Iraq Intelligence Commission

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

U.S. President George W. Bush in February 2004.[1][2][3]

The impetus for the Commission lay with a public controversy occasioned by statements, including those of Chief of the

Bush administration may have manipulated the intelligence.[4]

Following intense study of the American Intelligence Community, the Commission delivered its report to the President on March 31, 2005, the so-called Robb-Silberman Report.[5]

Findings

Regarding Iraq, the Commission concluded that the United States Intelligence Community was wrong in almost all of its pre-war judgments about Iraq's alleged weapons of mass destruction and that this constituted a major intelligence failure.

The Intelligence Community's performance in assessing Iraq's pre-war weapons of mass destruction programs was a major intelligence failure. The failure was not merely that the Intelligence Community's assessments were wrong. There were also serious shortcomings in the way these assessments were made and communicated to policymakers.

The Commission's report also described systemic analytical, collection, and dissemination flaws that led the intelligence community to erroneous assessments about Iraq's alleged WMD programs. Chief among these flaws were "an analytical process that was driven by assumptions and inferences rather than data", failures by certain agencies to gather all relevant information and analyze fully information on purported centrifuge tubes, insufficient vetting of key sources, particularly the source "Curveball," and somewhat overheated presentation of data to policymakers.

The 601-page document detailed many U.S. intelligence failures and identified intelligence breakdowns in dozens of cases. Some of the conclusions reached by the report were:

  • the report notes in several places that the commission's mandate did not allow it "to investigate how policymakers used the intelligence they received from the Intelligence Community on Iraq's weapons programs,"[6]
  • One of the main and crucial intelligence sources for the case in Iraq was an informant named Curveball.
    biological weapons was "based almost exclusively on information obtained" from Curveball, according to the report.[5]
  • Information about aluminum tubes to be used as centrifuges in a nuclear weapons program were found by the commission to be used for conventional rockets.
  • The
    forged signatures, misspelled words, incorrect titles for individuals and government entities".[5]
  • While there were many reports that Curveball was actually the cousin of one of Ahmed Chalabi's top aides, the IIC, while discovering that at least two INC defectors were fabricators, said it was "unable to uncover any evidence that the INC [Iraqi National Congress] or any other organization was directing Curveball."[5]

Recommendations

The report also looked forward, recommending a large number of organizational and structural reforms. Of the 74 recommendations to the President, he fully accepted 69 in a public statement released on June 29, 2005.

The Commission's mission is, in part, "to ensure the most effective counter-proliferation capabilities of the United States and response to the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and the ongoing threat of terrorist activity." With regard to Iraq, the commission was meant to "specifically examine the Intelligence Community's intelligence prior to the initiation of Operation Iraqi Freedom and compare it with the findings of the Iraq Survey Group and other relevant agencies or organizations concerning the capabilities, intentions, and activities of Iraq relating to the design, development, manufacture, acquisition, possession, proliferation, transfer, testing, potential or threatened use, or use of Weapons of Mass Destruction and related means of delivery."

Commission members

Commission members are:

The first seven members of the panel were appointed on February 6, 2004, the date of the executive order which created it. The final two members, Vest and Rowen, were appointed on February 13.

Fifth Fleet
(COMFIFTHFLT).

Days before the American commission was announced, the government of the

Butler Inquiry
or the Butler Review.

The commission was independent and separate from the

9-11 Commission
.

See also

References

  1. Federal Government of the United States
    . February 6, 2004. Retrieved April 9, 2017.
  2. Federal Government of the United States. Archived from the original on November 22, 2016. Retrieved April 9, 2017. Alt URL
  3. ^ "The Commission on the Intelligence Capabilities of the United States Regarding Weapons of Mass Destruction" (PDF). The New York Times. New York City. March 31, 2005. Retrieved April 9, 2017.
  4. ^ Chait, Jonathan (February 9, 2015). "Republicans Still Denying Bush Lied About Iraq". New York Magazine.
  5. ^ a b c d e Greg Miller and Bob Drogin (April 1, 2005). "Intelligence Analysts Whiffed on a 'Curveball'". Los Angeles Times. Archived from the original on August 3, 2007. Retrieved July 24, 2007.
  6. ^ Vest, Jason (April 7, 2005). "Big Lies, Blind Spies, and Vanity Fair". sundaytelegraph. Archived from the original on November 6, 2007. Retrieved July 24, 2007. Footnote 274 [of the Iraq Intelligence Commission] elaborates, explaining that 'when [DIA] pressed for access to Curveball, [BND] said that Curveball disliked Americans and that he would refuse to speak to them.'

External links