Failures of Intelligence?
By SEAN HANNON

February 6, 2004

 We’re about to do it again. We are being rushed to embrace a conclusion based on a faulty and unexplored premise. No sooner had the ink on David Kay’s report on WMD dried, than the question was immediately framed: how could our intelligence community have failed so completely? 

 The way the question is asked implies an immediate foregone conclusion about where the problem lies.  But aren’t hasty, predetermined conclusions just exactly what got us to where we are today? People truly concerned with arriving at real answers to this crisis of “bad intelligence” must recognize the need to explore all questions without prejudice, and demand transparency and accountability in the answers. In this instance, an independent nonpartisan commission, along with every American, must ask whether the failure of intelligence was the result of a flawed apparatus in need of a major correction, or the result of a relatively sound apparatus whose product was misrepresented to serve a political outcome?

 For those who still reject the latter possibility as scandalous and unworthy of debate, I simply ask you to consider the following statements made in the months prior to 9/11 by two senior administration officials who presumably enjoy your trust:

 •  Cairo, Feb 24 2001 - Colin Powell responding to questions about sanctions: “And frankly they have worked. He (Saddam) has not developed any significant capability with respect to weapons of mass destruction. He is unable to project conventional power against his neighbors.”

 •  Washington, May 15 2001 - Colin Powell to Senate Appropriations Committee: Question from Senator Bennett “What’s our level of concern about the progress of Saddam Hussein’s chemical and biological weapons programs?” Answer from Powell “The sanctions, as they are called, have succeeded over the last 10 years, not in deterring him from moving in that direction, but from actually being able to move in that direction. The Iraqi regime militarily remains fairly weak. It doesn’t have the capacity it had 10 or 12 years ago.”

 •  CNN Late edition, July 29 2001 - Condoleezza Rice to guest host John King about Saddam Hussein: “We are able to keep arms from him. His military forces have not been rebuilt.”

 So my question is simply this. If the intelligence community is entirely to blame for the failure to assess Saddam’s capabilities, then where did all of this accurate intelligence cited by Powell and Rice come from, and more important, why was it discarded so completely after 9/11?