"The report was an inventory of what U.S. intelligence knew—or more importantly didn’t know—about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction. Its assessment was blunt: “We’ve struggled to estimate the unknowns. … We range from 0% to about 75% knowledge on various aspects of their program.”
Myers already knew about the report. The Joint Staff’s director for intelligence had prepared it, but Rumsfeld’s urgent tone said a great deal about how seriously the head of the Defense Department viewed the report’s potential to undermine the Bush administration’s case for war. But he never shared the eight-page report with key members of the administration such as then-Secretary of State Colin Powell or top officials at the CIA, according to multiple sources at the State Department, White House and CIA who agreed to speak on condition of anonymity. Instead, the report disappeared, and with it a potentially powerful counter-narrative to the administration’s argument that Saddam Hussein’s nuclear, chemical and biological weapons posed a grave threat to the U.S. and its allies, which was beginning to gain traction in major news outlets, led by the New York Times.
While the threat posed by a nuclear-armed Iraq was at the heart of the administration's case for war, the JCS report conceded: “Our knowledge of the Iraqi (nuclear) weapons program is based largely—perhaps 90%—on analysis of imprecise intelligence.”" Politico
—————
I missed this in Politico last month, but a kindly friend who likes to be known as "Bigfoot Six" brought it to my attention. A .pdf of a scan of the document can be found at the links below.
The J-2 section of the JCS staff is a bit of a bureaucratic fiction. There are a few officers on the Joint Staff who are called the "J-2 Section" (intelligence directorate – including the USAF two star who signed this report) but DIA manages the function and does all the real work.
The basic story here is that Rumsfeld asked the J-2 in September 2002 what we (the US) did not know about Iraqi WMD programs. DIA labored and produced the enclosed report that said clearly that although they (J-2/DIA) had many assumptions about Iraqi WMD, the authors knew precious little about the actual programs.
This was not a desired response and Rummy sent the paper to General Richard Myers, USAF (then chairman of the JCS) covered by a rather panicky sounding note.
So, pilgrims, the BS about the "go to war decision" having been based on bad intelligence is just that, BS.
I don't think Bush 43 lied to the American people. I think he was bull-dozed by the neocons like most Americans.
Interestingly, this document was released and declassified in 2011 and was at some point in the "Rumsfeld Archive." That is Rummy's "how great I am" archive. The funny little running horse stamp is from the Rumsfeld Archive.
Seems like there ought to be a criminal conspiracy charge available for what Rumsfeld and Myers did and also did not do about this.
Once again the brave boys and girls at DIA deserved our gratitude for the risk they took in writing this document. pl
https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/2697361/Myers-J2-Memo.pdf
It is noteworthy that the MSM have ignored the POLITICO story – despite the issue having been raised again by Trump in the last debate.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WqA2Hs5dTFM
Good interview from 2007 with Trump on Iraq. If nothing else he is rattling a few cages, anyway it probably takes a egotist and bombast like Trump to get any changes.
Hundreds of thousands of human lives were lost as a result of U.S. military action in Iraq. Will the Neocons ever be held accountable for such bloodshed? So far it seems only Heaven holds their just punishment. Men should dispense it instead.
If we’re going to be truth-saying, the Iraq War was for Israel.
Period.
• Netanyau appeared before Congress in 2002 urging war with Ron Dermer sitting behind him.
• Phillip Zelikow, Condoleeza Rice’s National Security Council sidekick, announced the war was for Israel at the University of Virginia in the fall of 2002.
• General Zinni said the war was for Israel.
Pro-Israeli groups, Israelis, neocons, and rabid Zionists are to blame for the unnecessary deaths of thousands of US soldiers, the unnecessary deaths and displacement of millions of innocent people, and the current massive refugee problem disrupting western countries and national treasuries. They used the media, accusations of anti-semitism, and outright lies to achieve it. They are the “enemy within.”
“2002 PM Netanyahu the U.S. To attack Iraq.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nN1HOVLf4C0
“Ex-Mideast Envoy Zinni Charges Neocons Pushed Iraq War To Benefit Israel”
http://forward.com/news/5719/ex-mideast-envoy-zinni-charges-neocons-pushed-iraq/#ixzz1s9mUM5Xk
“ZINNI: THE IRAQ WAR WAS FOR ISRAEL’S BENEFIT”
http://algerienetwork.com/usa/zinni-the-iraq-war-was-for-israels-benefit/
“Philip Zelikow And The Iraq “Threat” That Dare Not Speak Its Name” — Sam Francis [contains Zelikow’s University of Virginia statement that has been wiped from U of V website.]
http://www.vdare.com/articles/philip-zelikow-and-the-iraq-threat-that-dare-not-speak-its-name
“Iraq war really about Israel” [A Gannett story including quotes from Senator Orrin Hatch that has been wiped from the web, and “excluded from the Wayback Machine.”]
http://www.thespectrum.com/article/20080414/OPINION/804140320/Iraq-war-really-about-Israel
My thoughts exactly regarding Trump. The issue was prominently discussed by him again in the town hall last week with Jeb/Kasich when he was confronted by a furious republican livid at his daring to accuse the POTUS of lying to the american people to get us into Iraq. Trump stood by his guns
It was around this time (3Q-4Q 2002, IIRC) that “Deep Throat” first began posting on the late David Hackworth’s “Soldiers for the Truth” site about the torquing and stove-piping of intelligence in an intelligence unit in the SecDef’s office. “Deep Throat” was later revealed to be USAF Lt. Col. Karen Kwiatkowski, whose was in her last gig before retirement in Dougie Feith’s DoD planning shop.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karen_Kwiatkowski
Please do not forget Natan Sharansky, a recipient of Presidential Medal of Freedom and inspiration for Bush’ plans for the Middle East wars: http://www.jpost.com/International/Exclusive-Where-Bush-went-wrong-Sharansky
The story of Iraq war is not so much about faulty intelligence and ziocons’ pressure as about the lack of courage among people (mostly men) in a position of authority: a story of cowards in high places.
Before September 2001, both Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice publicly said that Iraq was not a threat with chemical, biological, or nuclear weapons. Powell said that Saddam “has not developed any significant capability with respect to weapons of mass destruction. He is unable to project conventional power against his neighbors”. Rice said, “We are able to keep arms from him; his military forces have not been rebuilt”–
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v0wbpKCdkkQ
The Judiciary Committee of the U.S. House of Representatives held a hearing in 2008 about the Bush jr. administration and executive power. Vincent Bugliosi, a lawyer in California who had successfully prosecuted the Charles Manson case on the Sharon Tate and LaBianca murders in Los Angeles, wrote several books. He published one in 2008 entitled, “The Prosecution of George W. Bush for Murder”, and spoke at the committee hearing–
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GDAFozFn4kU
Bugliosi took a run at discussing a possible criminal prosecution over the Iraq invasion of 2003 in the book. He passed away on 6 June 2015, after having developed cancer and complications after cancer surgery.
A documentary film was also made–
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X9jkJ0wjtHQ
http://firstrunfeatures.com/prosecutionofanamericanpresident.html
annamaria,
Sharansky is burnishing his dubious accomplishments, and in true Israeli form claiming rights to something he didn’t create, like Israeli Saul Singer and Dan Senor claiming in their book (“Start-up Nation”) that the Israelis invented the cellphone and cherry tomatoes.
“Inspiration for Bush’ plans for the Middle East wars?” I doubt it.
This guy got out of Russia in the 80s as a dissident with Canadian aid (former Canadian Minister of Defense Mitchell Sharp threatened to make it an international incident if the US didn’t lean on Gorbachev, if anyone can recall, although all credit seems to go to Reagan for completing it). Then he made it to Israel, and got lots of USD and media attention (1986).
The US neocon/Israeli plans to create Islamophobia and use US policy, lucre, and our somnambulant populace for their own ends had already been birthed in the 1980s here in the USA.
Leon Hadar, former bureau chief for the Jerusalem Post, wrote “The “Green Peril”: Creating the Islamic Fundamentalist Threat” in August 1992 as an adjunct scholar of the Cato Institute detailing the efforts. It was already a fait accompli. IMO, it’s a remarkable document; a real keeper. Read with hindsight, I can’t really tell these days whether Hadar is being sarcastic or what, but it’s a great read detailing facts many, many have forgotten. And Hadar timed it for release just after Clinton Democratic presidential coronation, the equivalent of releasing bad news on a Friday night because our august national press won’t notice, or give a shit. It never does.
http://www.cato.org/pubs/pas/pa-177.html
Sharansky can kiss my ass for the arrogance to think he counts that much on the world stage.
“Before September 2001, both Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice publicly said that Iraq was not a threat with chemical, biological, or nuclear weapons.”
I’ll probably get skewered from this community for being so blunt, but the neocons had no problem with sticking The Darkie (Powell) with a legacy of promoting the Iraq War with false info they force fed him when they, themselves, were the instigators. (Can’t you hear those tribal traitors still crowing at their enclaves?)
Wilkerson is doing a yeoman’s job trying to correct the wrong, but you have to hear Wilkerson to know he’s doing it. Few do. Powell’s reputation died at the UN, and the neocons are responsible for ruining him by using surrogates and lying.
MRW
Powell and his willing collaborator, Wilkerson, were fully engaged in the BS. Wilkerson shut naysaying INR analysts out of their discussions on the “evidence” at CIA. IMO they are both disgraces to the US Army. I have told Wilkerson that. pl
Could be wrong as always but my understanding is Trump has a group reviewing past Plum Books [the new one comes out about May 15th]. Apparently it turns out that the Obama Administration did the least of Administrations going back to Jimmy Carter to root out Republicans. There are about 500 PAS jobs [Presidential appointed Senate confirmed] but almost 10,000 career and non-career jobs. At any rate the Career SES ranks are largely politicized IMO. Few heads of agency have authority to oppose placement of politicos in their department or agency.
And of course Bush Lite is often the charge against Obama. But the FP and IC world in Washington once heavily politicized, perhaps even now. But IMO many of these appointees and federal officers are not politicized but will do almost anything to maintain their pay and status even if lack of honesty and integrity needed to do so. Perhaps always the case.
The federal civil service long dead IMO [since Carter] so perhaps some insights might be gained as to HRC’s interest in the civil service and Trump’s?
IMO one of the reasons military/civil interface policy and issues may yet lead to problems for our leadership circles.
The primary (and general election) polling site that is the most convincing and, I believe, the best is Sam Wang’s at Princeton:
http://election.princeton.edu/
Short version: Sanders is out. Trump wins if three or maybe even just two Republicans stay in the race. Right now, with Cruz, Rubio, and Kasich still running, he wins. And Wang seems to believe it is already over.
Trump is not liked by whatever it is that has perverted American Foreign Policy against the best interest of the American people. That’s putting it very, very mildly. There is an article by George Will in the WaPo this morning that is basically covered with spittle attacking Trump. The MSM (with the rare exception of things like the article in the Globe) is wall to wall, Get Trump.
The best hope for the United States is Donald Trump.
Ah. So he’s rewriting history these days . . . . thx.
When Powell gave his UN speech, I drank the Kool-Aid. Never trusted Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld or Wolfowitz, but Powell I trusted. Even later had he resigned as SoS in protest he would have been elected the first black president by huge majority, but again he did not. When it really counted he chickened out on the country and did what was expedient for himself.
Personal courage especially one that goes against self interest is a very rare thing, to be protected at all cost in a bureaucracy, but it isn’t and in the course of a year, the government lost the trust of the American public.
The public tolerates being lied to but they must have trust in the liars. That trust was broken. It will take a generation to restore.
if that is so, we are already comprehensively & inalterably screwed.
my own reading of history is that when people (minority or majority) insist ” it is so bad that even X is a good choice” is exactly when it can get much, much worse.
All
A neocon has challenged my title because the DIA paper does not actually say there is no WMD in Iraq. Instead it says how little is known of the existence of such weapons in Iraq. Well, pilgrims, that is how the “little people” tell their bosses that they are full of crap. pl
Exactly, Col. It helps to have an inkling about the behaviors of & within large bureaucracies, especially longstanding ones of rigid hierarchical design. One of the things that astounded me in the feverish run-up to war was how flimsy the actual claims being made were. (& I’m no intel analyst!) “Extraordinary action demands overwhelming evidence” to paraphrase Carl Sagan. Going to war over a discredited free-lancer’s testimony, some ass-covering bombast by Iraqi officers, a rumor of glorified “mobile labs” and some ppt crap from a rump intell cell dropped inside the Pentagon… my God! how did we fall so low, so fast? I can only conclude we are (as a nation, in these times) incapable of self-critique / self-awareness, or the neocon powers of that time would be nervously considering where to now hide, instead of writing books & issuing political fatwahs (at least one notes they don’t leave the good ole USA much, do they?). That was the time when I found your blog (& a very few others) that gave me some comfort there remained objective standards & sources of analysis… you just had to look real hard. So, while I may be an outsider to the world of your career, allow me to thank you again for this site, its qualities and your unrelenting service to our Nation.
Hayden says it was intel problem, a swing and a miss.http://www.npr.org/2016/02/22/467692822/michael-hayden-intel-agencies-not-the-white-house-got-it-wrong-on-iraq
The position of DNI did not exist on 9/11/01! Is he/she now fully accountable for non-feasance, misfeasance, malfeasance in the IC members [17 at last count and do they all have OIGS? Does the DNI have OIG oversight?]
what does anyone expect from Hayden & Tenet? they took advantage of being buffered from truth by the hierarchy & specialization of authority of the institutions they lead, and continue to thrive by it. they hadn’t the ethics or guts to call Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz & Feith on the ginned-up intel created by the Office of Special Plans to justify war with whole-cloth facts.
It’s bad enough to lie to others… when you lie to yourself, your people and your nation…
Schedule C as it is called are all political appointees. A president has the right to replace all of them but usually does only those fairly high up the food chain.
By the way, as an Intel analyst my work was censored on many topics including Iraq.
linda
Not by me. I probably argued with you but that is not the same thing. pl
After Jimmy Carter created the SES system Schedule C’s became primarily GS-5-15s IMO! Schedule C additions are published in the Federal Register quarterly.
It’s surely no longer a surprise or a secret that the intelligence was ‘fixed’ to support the policy?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Downing_Street_memo
‘C reported on his recent talks in Washington. There was a perceptible shift in attitude. Military action was now seen as inevitable. Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy.’