May 29, 2003
By BRYAN BENDER, Globe Correspondent
WASHINGTON -- The Bush administration's conclusion that two truck trailers seized in Iraq were probably used as mobile bioweapons labs is unlikely to dispel doubts about prewar assertions that Iraq had a vast program of weapons of mass destruction, according to defense analysts.
Despite previous US assertions that Saddam Hussein's government had enough deadly agents and chemical toxins to kill millions of people, no biological or chemical materials have been found nearly two months after the fall of the Iraqi regime.
The doubts are being further fueled by establishment in the Department of Defense of an office intended to improve the flow of intelligence from the CIA and other spy agencies. The head of the new office, the undersecretary of defense for intelligence, is being billed as an advocate for the military's changing intelligence needs.
But some critics say the office will mold intelligence to further the administration's foreign policy goals and erode the independence of other US intelligence agencies. Current and former lawmakers, as well as analysts, say that's what may have happened on Iraq.
Yesterday's less-than-definitive findings on the suspected mobile labs strengthen the views of some critics that the administratin inflated prewar intelligence reports to build support for the invasion. The CIA and Defense Intelligence Agency reached their conclusions about the suspected mobile labs by eliminating other possible uses for the facilities.
''It plays into the lingering doubts about the administration's claims,'' said Corey Hinderstein, an analyst at the Institute for Science and International Security in Washington. ''To use such a controversial methodology is somewhat disturbing. It is yet another example where the US credibility is being hurt.''
Members of the House Intelligence Committee are also concerned about the validity of prewar intelligence. Last week, the panel asked the CIA to review the prewar intelligence on suspected Iraqi weapons and Iraq's possible links to terrorism.
The committee ''wants to ensure that the analysis relayed to our policymakers . . . was accurate, unbiased, and timely,'' said a May 22 letter to CIA director George J. Tenet from Representatives Porter J. Goss, a Florida Republican and the panel's chairman, and Jane Harman of California, the committee's ranking Democrat.
The Bush administration denies that it shaped intelligence to support its goal of regime change in Iraq. General Richard B. Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said Monday on ABC's ''Today'' show that he had ''high confidence in the intelligence data that we had before we went into Iraq.'' He said he believed that it ''is a matter of time'' before weapons of mass destruction are found.
In an effort to address any new concerns about politics mixing with intelligence, Stephen Cambone, the Pentagon's new intelligence czar, said last week that he and his staff of about 100 will not be involved in either gathering future intelligence or analyzing any findings.
The office ''isn't here to process intelligence,'' Cambone told reporters. ''The task here is for us to be able to articulate to the intelligence community what the needs and interests of the department are going to be. It's an important distinction to make.''
He acknowledged that the unit will work on ''improving the flow of information . . . from those who collect and analyze it . . . to those who employ it in the military and civilian worlds within the Department of Defense.''
Such a role, however, is causing concern among opponents of the office, who fear that political bias will be infused into the process and that intelligence contrary to the administration's goals will be left out of the public discourse.
''There is always a tendency to blend intelligence information into the political agenda,'' said former US senator Sam Nunn, who was chairman of the Armed Services Committee. ''The Pentagon is driven by policy.''
The Bush administration, in particular, has ''people with very strong-willed views leading the civilian side,'' Nunn said.In previous roles, Rumsfeld and Cambone were involved in reassessing intelligence reports. In 1998, Rumsfeld, as a private citizen, led a congressional commission to gauge the threat from ballistic missiles. Cambone was his staff director.Around Rumsfeld, ''there has been a long pattern of mistrust of the intelligence agencies and having independent assessments that exaggerate the threat,'' said Joseph Cirincione, senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington. ''This is what happened to us in Iraq,'' Cirincione said. ''The intelligence agencies were bludgeoned into providing intelligence information that would support their preexisting policy.''
Cirincione warns of a repeat of the late 1970s, when current Bush administration advisers such as Richard Perle participated in what was called ''Team B'' to reappraise the Soviet military threat.
''They came out with an independent evaluation of a much greater threat that proved completely wrong,'' Cirincione said. ''This formed the Reagan administration policies during the 1980s, but by the end of the decade it was clear that the intelligence agencies had it right. But being wrong has never stopped these guys.''
This story ran on page A17 of the Boston Globe on 5/29/2003.
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