Part 2 of 2
(U) Conclusion 11. Several of the allegations of pressure on Intelligence Community (IC) analysts involved repeated questioning. The Committee believes that IC analysts should expect difficult and repeated questions regarding threat information. Just as the post 9/11 environment lowered the Intelligence Community's reporting threshold, it has also affected the intensity with which policymakers will review and question threat information.
(U) A number of the individuals interviewed by the Committee in conducting its review stated that Administration officials questioned analysts repeatedly on the potential for cooperation between Saddam Hussein's regime and al-Qaida. Though these allegations appeared repeatedly in the press and in other public reporting on the lead-up to the war, no analyst questioned by the Committee stated that the questions were unreasonable, or that they were encouraged by the questioning to alter their conclusions regarding Iraq's links to al-Qaida.
(U) In some cases, those interviewed stated that the questions had forced them to go back and review the intelligence reporting, and that during this exercise they came across information they had overlooked in initial readings. The Committee found that this process -- the policymakers probing questions -- actually improved the Central Intelligence Agency's (CIA) products. The review revealed that the CIA analysts who prepared Iraqi Support for Terrorism made careful, measured assessments which did not overstate or mischaracterize the intelligence reporting upon which it was based.
(U) The Committee also found that CIA analysts are trained to expect questions from policymakers, and to tailor their analysis into a product that is useful to them. In an Occasional Paper on improving CIA analytic performance, written by a Research Fellow at the Sherman Kent Center, the fellow states:
If the mission of intelligence analysis is to inform policymaking -- to help the U.S. government anticipate threats and seize opportunities -- then customization of analysis is the essence of the professional practice, not a defilement of it (i.e., politicization). In effect there is no such thing as an unprofessional policymaker question for intelligence to address so long as the answer reflects professional analytic trade craft (e.g., tough-minded weighing of evidence and open-minded consideration of alternatives). (Emphasis added)
(U) The same Research Fellow commented on strategic warning stating, "Key to the warning challenge is that the substantive uncertainty surrounding threats to U.S. interests requires analysts, and policymakers, to make judgments that are inherently vulnerable to error." This vulnerability has never been so apparent as in the failure to detect and deter the attacks on September 11, 2001. While analysts cannot dismiss a threat because at first glance it seems unreasonable or it cannot be corroborated by other credible reporting, policymakers have the ultimate responsibility for making decisions based on this same fragmentary, inconclusive reporting. If policymakers did not respond to analysts' caveated judgments with pointed, probing questions, and did not require them to produce the most complete assessments possible, they would not be doing their jobs.
NIGER CONCLUSIONS
(U) Conclusion 12. Until October 2002 when the Intelligence Community obtained the forged foreign language documents [2] on the Iraq-Niger uranium deal, it was reasonable for analysts to assess that Iraq may have been seeking uranium from Africa based on Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) reporting and other available intelligence.
(U) Conclusion 13. The report on the former ambassador's trip to Niger, disseminated in March 2002, did not change any analysts' assessments of the Iraq-Niger uranium deal. For most analysts, the information in the report lent more credibility to the original Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) reports on the uranium deal, but State Department Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR) analysts believed that the report supported their assessment that Niger was unlikely to be willing or able to sell uranium to Iraq.
(U) Conclusion 14. The Central Intelligence Agency should have told the Vice President and other senior policymakers that it had sent someone to Niger to look into the alleged Iraq-Niger uranium deal and should have briefed the Vice President on the former ambassador's findings.
(U) Conclusion 15. The Central Intelligence Agency's (CIA) Directorate of Operations should have taken precautions not to discuss the credibility of reporting with a potential source when it arranged a meeting with the former ambassador and Intelligence Community analysts.
(U) Conclusion 16. 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.
(U) Conclusion 17. The State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR) dissent on the uranium reporting was accidentally included in the aluminum tube section of the National Intelligence Estimate (NIE), due in part to the speed with which the NIE was drafted and coordinated.
(U) Conclusion 18. When documents regarding the Iraq-Niger uranium reporting became available to the Intelligence Community in October 2002, Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) analysts and operations officers should have made an effort to obtain copies. As a result of not obtaining the documents, CIA Iraq nuclear analysts continued to report on Iraqi efforts to procure uranium from Africa and continued to approve the use of such language in Administration publications and speeches.
(U) Conclusion 19. Even after obtaining the forged documents and being alerted by a State Department Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR) analyst about problems with them, analysts at both the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) did not examine them carefully enough to see the obvious problems with the documents. Both agencies continued to publish assessments that Iraq may have been seeking uranium from Africa. In addition, CIA continued to approve the use of similar language in Administration publications and speeches, including the State of the Union.
(U) Conclusion 20. The Central Intelligence Agency's (CIA) comments and assessments about the Iraq-Niger uranium reporting were inconsistent and, at times contradictory. These inconsistencies were based in part on a misunderstanding of a CIA Weapons Intelligence, Nonproliferation, and Arms Control Center (WINPAC) Iraq analyst's assessment of the reporting. The CIA should have had a mechanism in place to ensure that agency assessments and information passed to policymakers were consistent.
(U) Conclusion 21. When coordinating the State of the Union, no Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) analysts or officials told the National Security Council (NSC) to remove the "16 words" or that there were concerns about the credibility of the Iraq-Niger uranium reporting. A CIA official's original testimony to the Committee that he told an NSC official to remove the words "Niger" and "500 tons" from the speech, is incorrect.
(U) Conclusion 22. The Director of Central Intelligence (DCI) should have taken the time to read the State of the Union speech and fact check it himself. Had he done so, he would have been able to alert the National Security Council (NSC) if he still had concerns about the use of the Iraq-Niger uranium reporting in a Presidential speech.
(U) Conclusion 23. The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), Defense Humint Service (DHS), or the Navy should have followed up with a West African businessman, mentioned in a Navy report, who indicated he was willing to provide information about an alleged uranium transaction between Niger and Iraq in November 2002.
([DELETE]) Conclusion 24. In responding to a letter from Senator Carl Levin on behalf of the Intelligence Community in February 2003, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) should not have said that "[DELETE] of reporting suggest Iraq had attempted to acquire uranium from Niger," without indicating that State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR) believed the reporting was based on forged documents, or that the CIA was reviewing the Niger reporting.
(U) Conclusion 25. The Niger reporting was never in any of the drafts of Secretary Powell's United Nations (UN) speech and the Committee has not uncovered any information that showed anyone tried to insert the information into the speech.
(U) Conclusion 26. To date, the Intelligence Community has not published an assessment to clarify or correct its position on whether or not Iraq was trying to purchase uranium from Africa as stated in the National Intelligence Estimate (NIE). Likewise, neither the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) nor the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), which both published assessments on possible Iraqi efforts to acquire uranium, have ever published assessments outside of their agencies which correct their previous positions.
NUCLEAR CONCLUSIONS
(U) Conclusion 27. 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 (NIE), that Iraq was reconstituting its nuclear program, was not supported by the intelligence. The Committee agrees with the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR) alternative view that the available intelligence "does not add up to a compelling case for reconstitution."
(U) Conclusion 28. The assessments in the National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) regarding the timing of when Iraq had begun reconstituting its nuclear program are unclear and confusing.
(U) Conclusion 29. Numerous intelligence reports provided to the Committee showed that Iraq was trying to procure high-strength aluminum tubes. The Committee believes that the information available to the Intelligence Community indicated that these tubes were intended to be used for an Iraqi conventional rocket program and not a nuclear program.
(U) Conclusion 30. The Central Intelligence Agency's (CIA) intelligence assessment on July 2, 2001 that the dimensions of the aluminum tubes "match those of a publicly available gas centrifuge design from the 1950s, known as the Zippe centrifuge" is incorrect. Similar information was repeated by the CIA in its assessments, including its input to the National Intelligence Estimate (NIE), and by the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) over the next year and a half.
(U) Conclusion 31. The Intelligence Community's position in the National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) that the composition and dimensions of the aluminum tubes exceeded the requirements for non nuclear applications, is incorrect.
([DELETE]) Conclusion 32. The [DELETE] intelligence report on Saddam Hussein's personal interest in the aluminum tubes, if credible, did suggest that the tube procurement was a high priority, but it did not necessarily suggest that the high priority was Iraq's nuclear program.
(U) Conclusion 33. The suggestion in the National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) that Iraq was paying excessively high costs for the aluminum tubes is incorrect. In addition, 7075-T6 aluminum is not considerably more expensive than other more readily available materials for rockets as alleged in the NIE.
(U) Conclusion 34. The National Ground Intelligence Center's (NGIC) analysis that the material composition of the tubes was unusual for rocket motor cases was incorrect, contradicted information the NGIC later provided to the Committee, and represented a serious lapse for the agency with primary responsibility for conventional ground forces intelligence analysis.
([DELETE]) Conclusion 35. Information obtained by the Committee shows that the tubes were [DELETE] to be manufactured to tolerances tighter than typically requested for rocket systems. The request for tight tolerances had several equally likely explanations other than that the tubes were intended for a centrifuge program, however.
(U) Conclusion 36. Iraq's attempts to procure the tubes through intermediary countries did appear intended to conceal Iraq as the ultimate end user of the tubes, as suggested in the National Intelligence Estimate (NIE). Because Iraq was prohibited from importing any military items, it would have had to conceal itself as the end user whether the tubes were intended for a nuclear program or a conventional weapons program, however.
([DELETE]) Conclusion 37. Iraq's persistence in seeking numerous foreign sources for the aluminum tubes was not "inconsistent" with procurement practices as alleged in the National Intelligence Estimate (NIE). Furthermore, such persistence [DELETE] was more indicative of procurement for a conventional weapons program than a covert nuclear program.
(U) Conclusion 38. The Central Intelligence Agency's (CIA) initial reporting on its aluminum tube spin tests was, at a minimum, misleading and, in some cases, incorrect. The fact that these tests were not coordinated with other Intelligence Community agencies is an example of continuing problems with information sharing within the Intelligence Community.
(U) Conclusion 39. Iraq's performance of hydrostatic pressure tests on the tubes was more indicative of their likely use for a rocket program than a centrifuge program.
([DELETE]) Conclusion 40. Intelligence reports which showed [DELETE] were portrayed in the National Intelligence Estimate as more definitive than the reporting showed.
([DELETE]) Conclusion 41. [DELETE] in that it was only presented with analysis that supported the CIA's conclusions. The team did not discuss the issues with Department of Energy officials and performed its work in only one day.
(U) Conclusion 42. The Director of Central Intelligence was not aware of the views of all intelligence agencies on the aluminum tubes prior to September 2002 and, as a result, could only have passed the Central Intelligence Agency's view along to the President until that time.
(U) Conclusion 43. Intelligence provided to the Committee did show that Iraq was trying to procure magnets, high-speed balancing machines and machine tools, but this intelligence did not suggest that the materials were intended to be used in a nuclear program.
(U) Conclusion 44. The statement in the National Intelligence Estimate that "a large number of personnel for the new [magnet] production facility, worked in Iraq's pre-Gulf War centrifuge program," was incorrect.
(U) Conclusion 45. The statement in the National Intelligence Estimate that the Iraqi Atomic Energy Commission was "expanding the infrastructure -- research laboratories, production facilities, and procurement networks -- to produce nuclear weapons," is not supported by the intelligence provided to the Committee.
(U) Conclusion 46. The intelligence provided to the Committee which showed that Iraq had kept its cadre of nuclear weapons personnel trained and in positions that could keep their skills intact for eventual use in a reconstituted nuclear program was compelling, but this intelligence did not show that there was a recent increase in activity that would have been indicative of recent or impending reconstitution of Iraq's nuclear program as was suggested in the National Intelligence Estimate.
(U) Conclusion 47. Intelligence information provided to the Committee did show that Saddam Hussein met with Iraqi Atomic Energy Commission personnel and that some security improvements were taking place, but none of the reporting indicated the IAEC was engaged in nuclear weapons related work.
BIOLOGICAL CONCLUSIONS
(U) Conclusion 48. The assessment in the October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate that, "[W]e judge that all key aspects - research & development, production, and weaponization -- of Iraq's offensive biological weapons program are active and that most elements are larger and more advanced than they were before the Gulf War" is not supported by the intelligence provided to the Committee.
(U) Conclusion 49. The statement in the key judgments of the October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) that "Baghdad has biological weapons" overstated what was known about Iraq's biological weapons holdings. The NIE did not explain the uncertainties underlying this statement.
(U) Conclusion 50. The statement in the National Intelligence Estimate that "Baghdad has mobile transportable facilities for producing bacterial and toxin biological weapons agents," overstated what the intelligence reporting suggested about an Iraqi mobile biological weapons effort and did not accurately convey to readers the uncertainties behind the source reporting.
([DELETE]) Conclusion 51. The Central Intelligence Agency withheld important information concerning both CURVE BALL's reliability and [DELETE] reporting from many Intelligence Community analysts with a need to know the information.
([DELETE]) Conclusion 52. The Defense Human Intelligence Service, which had primary responsibility for handling the Intelligence Community's interaction with CURVE BALL's [DELETE] debriefers, demonstrated serious lapses in handling such an important source.
(U) Conclusion 53. The statement in the key judgments of the National Intelligence Estimate that "[C]hances are even that smallpox is part of Iraq's offensive biological weapons program" is not supported by the intelligence provided to the Committee.
(U) Conclusion 54. The assessments in the National Intelligence Estimate concerning Iraq's capability to produce and weaponize biological weapons agents are, for the most part, supported by the intelligence provided to the Committee, but the NIE did not explain that the research discussed could have been very limited in nature, been abandoned years ago, or represented legitimate activity.
(U) Conclusion 55. The National Intelligence Estimate misrepresented the United Nations Special Commission's (UNSCOM) 1999 assessment concerning Iraq's biological research capability.
(U) Conclusion 56. The statement in the key judgments of the National Intelligence Estimate that "Baghdad probably has developed genetically engineered biological weapons agents," overstated both the intelligence reporting and analysts assessments of Iraq's development of genetically engineered biological agents.
(U) Conclusion 57. The assessment in the National Intelligence Estimate that "Iraq has ... dry biological weapons (BW) agents in its arsenal" is not supported by the intelligence information provided to the Committee.
CHEMICAL CONCLUSIONS
(U) Conclusion 58. The statement in the key judgments of the October 2002 Iraq Weapons of Mass Destruction National Intelligence Estimate that "Baghdad has ... chemical weapons" overstated both what was known about Iraq's chemical weapons holdings and what intelligence analysts judged about Iraq's chemical weapons holdings.
(U) Conclusion 59. The judgment in the October 2002 Iraq Weapons of Mass Destruction National Intelligence Estimate that Iraq was expanding its chemical industry primarily to support chemical weapons production overstated both what was known about expansion of Iraq's chemical industry and what intelligence analysts judged about expansion of Iraq's chemical industry.
([DELETE]) Conclusion 60. It was not clearly explained in the National Intelligence Estimate that the basis for several of the Intelligence Community's assessments about Iraq's chemical weapons capabilities and activities were not based directly on intelligence reporting of those capabilities and activities, but were based on layers of analysis regarding [DELETE] intelligence reporting.
(U) Conclusion 61. The Intelligence Community's assessment that "Saddam probably has stocked at least 100 metric tons and possibly as much as 500 metric tons of chemical weapons agents -- much of it added in the last year," was an analytical judgment and not based on intelligence reporting that indicated the existence of an Iraqi chemical weapons stockpile of this size.
(U) Conclusion 62. The Intelligence Community's assessment that Iraq had experience in manufacturing chemical weapons bombs, artillery rockets and projectiles was reasonable based on intelligence derived from Iraqi declarations.
(U) Conclusion 63. The National Intelligence Estimate assessment that "Baghdad has procured covertly the types and quantities of chemicals and equipment sufficient to allow limited chemical weapons production hidden within Iraq's legitimate chemical industry" was not substantiated by the intelligence provided to the Committee.
(U) Conclusion 64. The National Intelligence Estimate accurately represented information known about Iraq's procurement of defensive equipment.
DELIVERY CONCLUSIONS
(U) Conclusion 65. The Intelligence Community assessment that Iraq retains a small force of Scud-type ballistic missiles was reasonable based on the information provided to the Committee. The estimate that Iraq retained "up to a few dozen Scud-variant missiles," was clearly explained in the body of the National Intelligence Estimate to be an assessment based "on no direct evidence" and was explained in the key judgments to be based on "gaps in Iraqi accounting to the United Nations Special Commission (UNSCOM)."
(U) Conclusion 66. The assessments that Iraq was in the final stages of development of the al Samoud missile, may be preparing to deploy the al Samoud and was deploying the al Samoud and Ababil-100 short-range ballistic missile, both which exceed the 150-km United Nations range limit, evolved in a logical progression over time, had a clear foundation in the intelligence reporting, and were reasonable judgments based on the intelligence available to the Committee.
(U) Conclusion 67. The assessment that Iraq was developing medium-range ballistic missile (MRBM) capabilities was a reasonable judgment based on the intelligence provided to the Committee.
(U) Conclusion 68. The Intelligence Community assessment in the key judgments section of the National Intelligence Estimate that Iraq was developing an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) "probably intended to deliver biological warfare agents" overstated both what was known about the mission of Iraq's small UAVs and what intelligence analysts judged about the likely mission of Iraq's small UAVs. The Air Force footnote which indicated that biological weapons (BW) delivery was a possible, though unlikely, mission more accurately reflected the body of intelligence reporting.
(U) Conclusion 69. Other than the Air Force's dissenting footnote, the Intelligence Community failed to discuss possible conventional missions for Iraq's unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) which were clearly noted in the intelligence reporting and which most analysts believed were the UAV's primary missions.
(U) Conclusion 70. The Intelligence Community's assessment that Iraq's procurement of United States specific mapping software for its unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) "strongly suggests that Iraq is investigating the use of these UAVs for missions targeting the United States" was not supported by the intelligence provided to the Committee.
(U) Conclusion 71. The Central Intelligence Agency's failure to share all of the intelligence reporting regarding Iraq's attempts to acquire United States mapping software with other Intelligence Community agencies left those analysts with an incomplete understanding of the issue. This lack of information sharing may have led some analysts to agree to a position that they otherwise would not have supported.
(U) Conclusion 72. Much of the information provided or cleared by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) for inclusion in Secretary Powell's speech was overstated, misleading, or incorrect.
(U) Conclusion 73. Some of the information supplied by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), but not used in Secretary Powell's speech, was incorrect. This information should never have been provided for use in a public speech.
(U) Conclusion 74. The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) should have alerted Secretary Powell to the problems with the biological weapons-related sources cited in the speech concerning Iraq's alleged mobile biological weapons program.
([DELETE]) Conclusion 75. The National Imagery and Mapping Agency (NIMA) [3] should have alerted Secretary Powell to the fact that there was an analytical disagreement within the NIMA concerning the meaning of [DELETE] activity observed at Iraq's Amiriyah Serum and Vaccine Institute in November 2002. Moreover, agencies like the NIMA should have mechanisms in place for evaluating such analytical disagreements.
(U) Conclusion 76. Human intelligence (HUMINT) gathered after the production of the National Intelligence Estimate (NIE), did indicate that Iraqi commanders had been authorized to use chemical weapons as noted in Secretary Powell's speech.
WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION (WMD) COLLECTION CONCLUSIONS
([DELETE]) Conclusion 77. The Intelligence Community relied too heavily on United Nations (UN) [DELETE] information about Iraq's programs and did not develop a sufficient unilateral collection effort targeting Iraq's weapons of mass destruction programs and related activities to supplement UN-collected information and to take its place upon the departure of the UN inspectors.
(U) Conclusion 78. The Intelligence Community depended too heavily on defectors and foreign government services to obtain human intelligence (HUMINT) information on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction activities. Because the Intelligence Community did not have direct access to many of these sources, it was exceedingly difficult to determine source credibility.
(U) Conclusion 79. The Intelligence Community waited too long after inspectors departed Iraq to increase collection against Iraq's weapons of mass destruction programs.
(U) Conclusion 80. Even after the departure of United Nations (UN) inspectors, placement of human intelligence (HUMINT) agents and development of unilateral sources inside Iraq were not top priorities for the Intelligence Community.
(U) Conclusion 81. The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) continues to excessively compartment sensitive human intelligence (HUMINT) reporting and fails to share important information about HUMINT reporting and sources with Intelligence Community analysts who have a need to know.
([DELETE]) Conclusion 82. [DELETE]. The lack of in-country human intelligence (HUMINT) collection assets contributed to this collection gap.
WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION (WMD) PRESSURE CONCLUSIONS
(U) Conclusion 83. The Committee did not find any evidence that Administration officials attempted to coerce, influence or pressure analysts to change their judgments related to Iraq's weapons of mass destruction capabilities.
(U) Conclusion 84. The Committee found no evidence that the Vice President's visits to the Central Intelligence Agency were attempts to pressure analysts, were perceived as intended to pressure analysts by those who participated in the briefings on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction programs, or did pressure analysts to change their assessments.
WHITE PAPER CONCLUSIONS
(V) Conclusion 85. The Intelligence Community's elimination of the caveats from the unclassified White Paper misrepresented their judgments to the public which did not have access to the classified National Intelligence Estimate containing the more carefully worded assessments.
(V) Conclusion 86. The names of agencies which had dissenting opinions in the classified National Intelligence Estimate were not included in the unclassified white paper and in the case of the unmanned aerial vehicles (VA Vs), the dissenting opinion was excluded completely. In both cases in which there were dissenting opinions, the dissenting agencies were widely regarded as the primary subject matter experts on the issues in question. Excluding the names of the agencies provided readers with an incomplete picture of the nature and extent of the debate within the Intelligence Community regarding these issues.
(V) Conclusion 87. The key judgment in the unclassified October 2002 White Paper on Iraq's potential to deliver biological agents conveyed a level of threat to the United States homeland inconsistent with the classified National Intelligence Estimate.
RAPID PRODUCTION OF THE NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE ESTIMATE CONCLUSIONS
(U) Conclusion 88. The Intelligence Community should have been more aggressive in identifying Iraq as an issue that warranted the production of a National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) and should have initiated the production of such an Estimate prior to the request from Members of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.
(U) Conclusion 89. While more time may have afforded analysts the opportunity to correct some minor inaccuracies in the National Intelligence Estimate (NIE), the Committee does not believe that any of the fundamental analytical flaws contained in the NIE were the result of the limited time available to the Intelligence Community to complete the Estimate.
IRAQI LINKS TO TERRORISM CONCLUSIONS
(U) Conclusion 90. The Central Intelligence Agency's assessment that Saddam Hussein was most likely to use his own intelligence service operatives to conduct attacks was reasonable, and turned out to be accurate.
(U) Conclusion 91. The Central Intelligence Agency's (CIA) assessment that Iraq had maintained ties to several secular Palestinian terrorist groups and with the Mujahidin eKhalq was supported by the intelligence. The CIA was also reasonable in judging that Iraq appeared to have been reaching out to more effective terrorist groups, such as Hizballah and Hamas, and might have intended to employ such surrogates in the event of war.
(U) Conclusion 92. The Central Intelligence Agency's examination of contacts, training, safehaven and operational cooperation as indicators of a possible Iraq-al-Qaida relationship was a reasonable and objective approach to the question.
(U) Conclusion 93. The Central Intelligence Agency reasonably assessed that there were likely several instances of contacts between Iraq and al-Qaida throughout the 1990s, but that these contacts did not add up to an established formal relationship.
([DELETE]) Conclusion 94. The Central Intelligence Agency reasonably and objectively assessed in Iraqi Support for Terrorism that the most problematic area of contact between Iraq and al-Qaida were the reports of in the use of non-conventional chemical and biological weapons. [DELETE]
(U) Conclusion 95. The Central Intelligence Agency's assessment on safehaven -- that al-Qaida or associated operatives were present in Baghdad and in northeastern Iraq in an area under Kurdish control -- was reasonable.
(U) Conclusion 96. The Central Intelligence Agency's assessment that to date there was no evidence proving Iraqi complicity or assistance in an al-Qaida attack was reasonable and objective. No additional information has emerged to suggest otherwise.
(U) Conclusion 97. The Central Intelligence Agency's judgment that Saddam Hussein, if sufficiently desperate, might employ terrorists with a global reach -- al-Qaida -- to conduct terrorist attacks in the event of war, was reasonable. No information has emerged thus far to suggest that Saddam did try to employ al-Qaida in conducting terrorist attacks.
(U) Conclusion 98. The Central Intelligence Agency's (CIA) assessments on Iraq's links to terrorism were widely disseminated, though an early version of a key CIA assessment was disseminated only to a limited list of cabinet members and some subcabinet officials in the Administration.
TERRORISM COLLECTION CONCLUSIONS
(U) Conclusion 99. Despite four decades of intelligence reporting on Iraq, there was little useful intelligence collected that helped analysts determine the Iraqi regime's possible links to al-Qaida.
([DELETE]) Conclusion 100. The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) did not have a focused human intelligence (HUMINT) collection strategy targeting Iraq's links to terrorism until 2002. The CIA had no [DELETE] sources on the ground in Iraq reporting specifically on terrorism. The lack of an official [DELETE] U.S. presence in the country [DELETE] curtailed the Intelligence Community's HUMINT collection capabilities.
TERRORISM PRESSURE CONCLUSIONS
([DELETE]) Conclusion 101. [DELETE]
TERRORISM PRESSURE CONCLUSIONS
(U) Conclusion 102. The Committee found that none of the analysts or other people interviewed by the Committee said that they were pressured to change their conclusions related to Iraq's links to terrorism. After 9/11, however, analysts were under tremendous pressure to make correct assessments, to avoid missing a credible threat, and to avoid an intelligence failure on the scale of 9/11. As a result, the Intelligence Community's assessments were bold and assertive in pointing out potential terrorist links. For instance, the June 2002 Central Intelligence Agency assessment Iraq and al-Qaida: Interpreting a Murky Relationship was, according to its Scope Note, "purposefully aggressive" in drawing connections between Iraq and al-Qaida in an effort to inform policymakers of the potential that such a relationship existed. All of the participants in the August 2002 coordination meeting on the September 2002 version of Iraqi Support for Terrorism interviewed by the Committee agreed that while some changes were made to the paper as a result of the participation of two Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy staffers, their presence did not result in changes to their analytical judgments.
POWELL SPEECH CONCLUSIONS -- TERRORISM PORTION
(U) Conclusion 103. The information provided by the Central Intelligence Agency for the terrorism portion of Secretary Powell's speech was carefully vetted by both terrorism and regional analysts.
(U) Conclusion 104. None of the portrayals of the intelligence reporting included in Secretary Powell's speech differed in any significant way from earlier assessments published by the Central Intelligence Agency.
(U) Conclusion 105. Because the Director of Central Intelligence refused to provide all working drafts of the speech, the Committee could not determine whether anything was added to or removed from the speech prior to its delivery.
IRAQI THREAT TO REGIONAL STABILITY AND SECURITY CONCLUSIONS
(U) Conclusion 106. The Intelligence Community (IC) did not take steps to clearly characterize changes in Iraq's threat to regional stability and security, taking account of the fact that its conventional military forces steadily degraded after 1990.
(U) Conclusion 107. The quality and quantity of Human Intelligence (HUMINT) reporting on issues related to regional stability and security, particularly on the subject of regime intentions, was deficient and did not adequately support policymaker requirements.
(U) Conclusion 108. Subject to the limitations described in conclusions 106 and 107, the Intelligence Community (IC) objectively assessed a diverse body of intelligence regarding Saddam Hussein's threat to regional stability and security, producing a wide range of high quality analytical documents on various topics. The IC's judgments about Iraq's military capabilities were reasonable and balanced, based on three factors: the size and capabilities of its military forces in relation to neighboring countries; its history of aggressive behavior prior to the first Gulf War; and, its patterns of behavior between 1991 and 2003.
(U) Conclusion 109. The Intelligence Community should have produced a National Intelligence Estimate-level assessment of the overall threat posed by Iraq in the region prior to the start of Operation Iraqi Freedom. Such a document would have outlined - in one place and in a systematic fashion -- the complete range of factors comprising Iraq's threat to regional stability and security.
SADDAM HUSSEIN'S HUMAN RIGHTS RECORD CONCLUSIONS
(U) Conclusion 110. Between 1991 and 2003 analysis of Saddam Hussein's human rights record was limited in volume, but provided an accurate depiction of the scope of abuses under his regime. The limited body of analysis was reasonable, given the difficulty of intelligence collection inside Iraq and the demands on collection resources that were primarily targeted on other priorities. Those competing priorities included weapons of mass destruction, terrorism, regime stability and regional security. There was no indication that the Intelligence Community's (IC) analysis was shaped or manipulated in regards to analysis of human rights abuses.
(U) Conclusion 111. The Intelligence Community's development of a systematic analytical method -- the "mosaic approach," which grew out of approaches to "atrocities intelligence" in the Balkans -- was an innovation for gaining a better understanding of the human rights situation in Iraq. The environment was a denied and hostile arena that thwarted most intelligence collection by organizations following human rights issues.
THE INTELLIGENCE COMMUNITY'S SHARING OF INTELLIGENCE ON IRAQI SUSPECT WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION SITES WITH UNITED NATIONS INSPECTORS CONCLUSIONS
(U) Conclusion 112. The Intelligence Community had limited actionable intelligence on suspect Iraqi weapons of mass destruction sites.
(U) Conclusion 113. The Central Intelligence Agency fulfilled the intent of the Administration's policy on the sharing of intelligence information.
(U) Conclusion 114. Public pronouncements by Administration officials that the Central Intelligence Agency had shared information on all high and moderate priority suspect sites with United Nations inspectors were factually incorrect.
(U) Conclusion 115. The rationale used by the Central Intelligence Agency for deciding what information to share with the United Nations was inherently subjective, inconsistently applied, and not well-documented.
(U) Conclusion 116. The multiple Intelligence Community Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) site lists lack coherency.
(U) Conclusion 117. The information the Central Intelligence Agency provided to Senator Levin in reply to his letters on the sharing of intelligence information with the United Nations was, in some cases, unresponsive, incomplete and inconsistent.
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Notes:1. Sherman Kent and the Board of National Estimates: Collected Essays, (
Http://www.odci.gov/csilbooks/shermankentlinst.html). From 1952 to 1967, Sherman Kent was the Chairman of the Board of National Estimates, which would later become the National Intelligence Council.
2. ([DELETE]) In March 2003, the Vice Chairman of the Committee, Senator Rockefeller, requested that the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) investigate the source of the documents, [DELETE], the motivation of those responsible for the forgeries, and the extent to which the forgeries were part of a disinformation campaign. Because of the FBI's current investigation into this matter, the Committee did not examine these issues.
3. NIMA has recently been renamed the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA).