[Congressional Record Volume 150, Number 94 (Friday, July 9, 2004)]
[Senate]
[Pages S7882-S7883]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




               REPORT OF SELECT COMMITTEE ON INTELLIGENCE

  Mr. BOND. Madam President, I am very pleased to announce that today, 
about 90 minutes ago, the report of the Select Committee on 
Intelligence on the pre-Iraq war has finally been released. We were 
bound not to talk about it until it was released at 10:30 today. Our 
staff has done an excellent job reviewing 15,000 documents and 200 
witnesses, going back time and again to get the facts straight.
  We came up with the unanimous conclusions that I think this body and 
our friends around the country, including the media, ought to pay 
attention to what is actually in that report. Some of my colleagues 
spent yesterday talking about the report and putting their spin on it.
  I have been very distressed that the spin had nothing to do with the 
facts that are actually in the report. It is a lengthy report. For the 
benefit of my colleagues who have not been on the Intelligence 
Committee, let me tell you a couple of things that were in the report.
  First, the intelligence used by the President, the Vice President, 
the chairman, and ranking member of the Intelligence Committee, the 
chairman and ranking member of the Armed Services Committee, along with 
the rest of us, was the intelligence given to them by the CIA. This was 
intelligence given to them through three administrations. On the basis 
of that, on the floor the statement was made on September 19, 2002:

       We begin with the common belief that Saddam Hussein is a 
     tyrant and a threat to the peace and stability of the region. 
     He has ignored the mandate of the United Nations and is 
     building weapons of mass destruction and the means of 
     delivering them.

  Senator Levin stated that.
  On October 10, 2002:

       There is unmistakable evidence that Saddam Hussein is 
     working aggressively to develop nuclear weapons and will 
     likely have nuclear weapons within the next 5 years. We also 
     should remember we have always underestimated the progress 
     Saddam has made in the development of weapons of mass 
     destruction.

  Senator Jay Rockefeller stated that.
  These were conclusions that came from the best intelligence we had 
available, that other intelligence agencies had available. Actually, if 
you look at it, Iraqi Survey Group leader David Kay, when he came back 
to the United States, said we know that Iraq was a far more dangerous 
place, even than we had learned from our intelligence because of other 
things that were going on that were not fully reported.
  We identified problems in this report. There was no human 
intelligence, which you absolutely need. There was faulty analysis in 
sharing of information among the various agencies. Some analysts did 
not fully qualify the information that was not confirmed.
  But despite the breathless headlines, despite the political charges 
that are being made on the other side of the aisle, no one was 
pressured to change judgments or reach specific judgments. In fact, the 
committee interviewed over 200 people, searching, searching, and 
searching for those who might be pressured.
  Chairman Roberts asked repeatedly, publicly and in hearings, that 
anybody who had information on pressure to change conclusions, come 
forward. Nobody did. They chased rabbits all through every brush pile 
that could be imagined. Anybody who had an idea of pressure was 
challenged. Do you know what they found? There was tremendous pressure 
on the analysts because they had not put together the right information 
prior to 9/11. They felt pressure, but they all said it was pressure to 
get it right. They said it is the job of the intelligence community to 
respond to the most searching questions of the people, the policymakers 
who use it.
  Let me cite three conclusions from the report, which I think are very 
important on intelligence. From page 284: conclusion 83:

       The committee did not find any evidence that administration 
     officials attempted to coerce, influence, or pressure 
     analysts to change their judgments related to Iraq's 
     weapons of mass destruction capabilities.

  Page 285, conclusion 84:

       The committee found no evidence that the Vice President's 
     visits to the Central Intelligence Agency were attempts to 
     pressure analysts, were perceived as intended to pressure 
     analysts by those who participated in the briefings of Iraq's 
     weapons of mass destruction programs, or did pressure 
     analysts to change their assessments.

  On page 359, conclusion 102:

       The committee found that none of the analysts or other 
     people interviewed by the committee said they were pressured 
     to change their conclusions related to Iraq's links to 
     terrorism. After 9/11, analysts were under tremendous 
     pressure to make correct assessments to avoid missing a 
     credible threat and to avoid an intelligence failure.

  These are the findings upon which we unanimously agreed. I think the 
Vice President and others who have been politically maligned are 
entitled to an apology.
  Do you know what this all comes back to? This comes back to a plan 
that we learned about on November 6, 2003. I have in my mind a FOX News 
report on this memo from a Democratic staffer. Nobody has denied it. In 
fact, they are playing their plays out of that game book now.
  It talks about:

       No. 1: Pull the majority along as far as we can on issues 
     that may lead to major new disclosures. . . .
       No. 2: Assiduously prepare Democratic ``additional views'' 
     to attach to any interim or final reports. . . .
       No. 3: We will identify the most exaggerated claims and 
     contrast them with the intelligence estimates that have since 
     been declassified. Our additional views will also, among 
     other things, castigate the majority for seeking to limit the 
     scope of the inquiry.

  That is exactly what the game plan is that they are following. When 
you look at the conclusion, the summary of that memo, it says:

       Intelligence issues are clearly secondary to the public's 
     concern regarding the insurgency in Iraq. Yet, we have an 
     important

[[Page S7883]]

     role to play in revealing the misleading--if not flagrantly 
     dishonest methods and motives--of senior administration 
     officials who made the case for a unilateral, preemptive war. 
     The approach outlined above seems to offer the best prospects 
     for exposing the administration's dubious motives and 
     methods.

  I ask unanimous consent that be printed in the Record following my 
statement.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Hatch). Without objection, it is so 
ordered.
  (See exhibit 1.)
  Mr. BOND. To sum it up, we are at war with terrorists. The terrorists 
were in Iraq. They had access to the weapons of mass destruction that 
Saddam Hussein had produced in the past and were willing to produce in 
the future. We have received increased briefings on recent threats in 
the United States. The greatest danger we fear is that Saddam Hussein, 
had we not taken him out, would be supplying those terrorists with 
chemical and biological weapons.
  Our troops remain under fire, but some on this floor and some 
commentators I have heard seem to be more interested in politicizing 
the problems in the Intelligence Committee rather than getting at the 
root of the problem. I hope we can put these partisan charges aside 
because there is much work to do to improve the gathering, the 
analysis, and the dissemination of intelligence. For the good of this 
country, we need to put behind us this partisan effort to fingerpoint 
and make accusations that have been explicitly disabused and disavowed 
by this intelligence report.
  I commend the staff of the Intelligence Committee. I thank the many 
thousands of dedicated people in the intelligence community who are 
doing their best, under difficult circumstances, to get information 
under systems that were not adequate for the needs at the time. We need 
to build a system where we get human intelligence, where we analyze it 
better, and where we share it among agencies that we have not done 
adequately in the past.
  I thank my colleagues from Texas and Alabama for their courtesy.

                               Exhibit 1

                    Raw Data: Dem Memo on Iraq Intel

                     [From FOX News, Nov. 6, 2003]

       We have carefully reviewed our options under the rules and 
     believe we have identified the best approach. Our plan is as 
     follows:
       (1) Pull the majority along as far as we can on issues that 
     may lead to major new disclosures regarding improper or 
     questionable conduct by administration officials. We are 
     having some success in that regard. For example, in addition 
     to the president's State of the Union speech, the chairman 
     has agreed to look at the activities of the Office of the 
     Secretary of Defense as well as Secretary Bolton's office at 
     the State Department. The fact that the chairman supports our 
     investigations into these offices and co-signs our requests 
     for information is helpful and potentially crucial. We don't 
     know what we will find but our prospects for getting the 
     access we seek is far greater when we have the backing of the 
     majority. (Note: we can verbally mention some of the 
     intriguing leads we are pursuing.)
       (2) Assiduously prepare Democratic ``additional views'' to 
     attach to any interim or final reports the committee may 
     release. Committee rules provide this opportunity and we 
     intend to take full advantage of it. In that regard, we have 
     already compiled all the public statements on Iraq made by 
     senior administration officials. We will identify the most 
     exaggerated claims and contrast them with the intelligence 
     estimates that have since been declassified. Our additional 
     views will also, among other things, castigate the majority 
     for seeking to limit the scope of the inquiry. The Democrats 
     will then be in a strong position to reopen the question of 
     establishing an independent commission (i.e. the Corzine 
     amendment).
       (3) Prepare to launch an independent investigation when it 
     becomes clear we have exhausted the opportunity to usefully 
     collaborate with the majority. We can pull the trigger on an 
     independent investigation at any time--but we can only do so 
     once. The best time to do so will probably be next year 
     either:
       (A) After we have already released our additional views on 
     an interim report--thereby providing as many as three 
     opportunities to make our case to the public: (1) additional 
     views on the interim report; (2) announcement of our 
     independent investigation; and (3) additional views on the 
     final investigation; or
       (B) Once we identify solid leads the majority does not want 
     to pursue. We could attract more coverage and have greater 
     credibility in that context than one in which we simply 
     launch an independent investigation based on principled but 
     vague notions regarding the ``use'' of intelligence.
       In the meantime, even without a specifically authorized 
     independent investigation, we continue to act independently 
     when we encounter foot-dragging on the part of the majority. 
     For example, the FBI Niger investigation was done solely at 
     the request of the vice chairman; we have independently 
     submitted written questions to DoD; and we are preparing 
     further independent requests for information.


                                summary

       Intelligence issues are clearly secondary to the public's 
     concern regarding the insurgency in Iraq. Yet, we have an 
     important role to play in the revealing the misleading--if 
     not flagrantly dishonest methods and motives--of the senior 
     administration officials who made the case for a unilateral, 
     preemptive war. The approach outline above seems to offer the 
     best prospect for exposing the administration's dubious 
     motives and methods.

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Texas.
  Mr. CORNYN. I ask unanimous consent to speak for up to 30 minutes.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

                          ____________________