WP: Intelligence Report for Iraq War Was 'Hastily Done'

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A8830-2003Oct23.html

Intelligence Report for Iraq War Was 'Hastily Done'

By Walter Pincus
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, October 24, 2003; Page A18


At the center of the political debate over the intelligence preceding the war in Iraq is the October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) -- the 100-page, top secret document that hurriedly pulled together judgments from across the U.S. intelligence community about the threat posed by Saddam Hussein and the potential dangers involved in an invasion.

Such estimates are usually requested by the White House and take months to prepare, with the CIA and other elements of the U.S. intelligence community weighing their own information and working out disagreements after review and debate. But this one was rushed into production only after requests from Democratic senators who were being asked to give President Bush authorization to go to war.

"The NIE was hastily done in three weeks," one senior intelligence expert said. "It was a cut-and-paste job, with agencies and officials given only one day to review the draft final product when they usually take months. . . . Today they still disagree on the meaning of what came out."

As the Bush administration built its case for war against Iraq in the fall of 2002, a thorough NIE would seem to have been crucial: Hussein's reported chemical, biological or nuclear weapons were central to the pro-war argument. Equally important were questions about how likely Hussein was to use such weapons against U.S. troops or worse, the U.S. homeland.