US intelligence on Iraq was wrong

THE key US assertions leading to the 2003 invasion of Iraq – that Saddam Hussein had chemical and biological weapons and was working to make nuclear weapons – were wrong and based on false or overstated CIA analyses, according to a scathing Senate Intelligence Committee report released yesterday.

Intelligence analysts fell victim to “group think” assumptions that Iraq had weapons that it did not, concludes a bipartisan report.

Many factors contributing to those failures are ongoing problems within the US intelligence community.

Senator Pat Roberts, a Kansas Republican who heads the committee, told reporters that assessments that Iraq had chemical and biological weapons and could make a nuclear weapon by the end of the decade were wrong.