Bush "lied"?

Senate Report on Whether Public Statements By U.S. Government Officials Were Substantiated by Intelligence Information

This is from the new Rockefeller/Bond report. Tedium below the fold.

[page 15] (U) Conclusion 1: Statements by the President, Vice President, Secretary of State and the National Security Adviser regarding a possible Iraqi nuclear weapons program were generally substantiated by intelligence community estimates, but did not convey the substantial disagreements that existed in the intelligence community.

Prior to the October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate, some intelligence agencies assessed that the Iraqi government was reconstituting a nuclear weappons program, while others disagrees or expressed doubts about the evidence. The Estimate itself expressed the majority view that the program was being reconstituted, but included clear dissenting views from the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research, which argued that reconstitution was not underway, and the Department of Energy, which argued that aluminum tubes sought by Iraq were probably not intended for a nuclear program.

[Page 28] (U) Conclusion 2: Statements in major speeches analyzed, as well as additional statements, regarding Iraq's possession of biological agent, weapons, production capability, and use of mobile laboratories were substantiated by intelligence information. Intelligence assessments from the late 1990s through early 2003 consistently stated that Iraq retained biological warfare agent and the capability to produce more. Assessments on the mobile facilities included the production capabilities of those labs, both in terms of type of agent and in amount. Prior to the October 2002 NIE, some intelligence assessments left open the question as to whether Iraq possessed biological weapons or that it was actively producing them, though other assessments did not present such uncertainties. Policy makers did not discuss intelligence gaps in Iraq's biological weapons programs, which were explicit in the October 2002 NIE.

posted by Purp at 11:08 AM

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