Report attacks CIA chief over Iraq advice

DEPARTING CIA director George Tenet was blasted in the Senate Intelligence report, which accused him of skewing advice to top policy-makers with the CIA’s view and elbowing out dissenting views from other intelligence agencies overseen by the State or Defence Departments.

It faults Tenet for not reviewing President George W Bush’s 2003 State of the Union address, which contained since-discredited references to Iraq’s efforts to purchase uranium in Africa.

Tenet, who told Bush it was a “slam dunk” that Iraq had such weapons before the war, has resigned and leaves office tomorrow.

The report was criticised for not addressing a key allegation by Democrats: that Bush and other officials further twisted the evidence to back their calls for war.

The committee’s top Democrat, Senator Jay Rockefeller of West Virginia, said he was disappointed the panel did not look into what he called “exaggerated” claims of the Iraqi threat by top administration officials.

It also absolved the Bush administration of charges it had pressured analysts to reach pre-set conclusions on Iraqi programmes. However, some Democrats dissented from that conclusion.

“The committee’s report does not acknowledge that the intelligence estimates were shaped by the administration,” said Sen Dianne Feinstein, of California. “In my view, this remains an open question that needs more careful scrutiny.”

Over Democratic objections, the committee decided to delay a report on how the Bush administration used intelligence it received until after the November 2 presidential election.

“There is a real frustration over what is not in this report ... after the analysts and the intelligence community produced an intelligence product, how is it then shaped or used or misused by the policy-makers?” Rockefeller asked.

Mr Bush called it a “useful report” about where the intelligence community “went short”.

“We need to know. I want to know. I want to know how to make the agencies better,” he said at a political stop in Kutztown, Pennsylvania, yesterday.

State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said the report showed that some material Secretary of State Colin Powell used to try to induce the United Nations to support war with Iraq was flawed. However, Boucher said, “The basic case was a correct one. Iraq wanted weapons of mass destruction.”

He said there was no reason for Powell to apologise for his UN presentation.

The report found that US agencies relied too heavily on Iraqi exiles, who were eager to see the United States invade their country, and foreign intelligence services for information, but were unable to check the reliability of such reports.

The committee also found that agencies focused on reports that Iraq had developed mobile laboratories to produce biological weapons and ignored information that contradicted it. No such mobile laboratories have been found.