http://www.ceip.org/files/projects/npp/resources/iraqintell/home.htm#press or http://tinyurl.com/2ynec
This is an excerpt from one of the PDFs at the site - Key Findings and Summary of Reccomendations.
Administration officials systematically misrepresented the threat from
Iraqâs WMD and ballistic missile programs, beyond the intelligence
failures noted above, by:
Treating nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons as a single âWMD threat.â
The confl ation of three distinct threats, very different in the danger they pose,
distorted the cost/benefi t analysis of the war. (p. 52)
Insisting without evidenceâyet treating as a given truthâthat Saddam
Hussein would give whatever WMD he possessed to terrorists. (p. 52)
Routinely dropping caveats, probabilities, and expressions of uncertainty present
in intelligence assessments from public statements. (p. 53)
Misrepresenting inspectorsâ fi ndings in ways that turned threats from minor to
dire. (p. 53)
While worst case planning is valid and vital, acting on worst case assumptions
is neither safe nor wise. (p. 54)
The assertion that the threat that became visible on 9/11 invalidated
deterrence against states does not stand up to close scrutiny. (p. 57)
Saddamâs responses to international pressure and international weakness
from the 1991 war onward show that while unpredictable he was not
undeterrable. (p. 57)
The UN inspection process appears to have been much more successful than
recognized before the war. Nine months of exhaustive searches by the U.S.
and coalition forces suggest that inspectors were actually in the process of fi nding
what was there. Thus, the choice was never between war and doing nothing about
Iraqâs WMD. (p. 55)
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace | 9
In addition to inspections, a combination of international constraintsâ
sanctions, procurement investigations, and the export/import control
mechanismâalso appears to have been considerably more effective
than was thought. (p. 56)
The knowledge, prior experience in Iraq, relationships with Iraqi scientists
and offi cials, and credibility of UNMOVIC experts represent a vital resource
that has been ignored when it should be being fully exploited.
(p. 51)
To reconstruct an accurate history of Iraqâs WMD programs, the data
from the seven years of UNSCOM/IAEA inspections are absolutely
essential. The involvement of the inspectors and scientists who compiled the
more-than-30-million-page record is needed to effectively mine it. (p. 56)
Considering all the costs and benefi ts, there were at least two options
clearly preferable to a war undertaken without international support:
allowing the UNMOVIC/IAEA inspections to continue until obstructed
or completed, or imposing a tougher program of âcoercive inspectionsâ backed by
a specially designed international force. (p. 59)
Even a war successful on other counts could leave behind three signifi cant
WMD threats: lost material, âlooseâ scientists, and the message that
only nuclear weapons could protect a state from foreign invasion.
(p. 58)
The National Security Strategyâs new doctrine of preemptive military action
is actually a loose standard for preventive war under the cloak of
legitimate preemption. (p. 60)
In the Iraqi case, the worldâs three best intelligence services proved unable
to provide the accurate information necessary for acting in the
absence of imminent threat. (p. 61)
-- Doug _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
