From the LA Times (reg reqd) today - CIA Study on Iraq Weapons is Off Course, Officials Say



So basically, the CIA is preparing a report on what Iraq's capabilities might have looked like in 2008 if they were left unchecked. Some very good points about the fact that we haven't found any weapons or active programs have been made. This begs the question, is this report federally funded science fiction?

Questions for debate:
1. Is this report a legitimate and necessary use of government funds and resources or do you believe it is a politically motivated move to justify the Iraq war?

2. Would this report provide valuable information to our government's decision makers? Why or why not?

1. Is this report a legitimate and necessary use of government funds and resources or do you believe it is a politically motivated move to justify the Iraq war?

I would prefer that they spend their energies on a report outlining what Al quaida's capabilities might be in 2008 if we don't get out of the morass of Iraq and actually start going after them.
Or perhaps a report on Pakistan's constant nuclear climb, and North Korea's. Perhaps by 2008 North Korea will be launching ballistic missles over california instead of the ones they shot over Japan. This is a joke and it is the heart of my argument why the heads of the FBI and CIA and Homeland security should not be politically appointed jobs.



2. Would this report provide valuable information to our government's decision makers? Why or why not?

Not really. Our own military planned for their own future in the '90's. They thought a smaller, more efficient and technologically advanced military would rule in the post-cold war era.
Now they are realizing that they need more manpower and less flashy new toys.
So now we will project the future of another country's military capabilities based upon capabilities we don't know they had? Riiiight. This will only be valuable if they release some intel they had on Iraq that we haven't seen in order to justify their opinion, whatever it may be.
This boggles my mind really.

1. Is this report a legitimate and necessary use of government funds and resources or do you believe it is a politically motivated move to justify the Iraq war?

The CIA and DoD do counter-factual analysis all the time. While you may suspect the motives of such a report, it seems a legitimate topic.

2. Would this report provide valuable information to our government's decision makers? Why or why not?

What is another report going to change on all of this? Washington always does this. Solution to a stunning lack of security in this country? A new department. Is intelligence planning not working? Appoint a new cabinet secretary or director. This is what passes for solutions to complex problems in this country.

1. To me this seems like a bit of a waste. There probably are pros to doing a report like this, but it seems like more of a waste of time and effort.

2. It could I suppose, though I'm not really sure how it would give any useful information on situations like this in the future becuase each situation is very specific. Maybe they can draw conclusions like: let the UN inspectors do their jobs.

The one thing I don't like about this report is it's due date. It seems all coincidental that the report is going to come out right before the election. And I wont be surprised when it says that if Saddam was left unchecked then all sorts of bad things would've happened; and thank god GW led the crusade, er war, er liberation of the Iraqi people. I for one don't see how this report would be worth more than the rescources it's wasting.

1.No. I think it's time to stop expending resources on Iraq. Especially something like this--hey--the CIA was wrong (please spare me the "everyone in the world thought that" stuff---then they were all wrong). Somehow they thought something was there that wasn't. They screwed up, and we invaded--now they dont have a weapons capability. So it doesn't matter what the intelligence community might speculate about weapons capabilities 4 years from now.

Only point would be to scare us or to try and save face.

Maybe the CIA should move on and try and prevent terrorist attacks or find bin Laden. Wouldn't that be something?

2. Nope. It would provide valuable information to nobody. It would, in fact, be a work of fiction. The report would have absolutely no bearing on reality, because regardless of what this "report" (I see it as a novella) says, the invasion would have already occured.

It could not possible provide some useful information for government officials to act on. Maybe they should try and do some actual intelligence, instead of writing "what if" scenarios.


Sorry if this seems harsh. But, hey--you guys told us about those remote controlled planes that could attack America. That was scary. Turns out there weren't any remote controlled planes that could fly to America and bomb Phoenix. So, move on guys.

I wish I had known they had enough cash to generate a study like this. I would have liked to bid on it.

For a 10th of the price, I would have purchased one of those "fortune telling" 8 balls that when you shake it and ask it a question, displays "It is decidely so" and get the same results.

This is patently absurd. They couldn't get right what he had the first time, but think they can get right what he could have had this time. I never realized there was that much money in speculation.

They should call this "The Wool Study". It's designed to pull the wool over your average moron's eyes to hide the fact nothing ever existed.

My sentiments exactly. I might be going off topic here, but for some reason I am a little disturbed by the Iraq-WMD-CIA-Bush thing. With all the accusations and the finger-pointing it has become incredibly difficult to decipher the truth. So, it seems that Iraq had no WMD--well then was it a threat or was it not? I can't find a reliable source! And what about a real, true threat to the US? Would anyone believe the administartion or the CIA?

This all left the land of verifiable facts a long time ago a took a trip to the absurd a long time ago. The Democrats have to stop using the "Bush Lied" excuse. They had the same intelligence and everyone in their right mind knew the Bush Administration was putting its best face on the intelligence. It was the same info Clinton had but you don't hear them calling him and Albright liars.

Even if you still insist on calling the war a lie, it is a small lie in the recent history of wars in this country. After all the Gulf of Tonkin resolution was based on an even bigger lie by LBJ, a Democrat no less.

You are right, we left the land of verifiable facts the second the CIA conceived of a study to project the weapons programs of Iraq in 2008 if the regime were under saddam Hussein especially given what we know now and the fact that he is you know, in jail. I wonder if the report starts with a harrowing jail break or something and then a spectacular coup and rebellion.


You are right, but you should also note that Clinton didn't invade Iraq based on that intelligence either.

Wha.....

First, the CIA report of discussion is something that seems especially absurd. Why? Well, there is no Saddam regime, and there are no WMDs, and we do not know the future of Iraq if we had not invaded. So, as far as I can see there are 3 unknowns. Big unknowns. In fact, the relevancy of this report to reality is an unkown.

Further, in the post you quoted (mine and DaytonRocker's), neither of us said that the war was a lie. I am pointing out the credibility gap that now exists--the question is: would we really trust the CIA anymore? Even if a real threat occured. Sort of a "Boy who Cried Wolf" Scenario.

It appears this is a CIA attempt to "save face". I believe it is a bit too late for the agency to do that. But in their defense, every other intelligence agency in the world had it wrong too. At least we think they did. As far as speculation goes, it is certainly feasible that Iraq exported any WMD they had.

We knew they had them, because we gave them the WMD. The real question is: what happened to them?

If that is true, how to you resolve Colin Powell's and Condi Rice's statements in early 2001 that clearly indicate what we know to be true now? They said all of Saddam's WMD had been destroyed, Saddam was adequately contained, and Saddam was not a threat to his neighbors or world any longer.

All that changed after 9/11 although nothing in Iraq changed.

The world didn't seem too concerned about Saddam's propensity for developing programs for planning programs to develop plans for WMD plan development back then. Why now?

This "study" could serve no other purpose other than to cloud reality with speculation.

Dayton,

You are the first to bring up those statements by Powell and Rice... do you have a reputable link?

If I may:

February 2001 clip (Windows Media Player format, 1 meg)
Quotes

Hey good stuff. I am surprised the Democrats have not used those quotes more often. I do recall that Powell was one of the opposers of military force by America. Then I believe Bush told him... you go to the U.N. get a resolution and if we can make Sadaam give us real access, then we will just leave it be. Powell goes to the U.N. gets 1441 and Sadaam basically said no thanks.... by the way WTF was Sadaam thinking??? He had it make if he just rolled over a bit? (Bit off topic, but I always wondered).

When Sadaam thumbed his nose, I think Powell had a change of opinion. While Powell's opinion was that Iraq was not a significant threat. I do think he believed Sadaam needed to be kept in check. Sadaam refused, Powell changed his opinion, and Sadaam got rolled. That is my basic take on the situation.

1. Is this report a legitimate and necessary use of government funds and resources or do you believe it is a politically motivated move to justify the Iraq war?

The fact that this has been announced tells me it's not about using information for future action. It's about covering for the administration in particular and for the nation's actions in general.



2. Would this report provide valuable information to our government's decision makers? Why or why not?

How can "What might have been," provide anything except justifications? Is Saddam going to take power again if we aren't careful and take up where he left off? Each nation is different, and Iraq's President is in prison. Again, this report is going to be for propaganda purposes only in my opinion.

I wonder if it will work?

1. This report is EXACTLY what we need. The fact that we cannot find the WMD we are certain Iraq produced does not mean they were not made. And as Mr. Butler has said: Iraq maintained, under sanctions, a “break out capability” which would have allowed them to be back in volume production of WMD quickly. As Mr. Clinton has said recently Iraq was a threat that had to be dealt with .

2. This report Will provide valuable information relevant to this type of decision. It is far to easy to focus on current events and not look at what the alternatives were available to us and our allies.

Since you already know they possessed WMD then what is the real benefit of this study? What they could have used them for? I’ll save the country money and tell you the same thing that’s going to come out of this report, in fact I’ll just look up Bush’s pre invasion State of the Union address and repeat it verbatim. That will surely scare more voters.

1. Is this report a legitimate and necessary use of government funds and resources or do you believe it is a politically motivated move to justify the Iraq war?

Give this administration time and resources and they just might eventually find an excuse for the invasion of Iraq, who knows, maybe Alexander left a catapult behind. I can understand the preemptive need for ‘what if’ analysis that can benefit our intelligence services and decision makers, but his is nothing but a ‘how come’. By nature this type of analysis is almost purely hypothetical with too many assumptions and the results can be skewed to favor either side. Politics at it’s absolute worse.

We’ve swollen the ranks of terrorists, given them more reasons to attack us and need to focus intelligence efforts on prevention but now we’re going to spend those valuable resources on justification? I suddenly feel safer.

2. Would this report provide valuable information to our government's decision makers? Why or why not?

Again, the nature of this type of analysis is dangerous for the political spin that will follow and we’ve seen the level that the Bush administration will stoop to ensure they scare voters into another term. Major explosion in N Korea over the weekend and our intelligence sources are so poor there that we still don’t know what happened. Sorry, but N Korea possesses nuclear weaponry and intelligence resources need to pay attention to their activities, not another attempt to justify the invasion.

Well fife it appears that it may not be that simple especially in an election year. The Dems and the press in general are now saying that there never were WMD in Iraq.

How they feel that this position can be justified is beyond me since there is a mountain of evidence and testimony to the contrary. The report needs to be done and released asap.

This mountain of evidence... we've held numerous Iraqi scientists in custody now for a loooong time over in Iraq. They've been interrogated numerous times. If the Administration had information -- real testimony from the scientists who were responsible for the WMD programs -- about where those WMD were or that WMD existed after, say, 1998, do you think they would have released this publicly to bolster their image? We're talking about an Administration that selectively declassifies stuff to support their viewpoint (while holding countering information back as "secret"), so I can't imagine why we haven't seen more of this "mountain of evidence" coming from the Administration and not, say, a conspiracy theorist or someone more reputable... like Drudge.

Here's the disconnect Ted:

There were WMD's in Iraq. That cannot be disputed. And where's the proof? We have the receipts. Under a dual-use premise - between 1985-89 - US firms exported Bacillus anthracis (anthrax), Clostridium botulinum, Histoplasma capsulatam, Brucella melitensis, Clostridium perfringens (gas gangrene), Clostridium tetani (tentanus), Escherichia coli, and dozens of other pathogenic biological agents to Iraq.

Iraq did not have the technology or facilities to produce enough WMD to be effective against it's enemies. Our interests were fairly clear back then. Iran could NOT win that war (the Iran/Iraq war). The Kurds took up arms with Tehran in the north. When Iran came over the borders into Iraq territory, Saddam unleashed OUR chemicals against them. Iran responded in kind with their chemicals. 1000's of Kurds died in the process. It is permissable - while horrific - to use WMD inside your own border defensively as long as it doesn't permanatly destroy the landscape. More proof that war sucks and should be the very, very last resort.

Anyhow, Saddam did not target his own people. The "gassed his own people" rhetoric makes it sound like he dropped a WMD bomb in downtown Bagdad. Well, his "people" would have put his head on a stick given half a chance. They were fighting him. They aided and abetted Iraq's enemy. Were they wrong? Probably not unless we find out that Iraq cannot democratically rule itself (which looks more likely everyday). But Saddam was defending his country just like we did when used WMD to kill many 100's of thousands of innocent Japanese.

So, after Kuwait, Scott Ritter and the inspectors went in and destroyed over 95% of everything Iraq had left over from the Iran. Since non-binary chemicals have a short shelf life (chemicals 5 years, bio 3 years), it was doubtful any was left.

In early 2001, both Colin Powell and Condaleeza Rice were BOTH stating Iraq did not have the capacity to produce WMD (which was a no-brainer because they never did) and was not a threat to it's neighbors. They stated unambiguously that containment was working.

All that changed with 9/11. Suddenly, Iraq and it's WMD were back on the radar screen. We sent inspectors in to find what we knew couldn't exist unless Saddam built huge facilities in the last 10 years. Those didn't exist either. That's why they will not find WMD - they need to find the facilities first and every place they assumed to be the places turned out to be wrong. Every one of them.

So your point that "Saddam had WMD" is no different than someone saying "The United States has killed over a half million innocent people with WMD". Both are technically true, but highly misleading. And that's the disconnect.

Where's the report showing Saddam could have cured cancer by May of 2006? Because with this amount of conjecture, those results would be no different.

I don’t think you’ll find an informed Dem or a member of the press corp who denies Iraq ever possessed WMD’s, their battle cry is/was: do/did they possess them now?

Something I personally won’t disagree with is at one time Iraq possessed WMD’s, as DR point’s out we have the receipts and I could provide a picture of Rumsfield shaking Saddams hand taken around the time the deal was sealed.

And, hopefully you’ll agree here, we haven’t found any WMD’s, or the remote control airplanes that Bush scared us into believing could be used to deliver them, or the nuclear devices, etc…

My issue here is with so many other more important demands on our intelligence resources we’re going to allow them to speculate on something that didn’t exist? I’m just looking for the logic here.

In the words of Bush I, continuing to speculate on erroneous intelligence information for the sake of another ‘war justification’ sound bite ‘just wouldn’t be prudent’.

Wow, I find the numerous posts here decrying this report astounding. This would seem to be a very relevant and useful report, as it would help to answer the question--Given the lack of any existing WMD, was the invasion of Iraq necessary? For those against the President's actions, is your position so tenuous that you are afraid that it can't stand the scrutiny? If not, as has been pointed out, this type of report is done all the time. As I look through the various statements decrying the need for this report, all I can think of is the line 'Me thinks they doth protest too much.'

Apparently, also, given the responses, it seems worthwhile to inject that the invasion of Iraq was indeed related to the war on terror and that both Bush and Kerry have stated that, knowing then what they know now regarding Iraq's possession of WMD, they would still invade. So, the various protestations concerning the irrelavance of the Iraqi invasion and where we should be focusing our efforts, particularly in regards to criticizing Bush's actions, don't seem to apply to any Bush vs. Kerry discussion. Which, it would seem, would make the results of such a report all the more relevant. The results itself I'm sure will receive due scrutiny, for those concerned it is purely a propoganda ploy.

That's an interesting question, but more of a political one and one outside of the scope of the CIA, which is more an intelligence gathering and analysis group. So what would they be doing creating a report at the request of the Administration to answer a political question? I can't imagine how it would change anything or provide additional detail that the 9/11 commission and the Congressional oversight committees wouldn't someday be able to answer better.

So why spend our precious intelligence resources on answering a political question? Didn't you claim elsewhere that these resources were tied down watching Iraq while sanctions were in place, so invading was the best way to free up those resources? Wouldn't these resources be better put to work on something else? Something more related to intelligence gathering and analysis? Or is imagining the possible future of Iraq doing that?

I don't think it would answer that question at all Hobbes, what you would get is pure science fiction.

I would highly doubt this report is going to come out and state - ok they don't have any WMD right now but what could they have in four years. It is going to start with the flawed assumption that they had WMD in 2003 but that they were somehow hidden and concealed from our forces. That assertion is completely ridiculous.

Furthermore it will likely have to make assumptions about Saddam's intent and plan until 2008 if he was still in power. The assumption there I'm sure would be that Saddam intended to attack America or something to that effect. However again, that will be completely false and flawed. If you take into account what DR wrote in his post you'll see that not only did Iraq not have WMD but they weren't making any attempts to produce it either or at least no successful attempts.

As long as we are making assumptions I think a much more valid one would be that Saddam was just trying to hold on to his country and that the combination of the first Gulf War and the sanctions being imposed by the UN had crippled his regime and he just had enough power to stay in power. Was he doing horrible things to his people? Probably. But he certainly wasn't in league with Al Qaeda and making plans to attack the US and take over the region. Saddam is the Castro of the younger generation, he was dangerous at one point but now he was just holding on to power.

As I said, there would be plenty of opportunity to criticize the report once it is published--if that is your concern, then the report would indeed be duly ridiculed, and it would work against any supposed political motivation.



Again, putting the cart before the horse...we have no idea what assumptions they would include, but all of them would have to be clearly delineated in the report and open to criticism. Ditto for any conclusions.



Because its not really a political question, its a policy issue. As such, those against the action we took should be the very ones most interested in the results of such a report, as, if your position is indeed valid, it should support your observations. If your position against the war is anywhere near as clear as you maintain, you have no reason to protest the report--it would either have to support your position, or make such ridiculous claims and assumptions that it would only hurt its supposed political motivation.



Yes, I think imagining the possible future of Iraq is doing just that. (and I also think that the few resources devoted to preparing this report, and the analysis group they would come from, would be insignificant in its effects on other work--in fact, in the process, they will likely come up with information quite valuable in evaluating other threats and how best to deal with them. Which, I might add, is also what I think its true purpose is.

Right, and lets assume for a second that based on the assumptions in the report (which I might or might not agree with) Iraq was declared necessary. You don't think that every talking head and every member of the Bush administration wouldn't be proclaiming that report was the bible and shouldn't be questioned? Any criticism against it would be completely lost in all of that and it would probably just be labled as Democracts/Liberals complaining, flip-flopping, being unpatriotic and unamerican, sour grapes, choose your own term du jour. The report wouldn't have to be true or stand up to criticism because if the timing was right it would have the desired political impact and once the votes were counted it wouldn't matter anymore.

Everyone here should know in their heart of hearts that the only possible motivation behind such a report would be political, there is absolutely no reason now to justify Iraq to ourselves at the moment because it just doesn't matter. We are in Iraq and we can't leave until it is done. We can't get in our time machine and go back and do something different, what is done is done. Why does it matter - other than for politics, for the sake of debating it here on AD, and for the election - whether going to Iraq was right or wrong - we are there and we need to move forward not dwell on the past because dwelling on the past won't change anything except possibly the election results.

We cannot put Saddam back in power, we can't undrop the bombs and we can't bring the 1000+ dead soldiers back to life. You can write reports all day and that won't change.

Now what I would support spending money on is a report on how to get out of Iraq and ensure the democratic government is successful. Writing some report that will be science fiction and a political tool is not a judicious use of tax payer money.

Hobbes, I’m really trying to see your point here but if the entire report is speculative, then what is the real value. Tell me what you hope to see out of this that we haven’t already heard and frame it in the question asked: ‘is this an efficient use of intelligence resources?”

I would expect:
Saddam could have produced WMD
Saddam could have attacked his Middle East neighbors
Saddam could have given WMD to terrorist
Saddam could have attacked the US

Old news in my book which adds no value.

With Dubya’s appointee heading the CIA you really think the results of this reports are going to read Saddam was expected to convert to Buddhism, become one with himself, institute a democratic state in Iraq, and guest speak at the 08' RNC?

While we have heard much--most of it has indeed been speculation. I am ALWAYS more interested in analysis than speculation. I see value in that analysis for determining the proper course of action in the future. I don't think these reports usually involve an inordinant amount of people--and those that they do engage are probably dedicated primarily to preparing such reports. So, I don't really see any effect on either taxpayers or other intelligence activities. Given that, I think the report will be useful.



Politics is always involved in anything coming out of Washington...I don't expect this report to be that different. However, neither do I think the CIA will purposefully do bad work--especially given the scrutiny this report will likely receive. Which is precisely why I'm not overly concerned about any political motivation--I don't expect the report to provide it. Rather, I think it will be much like Blix's reports to the UN--treading a careful middle ground that doesn't really offend anyone. As such, it will provide just as much ammunition for Kerry as for Bush--benefiting neither.



CJ, I just don't buy into that. These reports seems to be pretty routine for any such operation--this one is probably just getting more press than any of the others. If they do claim the Iraqi invasion was necessary, they'll have to be able to justify it. Any absurd assumptions or claims will be well publicized. Perhaps to exemplify--is the Kerry camp benefiting currently from the supposed memo from Bush's guard commander? Hardly. The situation would be much the same with a clearly biased report.



You might be right here--I am certainly not the best one to comment on such matters because I've never put much stock into what either party says--its the basis of their saying it I've always been more concerned with. Maybe that's the difference in how we're viewing this report--I really want to know what their analysis will be, and you're looking more at how that analysis will be used.

As I said Hobbes, timing is everything. Try to think about it from the viewpoint of a political attack machine like Rove instead of your own scrupulous, questioning, information seeking viewpoint. If you were to release a report that stated the Iraq war was justified a few days before the election I think that we can all agree what kind of impact that could have.

Now lets assume that the same report is in fact flawed in some important ways. It would take some time for those flaws to be discovered and if done deceptively enough they might never be discovered. How long did it take the 9/11 commission to finally get access to the documents it wanted? Do you think the press would have instant access to the source material that the CIA used?

So even if the report was flawed, if released sufficiently close to the election it could have a positive impact with some voters on Bush. Now if he won and the report was later discovered to be flawed then who cares, it won't change the election and it might just require someone to lose their job over it which would have likely been agreed on in the first place. All fair play in the game of politics.

Granted this treads lightly into the realm of conspiracy theory, but if you honestly think that anyone in the government would be producing this report with no agenda and no plan on something to gain then you trust washington and our politicians far too much.

Ha! Trusting Washington politicians too much is certainly something I have never been accused of!

I do see the possibility of what you are laying out. I am also quite sure that there is a political agenda involved at some level. However, I still don't see it being all that effective as a propoganda tool. Just as surely as Bush's team might try to use it to their advantage, Kerry's team will just as surely find either something in the report itself or its timing to spin their way. Given that both Bush and Kerry seem to agree that Iraq was justified, I don't really see this affecting things much either way. Therefore, I am more interested in the report for its actual content than for its political usage (however, as I said, with my viewpoint I may be being naive).