The CIA Just Declassified the Document That Supposedly Justified the Iraq Invasion

[kpete]

The CIA Just Declassified the Document That Supposedly Justified the Iraq Invasion
By Jason Leopold
March 19, 2015 | 10:10 am

Thirteen years ago, the intelligence community concluded in a 93-page classified document used to justify the invasion of Iraq that it lacked "specific information" on "many key aspects" of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction (WMD) programs.

But that's not what top Bush administration officials said during their campaign to sell the war to the American public. Those officials, citing the same classified document, asserted with no uncertainty that Iraq was actively pursuing nuclear weapons, concealing a vast chemical and biological weapons arsenal, and posing an immediate and grave threat to US national security.

Congress eventually concluded that the Bush administration had "overstated" its dire warnings about the Iraqi threat, and that the administration's claims about Iraq's WMD program were "not supported by the underlying intelligence reporting." But that underlying intelligence reporting — contained in the so-called National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) that was used to justify the invasion — has remained shrouded in mystery until now.

The CIA released a copy of the NIE in 2004 in response to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request, but redacted virtually all of it, citing a threat to national security. Then last year, John Greenewald, who operates The Black Vault, a clearinghouse for declassified government documents, asked the CIA to take another look at the October 2002 NIE to determine whether any additional portions of it could be declassified.



WAY MORE, Plus DOC HERE:
https://news.vice.com/article/the-cia-just-declassified-the-document-that-supposedly-justified-the-iraq-invasion?utm_source=vicetwitterus

[Rex]

1. No doubt one day, the history books will show the CIA as being one of the most destructive

forces on the planet. An organization that kept the world at a state of constant war.

[misterhighwasted]

4. [phone]. ^THIS^

Didn't both Bush Sr & Cheney hold CIA positions.
And BOTH went on to hold powerful positions of President/Vice President.
Corrupt & endless M East war.
Outing fellow CIA agents, murder, cover ups & operating as its own global entity & answering to no one.

And we wonder how we got "this way".

[hifiguy]

18. GHWB yes, Cheney, no.

Bush the Smarter was CIA director in the 1970s and his main job was to head off the reforms proposed by the Church Committee. DicKKK was GHWB's Secretary of Defense, though.

[rogerashton]

51. It was reported that

after the coup d'etat that installed Ford as appointed president, Rumsfeld and Cheney maneuvered Bush into the CIA director position in the expectation that no former CIA director could be elected president, so that they would have better chances for the presidency. Sorry, no links.

[stevenleser]

5. I don't think that's the lesson here. The lesson is that lying warmongers shouldn't be elected.

The CIA and other federal agencies like the DOD shouldn't ever be under the control of lying, warmonger Presidents. Without a President and Vice President pressuring them to slant the intelligence towards justifying a war, that NIE looks very different.

I don't think this looks different if its Russia, the US, Britain, etc if you get a war mongering prime minister in the UK, for instance, who pressures MI-6 to provide slanted intel, this is what the result is going to be. The Downing Street memo is the evidence here. It isnt the CIA whose bad intel forced the Bush administration to go to war. the Bush admin was going to go to war no matter what and was looking for as much CYA backup as possible.

[BrotherIvan]

12. So they get a pass for all the other shit????

Uh, NO.

[stevenleser]

15. Uh, no, and that's not what I wrote. See first sentence of subject. Nt

[Rex]

14. I mean the entire history of the CIA, not just under one POTUS.

True the KGB too, but the CIA is the most powerful (IMO) because we are the most powerful nation on the planet with the biggest military the worlds ever seen.

I think when future historians look back, they will say the CIA did more harm than good.

[BrotherIvan]

30. ^This

[Rex]

36. Notice too I am giving them some benefit here to the world and saying they now outweigh

whatever good they maybe once did. We all know the KGB history and the fight against the CIA for decades. I wouldn't pretend another country that had global dominance would not take advantage of that. The USSR did it as much as we did. Just saying if the CIA is now no better than the KGB, we are in a lot of trouble.

Most people for decades scoffed at the mere mention of the CIA torturing and murdering people, hauling drugs and weapons to our enemies one day and friends the next. Kinda impossible to do so now and with the Congress kinda too chickenshit to put their foot way down...makes critical minds wonder.

You can make goodwill and piss it away just as fast imo. The CIA COULD have stopped Cheney and Bush from going to war and they too failed to do so along with Congress. This goes way beyond partisan politics. IMO, there was one or two groups on the planet earth that could have put a halt to Bush and forced him to back down. Both in this country.

[whereisjustice]

24. The lesson is lying war mongers should be prosecuted, but the Obama Doctrine

mandates exemptions from justice for those protected by institutional money and power.

But at least you agree Clapper should have been fired for lying his ass off about his pursuit to transform the US into a surveillance state. You know- war mongering for the war on terror.

Lies and the lying liars who tell them. A lie designed to protect the guilty from serious crimes during a Democratic administration is just as toxic as the same lie from a Republican one.

[Baitball Blogger]

7. Where's the tipping point?

Exactly what has to happen before we recognize that this organization has destabilized our country for so long, that it threatens our national security?

[whereisjustice]

25. You can see it in disenfanchised voters - Obama should have prosecuted and acknowledged that

Bush, Cheney, Rice and the CIA who propped them up, was unconditionally wrong.

You can only fuck principles for so long before people stop giving a shit.

[Baitball Blogger]

38. I wonder if Obama's mandatory voting requirements are going to make one bit

of difference if we don't first find a way to ensure the sanctity of the vote. Afterall, the CIA is only one of many self-interested organizations in this country.

[whereisjustice]

43. manditory voting smells like a tehnocratic solution like mandatory insurance...

in other words, public health care is 100% better than mandatory insurance without cost controls.

Voters aren't happy with politicians, so politicians are going to force people to vote so they can claim legitimacy.

[AngryAmish]

16. To be fair, not compared to the Mongols or Tamerlane.

But that is damning with faint praise.

[Rex]

17. That is why I qualified it with 'one of'. True there have been many agencies of

mass destruction. However I think the CIA is one of the first to globally effect the world as a whole system. Whereas the other instances were of groups stuck in their own region. Though I will give the Mongols credit for being perhaps the most destructive in my book.

[cstanleytech]

22. While I dont agree with alot of the tactics from the CIA in this case its probably not

their fault because while the the Bush administration lied (or atleast thats my opinion) the CIA couldnt exactly come out and say anything and that imo needs to be addressed by implementing better oversight on the CIA so that if a future administration ever tries this again it can be exposed quickly.

[Octafish]

2. Gee. It doesn't make legal the illegal, nor change the immoral into the moral.

It does make clear grounds for charging a lot of Americans and their cronies around the world with war crimes.

[font color="red"][font size="5"]'The fact that the NIE concluded that there was no operational tie between Saddam and al Qaeda did not offset this alarming assessment.'[/font size][/font color]

Not only did Bush, Cheney and the rest lie America into war, they made a lot of money in the process. It's also why they don't bring up "money trumps peace."

[stevenleser]

6. And that's the other point after my #5 above. Even though the NIE was slanted, it STILL concluded

there was no operational tie between Saddam and al Qaeda.

Blaming the CIA and intelligence community for this is a mistake, IMHO. It's all Cheney and Bush and their cabinet.

[Octafish]

8. Who's blaming CIA? Ever hear of Team-B?

Robert Gates ran it and started his meteoric rise. The great DUer htuttle talked about it:

Some of the members of this so-called 'Team B' at the Pentagon were none other than Paul Wolfowitz, Douglas Feith, and Richard Perle:

The Rumsfeld Intelligence Agency

How the hawks plan to find a Saddam/al-Qaida connection.

By Fred Kaplan
Posted Monday, October 28, 2002, at 2:42 PM PT

EXCERPT...

Vested interests can be ideological as well as institutional. In the mid-1970s, a group of well-known hawks, mainly former policy-makers and retired officers, started clamoring that the Soviets were acquiring a first-strike capability and that the CIA was gravely underestimating their prowess and might. President Gerald Ford, under growing pressure from the right, succumbed to what seemed a modest demand—to let a team of their analysts examine the same data that the CIA had been examining and come up with alternative findings. It was sold as an "exercise" in intelligence analysis, an interesting competition—Team A (the CIA) versus Team B (the critics). Yet once allowed an institutional footing, the Team B players presented their conclusions—and leaked them to friendly reporters—as the truth, which the pro-detente administration was trying to hide.

The Team B report read like one long air-raid siren: The Soviets were spending practically all their GNP on the military; they were perfecting charged-particle beams that could knock our warheads out of the sky; their express policy and practical goal was to fight and win a nuclear war. (One Team B member, former Air Force Intelligence Chief Maj. Gen. George Keegan, had briefed officials on the thousands of hidden Soviet missiles back in the '50s.)

Almost everything in the Team B report turned out to be false. Yet it provided the rallying cry for a movement against detente and arms-control accords. Its spokesmen became outspoken figures of opposition during the Jimmy Carter years (most notably, Paul Nitze and his Committee on the Present Danger) and senior officials in the Ronald Reagan administration and beyond.

Paul Wolfowitz was one of the 10 senior staff members on Team B. Another member of Rumsfeld's intelligence team, Douglas J. Feith, was counsel to Reagan's Assistant Secretary of Defense Richard Perle, a longtime impresario of anti-detente forces. (Perle is still influential as chairman of the advisory Defense Policy Board.)

(much more at link from 2002)

https://web.archive.org/web/20021129211149/http://slate.msn.com/?id=2073238

Bush and Cheney, as well as Capitalism's Invisible Army, only serve to make the world safe for warmongers and banksters.

[erronis]

23. +1 - Thanks for the evil memories of this Plan B

Perhaps it's old age or perhaps it's being overwhelmed by the crap spewing from the RWmachine. There are so many historical and on-going episodes of this stuff that it is easy to push some of the less recent ones to the back.

At some point I thought there was a site that showed you "what they said then" and "how it turned out". I don't care if it was some Cheney/Rumsfeld style slime or a liberal/progressive pretender. Does anybody know about this type of study?

[calimary]

26. And let's PLEASE not forget that this paul wolfowitz is the same paul wolfowitz who's a PNAC

signatory, along with cheney, rummy, dougie feith, richard perle and other fiends - INCLUDING jeb bush. And let's PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE not forget that this same paul wolfowitz bastard is now on White House wannabe jeb bush's foreign policy team.

"Paul Wolfowitz was one of the 10 senior staff members on Team B. Another member of Rumsfeld's intelligence team, Douglas J. Feith, was counsel to Reagan's Assistant Secretary of Defense Richard Perle, a longtime impresario of anti-detente forces. (Perle is still influential as chairman of the advisory Defense Policy Board."

[merrily]

33. The head of a Democratic think tank affiliated with the DLC was a PNAC signatory, too.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=6211673

The PNAC letter urged Bush to invade Iraq.

The woman who is looking likely to be the Democratic nominee for President urged her fellow Senators to vote to authorize that same invasion.

[calimary]

40. AND a very high-profile "Dem" - I presume, since he came from the Brookings

Institution. Michael O'Hanlon. A decade ago, before Democratic/liberal think tanks like Think Progress, the Center for American Progress, and the Progressive Policy Institute came to be, there was really only the Brookings Institution. And so in the few instances during the run-up to the Iraq War when some cable news show or panel discussion would actually include someone NOT from the GOP or the many CONservative pool of faces for face time. "Representing the opposing view is Michael O'Hanlon of the Brookings Institution." And on he'd go. Needless to say when I saw his name turn up on that PNAC list, I was rather disappointed.

It's good to know this stuff. Now I look at the motivation behind the positioning. It leavens your understanding just that much more to know these details. And then you start looking at who they've worked with in the past, and how these same names keep coming up in prominent positions.

[merrily]

45. I was referring to Will Marshall, of the DLC and founder of the Progressive Policy Institute.

Was he once with the Brookings Institute as well? His wiki doesn't say that. Then again, it's quite brief.

I don't know much about Brookings. I guess I should look into that.

I am not sure whether signing the PNAC letter trumps Hillary's speech on the Senate floor, but neither was good.

[calimary]

53. They were the token "left" presence during those early years of bush/cheney.

You had the repeat players and blabbers from the Cato Institute, the Heritage Foundation, the Hoover Institute, the American Enterprise Institute, even phyllis schlafly's old Eagle Forum -

you go on a website like http://www.citizensource.com/Opinion&Policy/ThinkTanks.htm

- and you see name after name after name after name after name after name after name of right-wing think tanks, CONservative think tanks, libertarian think tanks. You go down half the page! Then there's a HUGE number of so-called "non-partisan" establishments. Then smaller numbers of think tanks under "Liberal" and "Left." I don't know what it's called - but the little slide bar along the right side of the screen that shows you how far down you are on that web page - you're about 3/4 of the way to the bottom by the time you find Liberal or Left groups. There are FAR MORE among the wrong-siders. We are still vastly outnumbered.

[merrily]

55. Thanks. People with big money don't fund liberals. Not liberal candidates or liberal think tanks.

And people without money can't fund anyone or anything. Or don't, because they don't see the value.

So, Catch 22.

[Octafish]

46. PNAC never left.

Last edited Fri Mar 20, 2015, 11:40 AM - Edit history (1)

From ISP's RightWeb:

Our woman in Ukraine, Victoria Nuland, is married to PNAC co-founder Robert Kagan

Robert Kagan's brother is Frederick Kagan

Frederick Kagan's spouse is Kimberly Kagan

Brilliant people, big ideas, etc. The thing is, that's a lot of PNAC. And the PNAC approach to international relations means more wars without end for profits without cease, among other things detrimental to democracy, peace and justice.

[calimary]

54. I will never forget that one line in the PNAC cover letter ---

"to be able to fight and decisively win multiple wars on multiple fronts."

WHO THE HELL ARE THEY KIDDING?????

Pretty obvious to me this manifesto was thought up by those who've NEVER served, NEVER been in the military, NEVER had their butts out in harm's way, NEVER got their hands dirty. They are Without Clue.

[UTUSN]

3. I wondered where the "working days/calendar days" dude had been!1 nt

[Octafish]

13. Leopold!

[hifiguy]

21. There is a great joke in that clip for music nerds.

Stokowski never, ever used a baton. Which is why Bugs breaks it.

[merrily]

34. Thanks for that tidbit. I like it.

[Octafish]

49. There is only one hifiguy.

Thank you for the hands-up on the maestro.

[blkmusclmachine]

9. The entrance of the CIA New Headquarters Building of the George Bush Center for Intelligence.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

10. THIS is why we need whistle blowers like Snowden and Manning.

[whereisjustice]

29. [phone]

[librechik]

11. If my child were killed or wounded in Iraq, I'd be in front of the WH every day

Last edited Thu Mar 19, 2015, 07:42 PM - Edit history (1)

With everybody I could gather in support to demand prosecution of the Bush Gang until it is done. There is nothing more important, IMO

[gratuitous]

39. Cindy Sheehan did that

The shameful treatment she received from the administration, the popular media, and yes, even a few people right here, would be the reward you could look forward to for taking such a brave stand against our national religion, the High Church of Redemptive Violence.

[elias49]

42. Truth!!^^^^

[KoKo]

52. Yes...!

she went "Under the Bus." Lot's of good people who fought hard for "Truth Out" and justice under that bus. And, more added as time goes on.

Doesn't mean, though, that new voices don't rise every day and will keep rising. And, that's the fear that causes the pushback troops to grow louder and angrier.

[hifiguy]

19. Following the Bay of Pigs fiasco, which was a CIA plan from the get-go,

John Kennedy famously stated that he wanted to "shatter the CIA into a thousand pieces" that could never be reassembled. And we all remember what happened to him. So has every president since, and I am certain the Democrats got very stern reminders about it.

[whereisjustice]

27. The CIA poisons everything it touches. It leaves a trail of dead everywhere it travels.

[G_j]

20. more proof

too bad nothing will happen, Cheney will get more interviews..

[whereisjustice]

28. Condi Rice should be in prison with the rest of them

[Jack Rabbit]

31. Where was Snowden then? We needed him then.

How many lives would a timely leak in 2002 have saved?

[merrily]

35. In June 2002, Snowden was celebrating turning 19, but that's irrelevant.

I don't know anyone who, in 2002, thought Bushco's story was legit. Did you?

I didn't. I just didn't know how to stop Bushco. If Snowden had somehow managed to reveal something then, I still would not have known how to stop Bush.

[TheKentuckian]

50. I was thinking being a teenager without pulling up a Wikipedia. Folks REALLY believe in the steady

state universe apparently to the point that there is to some folks no such concepts as linear existence at all apparently.

[randome]

48. He was probably in his other persona then.

The one where he said leakers should be shot in the balls.

I hope something comes from this document release. I can't see how Cheney and his gang can spin this.
[hr][font color="blue"][center]"The whole world is a circus if you know how to look at it."
Tony Randall, 7 Faces of Dr. Lao (1964)[/center][/font][hr]

[WillyT]

32. Huge K & R !!! - Thank You !!!

[Major Hogwash]

37. They could have said they didn't have ANY proof of WMDs, and Dubya still would have invaded Iraq.

Dubya didn't need the CIA's report or anyone else's opinion -- he was determined to invade Iraq from Day One.
That was what we learned from the first Secretary of the Treasury, who said in his book that he quickly realized from the earliest of cabinet meetings that Dubya was only interested in creating some kind of an excuse to invade Iraq.

[Bonobo]

41. United States: Criminal.

Hundreds of thousands of people murdered for that.

So when I see the hyperboly about Israel, I can only laugh my fucking ass off.

[ND-Dem]

44. since when does the cia decide which US government documents should be classified or not?