Memo To Central Intelligence Agency | File Under 'Important'

[WilliamPitt]

From: William Rivers Pitt

To: Central Intelligence Agency

Date : Friday 24 October 2003

Status: IMPORTANT

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Ten minutes ago, the following story appeared on the Yahoo wires:

CIA rebuffs Senate criticism of its prewar intelligence

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/news/archive/2003/10/24/national0943EDT0499.DTL

The CIA on Friday rejected Senate criticism of its prewar reports on the threat posed by Saddam Hussein, saying it's too soon to conclude the intelligence was unfounded while the search for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq continues.

"It is hard to understand how the committee could come to any conclusions at this point, particularly while the efforts of (weapons search leader) Dr. David Kay in Iraq are at an early stage," said CIA spokesman Bill Harlow.

The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, which has interviewed more than 100 people and pored over volumes of classified material, is preparing a report that is highly critical of the CIA's work on the weapons and terrorism case against Saddam, The Washington Post reported in Friday's editions.

The committee staff was surprised by the amount of circumstantial evidence and disputed information used in intelligence documents, especially an October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate requested by Democratic senators as Congress prepared to vote to authorize going to war, the Post said.

Julian Borger
Thursday July 17, 2003
The Guardian

http://www.guardian.co.uk/print/0,3858,4714031-103681,00.html

As the CIA director, George Tenet, arrived at the Senate yesterday to give secret testimony on the Niger uranium affair, it was becoming increasingly clear in Washington that the scandal was only a small, well-documented symptom of a complete breakdown in US intelligence that helped steer America into war.

It represents the Bush administration's second catastrophic intelligence failure. But the CIA and FBI's inability to prevent the September 11 attacks was largely due to internal institutional weaknesses.

This time the implications are far more damaging for the White House, which stands accused of politicising and contaminating its own source of intelligence.

According to former Bush officials, all defence and intelligence sources, senior administration figures created a shadow agency of Pentagon analysts staffed mainly by ideological amateurs to compete with the CIA and its military counterpart, the Defence Intelligence Agency.

EDITED BY ADMIN: COPYRIGHT

...more...

Say the words, CIA. Office of Special Plans. I am at a loss to understand why this data is not being revealed by you. Get Walter Pincus on the case. This needs to happen.

Please distribute to all departments.

WRP/wrp

[Solomon]

1. Kick.

Thanks again Will. :bounce:

[phillybri]

2. Excellent....

:kick:

[sistersofmercy]

3. Kick!

:kick: