Analysts behind faulty Iraq intel rewarded

[FreedomAngel82]

Link: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7985035/

Snip: <By Walter Pincus
The Washington Post
Updated: 11:29 p.m. ET May 27, 2005

Two Army analysts whose work has been cited as part of a key
intelligence failure on Iraq — the claim that aluminum tubes sought
by the Baghdad government were probably meant for a nuclear weapons
program rather than for rockets — have received job performance
awards in each of the past three years, officials said.

The civilian analysts, former military men considered experts on
foreign and U.S. weaponry, work at the Army's National Ground
Intelligence Center (NGIC), one of three U.S. agencies singled out
for particular criticism by President Bush's commission that
investigated U.S. intelligence.

The Army analysts concluded that it was highly unlikely that the
tubes were for use in Iraq's rocket arsenal, a finding that
bolstered a CIA contention that they were destined for nuclear
centrifuges, which was in turn cited by the Bush administration as
proof that Saddam Hussein was reconstituting Iraq's nuclear weapons
program.

The problem, according to the commission, which cited the two
analysts' work, is that they did not seek or obtain information
available from the Energy Department and elsewhere showing that the
tubes were indeed the type used for years as rocket-motor cases by
Iraq's military. The panel said the finding represented a "a serious
lapse in analytic tradecraft" because the center's personnel "could
and should have conducted a more exhaustive examination of the
question."

Question of accountability
Pentagon spokesmen said the awards for the analysts were to
recognize their overall contributions on the job over the course of
each year. But some current and former officials, including those
who called attention to the awards, said the episode shows how the
administration has failed to hold people accountable for mistakes on
prewar intelligence.>