Selective intelligence: The politicization of the case for war in Iraq

Each new day seems to bring a new problem for the White House, a new revelation of arrogance and incompetence, and we can thank the redoubtable Murray Waas for alerting us to yet another Iraq-related problem, specifically to what was really going on inside the administration even as the case for war was being confidently made in public by Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, and the rest.

Two points:

First, the release of an October 2002 intelligence report indicates that Bush was aware of disagreements between the CIA on one side and the State and Energy Departments on the other regarding "Saddam's procurement of high-strength aluminum tubes". While the CIA believed that the tubes "were intended for a nuclear bomb," State and Energy believed that they were intended for conventional weapons. Bush was presented with the report well before the start of the war, but he and other top officials used the CIA interpretation of the aluminum tubes as a central plank in their case for war. The State and Energy interpretation was conveniently ignored.

Here's how Waas puts it: "The disclosure that Bush was informed of the [Energy] and State dissents is the first evidence that the president himself knew of the sharp debate within the government over the aluminum tubes during the time that he, Cheney, and other members of the Cabinet were citing the tubes as clear evidence of an Iraqi nuclear program. Neither the president nor the vice president told the public about the disagreement among the agencies."

In the end, State and Energy were right: "When U.S. inspectors entered Iraq after the fall of Saddam's regime, they determined that Iraq's nuclear program had been dormant for more than a decade and that the aluminum tubes had been used only for artillery shells."

Second, a January 2003 intelligence report concluded that Saddam was not an threat to the United States. Waas: "The report stated that U.S. intelligence agencies unanimously agreed that it was unlikely that Saddam would try to attack the United States -- except if 'ongoing military operations risked the imminent demise of his regime' or if he intended to 'extract revenge' for such an assault, according to records and sources." More: "On at least four earlier occasions, beginning in the spring of 2002, according to the same records and sources, the president was informed during his morning intelligence briefing that U.S. intelligence agencies believed it was unlikely that Saddam was an imminent threat to the United States."

But this stop Bush et al. from using the threat of an Iraqi attack on the United States as another central plank in their case for war? No: "[I]n the months leading up to the war, Bush, Cheney, and Cabinet members repeatedly asserted that Saddam was likely to use chemical or biological weapons against the United States or to provide such weapons to Al Qaeda or another terrorist group. The Bush administration used the potential threat from Saddam as a major rationale in making the case to go to war."

And there's more. Make sure to read the whole piece.

As for me, I just wonder how anyone can think that Bush has any credibility left at all. What we have here is yet more proof of the arrogance, deception, and manipulation, of the lies, that have come to characterize this White House.

What more do we need?