Both Bushes Toyed with Intelligence (St. Pete Times)

http://www.sptimes.com/2003/07/18/Opinion/Both_Bushes_toyed_wit.shtml

There is an unspoken bargain between the intelligence agencies on one side and political leaders on the other. Intelligence is apolitical. It tells the truth, warts and all, because its only asset in Washington is the credibility of its professionals. The politicians agree not to tell the intelligence services what to write, while the intelligence services promise not to tell the political decisionmaker what to do. The president is free to disregard intelligence, but he is not free to lie about it - either directly, indirectly or by innuendo.

It is trivially easy to apply subtle but real pressure to get slanted intelligence. A pointed question from a senior official, disappointment on the face of a political appointee coupled with a request for a "second opinion," or "visits" by an official to talk "directly to the analysts" all convey the desired outcome.

When politically desired intelligence estimates are reached by counting noses although the specialists in a given area hold a conflicting opinion, the United States is ill-served. This was apparently the reasoning of officialdom in the rush to accuse Saddam Hussein of having a nuclear program. Much of the "evidence" claimed by the administration was that Iraq had purchased high-strength aluminum tubes for use as centrifuges to enrich uranium for nuclear bombs. The rest was the assertion that Saddam Hussein had tried to procure additional uranium in Africa...

But George W. Bush is not the first member of his family to take the United States to war in the Persian Gulf based on exaggerated claims. In September of 1990 Dick Cheney, then George H.W. Bush's secretary of Defense, claimed that Iraq had between 250,000 and 350,000 troops in Kuwait. Two photoanalysts (I was one of them) working for the St. Petersburg Times examined high-quality contemporaneous photos shot of Kuwait by Russian civilian satellites. Although U.S. troop encampments in Saudi Arabia could be readily seen, there was no hint of an Iraqi force in Kuwait that might have threatened Saudi Arabia. The Times' analysts concluded that there were no more than 100,000 Iraqi soldiers in Kuwait...

About the author: - Peter D. Zimmerman served as chief scientist at the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency and as science adviser for arms control in the State Department during the Clinton Administration. He wrote this commentary for the St. Petersburg Times.

Jean Heller, a reporter for the St. Pete Times, led the investigation. Google her name or Zimmerman's.