More On The Senate "Intelligence" Report
Quite a few people have picked up on the new Senate Intelligence Report's obvious flaws with regards to the issue of Iraq-al Qaeda. Here are some additional links and thoughts:
(1) Dafydd over at Big Lizards further dissects the report's section on Zarqawi. He makes some excellent points, some of which I noticed as well. For example, Dafydd points to page 91 of the report, which says that Saddam personally ordered one of Zarqawi’s minions to be freed. The report doesn’t make much of this fact, however. Instead, the authors give more weight to the Iraqi official’s denials.
As I pointed out in my piece for the Daily Standard yesterday, the report’s authors make no effort to critically examine the testimony offered by former Iraqi officials and intelligence officers. This leads to the inclusion of absurd statements and demonstrable falsehoods (like Saddam Hussein denying that the U.S. was his enemy). The passage that Dafydd cites on Page 91 offers yet another example of how the testimony of senior Iraqi officials was treated as unquestionable gospel.
The report makes much of the fact that Saddam supposedly ordered his minions to hunt down Zarqawi's operatives, but doesn't bother to ask why - if that were true - he would also order one of the terrorists to be released once he was captured. The contradiction is readily apparent.
Abu Yasim Sayyem was the terrorist who Saddam ordered to be released. He was involved in the assassination of Laurence Foley. I note that the authors of this report didn't even bother to re-examine evidence concerning the Foley assassination from the first Senate Intelligence Report. For a part of my take on that evidence go here.
(2) Captain Ed notes that the report was quickly turned "into a partisan squabble, which given the atmosphere in the past decade or more, surprises no one." That's certainly true. It is clear that the authors of the section on Iraq-al Qaeda looked to dismiss evidence of a relationship, rather than weighing and considering the evidence that was available.
(3) Captain Ed also points to AJ Strata's excellent take on the report. AJ hones in on a key point, and I'll quote Capt. Ed's take:
"More to the point, AJ shows where the report openly states that the committee didn't really pursue questions of Iraq's links to terrorism outside of the scope of their mission, ie, comparing pre-war intel to post-war intel, an exercise that doesn't lend itself to the same level of certainty as the WMD question. He also notes this passage in the report that the media skipped in its reporting:
The Committee examined the assessments from the Intelligence Community on the topics discussed in the NIE produced prior to and following the NIE. In most cases, the opinions of the community and individual agencies did not change following the publication of the NIE or following the 2002-2003 United Nations’ inspections in Iraq. The community judgement did change pertaining to the intended use of the Iraq’s UAVs. Specifically, the NIE judgement that Iraq’s attempts to procure U.S. mapping software for its UAVs that was useless outside the U.S., “strongly suggests that Iraq is investigating the use of these UAVs for missions targeting the United States.” A change was made to the UAV judgements in a new NIE published in January 2003 titled Nontraditional Threats to the US Homeland Through 2007.
The procurement of mapping software for the US in a program for ultralight aircraft is more than just suggestive of terror plotting; no other explanation would make sense. Unless Saddam and his boys decided that they wanted to retire from the hectic life of genocidal tyrants and take up ultralight aviation as a hobby in America, the combination clearly describes a potential delivery mechanism for some kind of attack -- probably an anthrax or other airborne biological attack. AJ explains the details."
More to come on this nonsense over the next several days...I think it is pretty clear that there is no effective leadership on the Senate Intelligence Committee.
(1) Dafydd over at Big Lizards further dissects the report's section on Zarqawi. He makes some excellent points, some of which I noticed as well. For example, Dafydd points to page 91 of the report, which says that Saddam personally ordered one of Zarqawi’s minions to be freed. The report doesn’t make much of this fact, however. Instead, the authors give more weight to the Iraqi official’s denials.
As I pointed out in my piece for the Daily Standard yesterday, the report’s authors make no effort to critically examine the testimony offered by former Iraqi officials and intelligence officers. This leads to the inclusion of absurd statements and demonstrable falsehoods (like Saddam Hussein denying that the U.S. was his enemy). The passage that Dafydd cites on Page 91 offers yet another example of how the testimony of senior Iraqi officials was treated as unquestionable gospel.
The report makes much of the fact that Saddam supposedly ordered his minions to hunt down Zarqawi's operatives, but doesn't bother to ask why - if that were true - he would also order one of the terrorists to be released once he was captured. The contradiction is readily apparent.
Abu Yasim Sayyem was the terrorist who Saddam ordered to be released. He was involved in the assassination of Laurence Foley. I note that the authors of this report didn't even bother to re-examine evidence concerning the Foley assassination from the first Senate Intelligence Report. For a part of my take on that evidence go here.
(2) Captain Ed notes that the report was quickly turned "into a partisan squabble, which given the atmosphere in the past decade or more, surprises no one." That's certainly true. It is clear that the authors of the section on Iraq-al Qaeda looked to dismiss evidence of a relationship, rather than weighing and considering the evidence that was available.
(3) Captain Ed also points to AJ Strata's excellent take on the report. AJ hones in on a key point, and I'll quote Capt. Ed's take:
"More to the point, AJ shows where the report openly states that the committee didn't really pursue questions of Iraq's links to terrorism outside of the scope of their mission, ie, comparing pre-war intel to post-war intel, an exercise that doesn't lend itself to the same level of certainty as the WMD question. He also notes this passage in the report that the media skipped in its reporting:
The Committee examined the assessments from the Intelligence Community on the topics discussed in the NIE produced prior to and following the NIE. In most cases, the opinions of the community and individual agencies did not change following the publication of the NIE or following the 2002-2003 United Nations’ inspections in Iraq. The community judgement did change pertaining to the intended use of the Iraq’s UAVs. Specifically, the NIE judgement that Iraq’s attempts to procure U.S. mapping software for its UAVs that was useless outside the U.S., “strongly suggests that Iraq is investigating the use of these UAVs for missions targeting the United States.” A change was made to the UAV judgements in a new NIE published in January 2003 titled Nontraditional Threats to the US Homeland Through 2007.
The procurement of mapping software for the US in a program for ultralight aircraft is more than just suggestive of terror plotting; no other explanation would make sense. Unless Saddam and his boys decided that they wanted to retire from the hectic life of genocidal tyrants and take up ultralight aviation as a hobby in America, the combination clearly describes a potential delivery mechanism for some kind of attack -- probably an anthrax or other airborne biological attack. AJ explains the details."
More to come on this nonsense over the next several days...I think it is pretty clear that there is no effective leadership on the Senate Intelligence Committee.
posted by Thomas Joscelyn at 7:57 AM
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