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By Matt Canham
The Salt Lake Tribune
Article Last Updated: 06/06/2008 06:32:04 AM MDT
WASHINGTON - President Bush and his top advisers knowingly overstated the threat Iraq posed to the United States in the lead-up to the war, according to a report released Thursday by the Senate Intelligence Committee.
The report, which ends a long congressional inquiry into prewar intelligence failures, pitted the statements of Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney and other Cabinet officials against information provided by intelligence agencies.
"Before taking the country to war, this administration owed it to the American people to give them a 100 percent accurate picture of the threat we faced," said committee Chairman Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va. "Sadly, the Bush administration led the nation into war under false pretenses."
The report amounts to the most direct rebuke to date of the Bush administration's use of intelligence to build support for the Iraq war. But the document, which catalogs hundreds of statements by administration officials, stops short of calling for any further inquiry or punishment.
The report and Rockefeller's statements enraged key Republicans, including Utah Sen. Orrin Hatch, who called it "a partisan effort" to score points in an election year. The committee also released a report on covert meetings held in Rome between Defense officials and Iranian dissidents. That report concludes that the Department of Defense withheld vital information from the rest
Hatch called the two reports "a pathetic end of a desperate search to provide any basis for the bumper sticker, 'Bush lied, people died.' ''
Committee Vice Chairman Kit Bond, R-Miss., said Democratic committee members "cherry-picked" intelligence and failed to examine their own prewar statements that overstated the case for war.
Responding to the report, While House spokeswoman Dana Perino said: "The administration's statements on Iraq were based on the very same intelligence that was given to the Congress, and they came to the same conclusions."
Committee Democrats drew a distinction between those in Congress and those in the White House.
"There is no question we all relied on flawed intelligence," Rockefeller said. "But there is a fundamental difference between relying on incorrect intelligence and deliberately painting a picture to the American people that you know is not fully accurate."
Many of the White House's claims about Iraq's work on chemical and biological weapons, and its alleged pursuit of nuclear capabilities, were consistent with intelligence reporting available to government officials at the time, even though that intelligence was later shown to be wildly off-base.
But the report states that the intelligence didn't back up Bush's claims of a partnership between Iraq and al-Qaida and his comments that Saddam Hussein was prepared to give terrorists weapons of mass destruction.
The committee released its "phase one" report on intelligence agency mistakes in July 2004. That report was passed by the committee unanimously. The phase two reports released Thursday passed the committee on a vote of 10 to 5, with two Republicans - Sens. Chuck Hagel of Nebraska and Olympia Snowe of Maine - joining the Democrats in the majority.
[email protected]
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* THE LOS ANGELES TIMES contributed to this report.
The Salt Lake Tribune
Article Last Updated: 06/06/2008 06:32:04 AM MDT
WASHINGTON - President Bush and his top advisers knowingly overstated the threat Iraq posed to the United States in the lead-up to the war, according to a report released Thursday by the Senate Intelligence Committee.
The report, which ends a long congressional inquiry into prewar intelligence failures, pitted the statements of Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney and other Cabinet officials against information provided by intelligence agencies.
"Before taking the country to war, this administration owed it to the American people to give them a 100 percent accurate picture of the threat we faced," said committee Chairman Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va. "Sadly, the Bush administration led the nation into war under false pretenses."
The report amounts to the most direct rebuke to date of the Bush administration's use of intelligence to build support for the Iraq war. But the document, which catalogs hundreds of statements by administration officials, stops short of calling for any further inquiry or punishment.
The report and Rockefeller's statements enraged key Republicans, including Utah Sen. Orrin Hatch, who called it "a partisan effort" to score points in an election year. The committee also released a report on covert meetings held in Rome between Defense officials and Iranian dissidents. That report concludes that the Department of Defense withheld vital information from the rest
Hatch called the two reports "a pathetic end of a desperate search to provide any basis for the bumper sticker, 'Bush lied, people died.' ''
Committee Vice Chairman Kit Bond, R-Miss., said Democratic committee members "cherry-picked" intelligence and failed to examine their own prewar statements that overstated the case for war.
Responding to the report, While House spokeswoman Dana Perino said: "The administration's statements on Iraq were based on the very same intelligence that was given to the Congress, and they came to the same conclusions."
Committee Democrats drew a distinction between those in Congress and those in the White House.
"There is no question we all relied on flawed intelligence," Rockefeller said. "But there is a fundamental difference between relying on incorrect intelligence and deliberately painting a picture to the American people that you know is not fully accurate."
Many of the White House's claims about Iraq's work on chemical and biological weapons, and its alleged pursuit of nuclear capabilities, were consistent with intelligence reporting available to government officials at the time, even though that intelligence was later shown to be wildly off-base.
But the report states that the intelligence didn't back up Bush's claims of a partnership between Iraq and al-Qaida and his comments that Saddam Hussein was prepared to give terrorists weapons of mass destruction.
The committee released its "phase one" report on intelligence agency mistakes in July 2004. That report was passed by the committee unanimously. The phase two reports released Thursday passed the committee on a vote of 10 to 5, with two Republicans - Sens. Chuck Hagel of Nebraska and Olympia Snowe of Maine - joining the Democrats in the majority.
[email protected]
---
* THE LOS ANGELES TIMES contributed to this report.
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