Washington Post reported last year, no more
than six senators and a handful of House members read beyond the five-page
executive summary.
Bush, in his speech Friday, said that "it is deeply irresponsible to
rewrite the history of how that war began." But in trying to set the record
straight, he asserted: "When I made the decision to remove Saddam Hussein from
power, Congress approved it with strong bipartisan support."
The October 2002 joint resolution authorized the use of force in Iraq, but
it did not directly mention the removal of Hussein from power. The resolution
voiced support for diplomatic efforts to enforce "all relevant Security Council
resolutions," and for using the armed forces to enforce the resolutions and
defend "against the continuing threat posed by Iraq."
Copyright © 2005 San Francisco Chronicle
###
