WMD issue gaining traction

It looks like the WMD story has legs. Driving the increasingly aggressive coverage is the willingness of many inside the US intelligence community to come forth with their frustrations.

growing number of U.S. national security professionals are accusing the Bush administration of slanting the facts and hijacking the $30 billion intelligence apparatus to justify its rush to war in Iraq.

A key target is a four-person Pentagon team that reviewed material gathered by other intelligence outfits for any missed bits that might have tied Iraqi President Saddam Hussein to banned weapons or terrorist groups.

This team, self-mockingly called the Cabal, "cherry-picked the intelligence stream" in a bid to portray Iraq as an imminent threat, said Patrick Lang, a former head of worldwide human intelligence gathering for the Defense Intelligence Agency, which coordinates military intelligence [...]

Anger among security professionals appears widespread. Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity, a group that says it is made up mostly of CIA intelligence analysts, wrote to U.S. President George Bush May 1 to hit what they called "a policy and intelligence fiasco of monumental proportions."

"In intelligence there is one unpardonable sin -- cooking intelligence to the recipe of high policy," it wrote. "There is ample indication this has been done with respect to Iraq."

The entire intelligence apparatus is suddenly under fire, and it has no intentions on taking the hit for Bush and Rumsfeld's politicizing of the intelligence process. It's making sure the blame rests squarely where it belongs, and it looks as though the media is looking at the right place.

Even Powell has come under fire for his LIES at the UN Security Council. Imagine that!

Clearly rattled and under pressure, Rummy's Pentagon announced that a new team will be headed to Iraq to continue the search. (Someone check their baggage before they enter Iraq!)

A large new U.S. team heading into Iraq to search for weapons of mass destruction will shift its focus away from areas identified as suspicious sites before the war, the Army general heading the effort said Friday.

Instead, the searchers will focus on areas where documents, interviews with Iraqis and other new clues suggest biological or chemical weapons could be hidden, Maj. Gen. Keith Dayton said.

But, interestingly enough, the US still refuses to allow UN weapons inspectors to return.

Hmmmmm...

Oh, and make sure to duck for cover. The "terror alert" level has been dropped back down to "yellow".

Posted May 30, 2003 05:33 PM | Comments (101)