Newsgroup: it.politica.internazionale
Titolo: Senate Intelligence Committee Confirms Faulty Foundation [Balle] of Bush Administration's Push for War in Iraq

Tanto per far conoscere agli onorevoli IPIsti l'opinione del Senato 
americano sui maneggi pre-invasione e la costruzione del Casus Belli 
Irakeno.
Dopo un anno di interruzione, dovuto all'ostruzionismo dei repubblicani, 
i democratici chiedono oggi che la Commissione riprenda i suoi lavori.
Am.
 Senate Intelligence Committee Confirms Faulty Foundation of Bush 
Administration's Push for War in Iraq 
 July 22, 2004 
 
Under pressure from congressional Democrats last year, the Senate 
Intelligence Committee agreed to conduct an investigation of our 
government's actions and statements on Iraq in the period before the 
start of the conflict there. However, rather than conduct a single 
comprehensive investigation of these issues, Intelligence Committee 
Chairman Roberts decided to split this inquiry into two phases. The 
Committee released the results of the first phase of its investigation 
on July 17, 2004. Entitled "U.S. Intelligence Community's Prewar 
Intelligence Assessments On Iraq," the Committee's report concludes that 
the Bush Administration's case for war with Iraq was dramatically 
overstated and largely inaccurate. 
[...]
Major Conclusions Of Committee Report 
       "Most of the major key judgments in the Intelligence Community's 
October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate (NIE), Iraq's Continuing 
Programs for Weapons of Mass Destruction, either were overstated, or 
were not supported by, the underlying intelligence reporting."
       "After reviewing all of the intelligence provided by the 
Intelligence Community and additional information requested by the 
Committee, the Committee believes that the judgment in the National 
Intelligence Estimate that Iraq was reconstituting its nuclear program 
was not supported by the intelligence."
       "The statement in the key judgments of the NIE that `Baghdad has 
chemical and biological weapons' overstated both what was known and what 
intelligence analysts judged about Iraq's chemical and biological 
weapons holdings." 
       "The language in the October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate 
that `Iraq also began vigorously trying to procure uranium ore and 
yellowcake' overstated what the Intelligence Community knew about Iraq's 
possible procurement attempts." 
       "Much of the information provided or cleared by the Central 
Intelligence Agency (CIA) for inclusion in Secretary Powell's speech [to 
the United Nations] was overstated, misleading, or incorrect." 
       "The Central Intelligence Agency's assessment that to date there 
was no evidence proving Iraqi complicity or assistance in an al-Qaeda 
attack was reasonable and objective. No additional information has 
emerged to suggest otherwise." 
Additional Views of Senators Rockefeller, Levin, and Durbin 
       "Regrettably, report paints an incomplete picture of what 
occurred during this period of time. The Committee set out to examine 
ten areas of investigation relating to pre-war intelligence on Iraq and 
we completed only five in this report."
       "The central issue of how intelligence on Iraq was used or 
misused by Administration officials in public statements and reports 
were relegated to the second phase of the Committee's investigation 
along with other issues related to the intelligence activities of 
Pentagon policy officials, pre-war intelligence assessments about 
post-war Iraq, and the role played by the Iraqi National Congress, led 
by Ahmad Chalabi, which claims to have passed `raw intelligence' and 
defector information directly to the Pentagon and the Office of Vice 
President."
       "As a result, the Committee's phase one report fails to fully 
explain the environment of intense pressure in which Intelligence 
Community officials were asked to render judgments on matters relating 
to Iraq when policy officials had already forcefully stated their own 
conclusions in public."
       "The [October 2002 National Intelligence] Estimate and related 
analytical papers assessing Iraqi links to terrorism were produced by 
the Intelligence Community in a highly-pressurized climate wherein 
senior Administration officials were making the case for military action 
against Iraq through public and often definitive pronouncements."
       "In the months before the production of the Intelligence 
Community's October 2002 Estimate, Administration officials undertook a 
relentless public campaign which repeatedly characterized the Iraq 
weapons of mass destruction program in more ominous and threatening 
terms than the Intelligence Community analysis substantiated. Similarly, 
public statements of senior officials on Iraqi links to terrorism 
generally, and al-Qaeda specifically, were often based on a selective 
release of intelligence information that implied a cooperative, 
operational relationship that the Intelligence Community did not believe 
existed."
       "High-profile statements in support of the Administration's 
policy of regime change were made in advance of any meaningful 
intelligence analysis and created pressure on the Intelligence Community 
to conform to the certainty contained in the pronouncements."
       "Another form of pressure on the Intelligence Community during 
2002 came from policymakers repetitively tasking analysts to review, 
reconsider, and revise their analytical judgments."
       The CIA conducted its own independent review on U.S. intelligence 
on Iraq. Richard Kerr, former Deputy Director of Central Intelligence 
and leader of the review, stated publicly, "`There was a lot of 
pressure, no question... The White House, State, Defense were raising 
questions, heavily on WMD and the issue of terrorism... There was a lot 
of repetitive tasking. The repetitive requests...came from the CIA's 
`senior customers,' including the White House, the Vice President, 
State, Defense, and the Joint Chiefs of Staff.'"
       "The [CIA] Ombudsman told the Committee that he felt the 
"hammering" by the Bush Administration on Iraq intelligence was harder 
than he had previously witnessed in his 32-year career with the agency. 
Several analysts he spoke with mentioned pressure and gave the sense 
that they felt the constant questions and pressure to reexamine issues 
were unreasonable."
       "When the analytical judgments of the Intelligence Community did 
not conform to the more conclusive and dire Administration view on Iraqi 
links to al-Qaeda and specifically the notion that Iraq may have been 
involved in the September 11th terrorist plot, policymakers within the 
Pentagon denigrated the Intelligence Community's analysis and sought to 
trump it by circumventing the CIA and briefing their own analysis 
directly to the White House."
       "The qualifications the Intelligence Community placed on what it 
assessed about Iraq's links to terrorism and alleged weapons of mass 
destruction programs were spurned by top Bush Administration officials."
       "By the time American troops had been deployed overseas and were 
poised to attack Iraq, the Administration had skillfully manipulated and 
cowed the Intelligence Community into approving public statements that 
conveyed a level of conviction and certainty that was not supported by 
an objective reading of the underlying intelligence reporting."
http://democrats.senate.gov/dpc/dpc-new.cfm?doc_name=fs-108-2-210
 

were not supported by, the underlying intelligence reporting."
Ovestated or not supported by.
Non dice da nessuna parte le ca***te che gli vuoi mettere in bocca tu :)
-Stefano