[Congressional Record Volume 154, Number 92 (Thursday, June 5, 2008)]
[Senate]
[Pages S5144-S5145]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                         IRAQ WAR INTELLIGENCE

  Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, 5 years ago President Bush and this 
administration misled this country into a war that should never have 
been waged, a war that has cost our Nation the lives of more than 4,000 
courageous men and women, squandered many hundreds of billions of our 
tax dollars, and diminished the world's faith in our country.
  This morning, the Senate Intelligence Committee, led by our 
distinguished chairman, Senator Jay Rockefeller of West Virginia, 
released a report confirming what many have long feared: that the Bush 
administration ignored or swept aside substantial reliable intelligence 
that portrayed something other than what the President and his 
political allies wanted America to see.
  The decision to take the Nation to war, as Chairman Rockefeller 
indicated, is among the gravest and most momentous that a leader can 
make. In our democracy, we expect and deserve to be sure that when our 
troops are sent in harm's way, when their families are made to watch 
and wait through sleepless nights, when our security and national 
welfare is put on the line, that that decision has been taken for the 
right reasons. This is a sacred compact, an article of faith between 
our people and our Government.
  This administration broke that compact, betrayed that trust. For 
years, the evidence has been mounting that this administration's 
reasons for the war were a sham. This week, the President's own former 
spokesman indicated that the White House ran a ``political propaganda 
campaign'' building the case for war.
  This morning's report is a chilling reminder of the Bush 
administration's willingness to overlook or set aside intelligence that 
does not confirm to its preordained view of the world. Over and over, 
again the committee documented instances in which public statements by 
the President, the Vice President, and members of the administration's 
national security team were at odds with available intelligence 
information. By leading the American people to believe the situation in 
Iraq was significantly more drastic than it actually was, the Bush 
administration took this country into an unnecessary war, a war it 
still refuses to end.
  In a speech in Cincinnati a little over a year after al-Qaida 
attacked America on September 11, President Bush said:

       We know that Iraq and al-Qaida have had high-level contacts 
     that go back a decade. We have learned that Iraq has trained 
     al-Qaida members in bomb-making and poisons and deadly 
     gasses.

  In his 2003 State of the Union Address, a few short weeks before 
giving the order that began this war, the President said:

       Evidence from intelligence sources, secret communications 
     and statements by people now in custody, reveal that Saddam 
     Hussein aids and protects terrorists, including members of 
     al-Qaida.

  It was not true. The President of the United States told these things 
to our people and to the world, and they were false.
  According to the report released this morning by our committee:

       Statements and implications by the President and Secretary 
     of State suggesting that Iraq and al-Qaida had a partnership 
     or that Iraq had provided al-Qaida with weapons training were 
     not substantiated by the intelligence.

  The committee found that multiple CIA reports and a National 
Intelligence Estimate, released in November 2002, even as the 
administration was in the drumbeat to war, ``dismissed the claim that 
Iraq and al-Qaida were cooperating partners.'' It was not true, and yet 
this President used this claim to convince the American public that 
there was a link between the Iraqi Government and the terrorists that 
perpetrated the crimes of September 11, 2001.
  Again, in an October 2002 speech in Cincinnati, the President said:

       We know that the regime has produced thousands of tons of 
     chemical agents, including mustard gas, sarin nerve gas, VX 
     nerve gas. Saddam Hussein also has experience in using 
     chemical weapons. . . .Every chemical and biological weapon 
     that Iraq has or makes is a direct violation of the truce 
     that ended the Persian Gulf war in 1991. Yet, Saddam Hussein 
     has chosen to build and keep these weapons despite 
     international sanctions, U.N. demands, and isolation from the 
     civilized world.

  The report concludes:

       Statements by the President and Vice President prior to the 
     October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate regarding Iraq's 
     chemical weapons production capabilities and activities did 
     not reflect the intelligence community's uncertainties as to 
     whether such production was ongoing.

  The intelligence community knew Saddam Hussein wanted to be able to 
produce chemical weapons. It could not, however, confirm President 
Bush's claim of certainty that Hussein's regime was actually producing 
chemical weapons. Yet the President made that argument, stirring up 
unfounded fears among the American people.
  This administration not only asserted that Saddam Hussein possessed 
chemical weapons and intended to use them, the President also said in 
his speech on October 2002:

       We could wait and hope that Saddam does not give weapons to 
     terrorists, or develop a nuclear weapon to blackmail the 
     world. But I'm convinced that is a hope against all evidence.


[[Page S5145]]


  He said:

       We cannot wait for the final proof--the smoking gun--that 
     could come in the form of a mushroom cloud.

  Mr. President, again, it was not true. The committee's report states:

       Statements by the President and the Vice President 
     indicating that Saddam Hussein was prepared to give weapons 
     of mass destruction to terrorist groups for attacks against 
     the United States were contradicted by available intelligence 
     information.

  At the time of the President's speech, the intelligence community 
believed Saddam Hussein did not possess nuclear weapons. The President 
preyed on Americans' fears of a nuclear attack, perhaps the most 
terrible fear we could have, to bolster his case for an unwarranted 
war.
  Finally, the President led the American people to believe if it came 
to war in Iraq, America's military would easily help liberate a 
grateful nation. In Cincinnati, in 2002, he said:

       If military action is necessary, the United States and our 
     allies will help the Iraqi people to rebuild their economy, 
     and create the institutions of liberty and a unified Iraq at 
     peace with its neighbors.

  This was the ``hope against all evidence.''
  Analysis by the Defense Intelligence Agency assessed that:

       The Iraqi populace will adopt an ambivalent attitude toward 
     liberation.

  That is an understatement.
  The CIA wrote, in August 2002, that ``traditional Iraqi political 
culture has been inhospitable to democracy.''
  According to the committee's report:

       Statements by President Bush and Vice President Cheney 
     regarding the postwar situation, in Iraq in terms of the 
     political, security, and economic [situation], did not 
     reflect the concerns and uncertainties expressed in the 
     intelligence products.

  The view of the President and Vice President that American troops 
would be ``greeted as liberators'' did not take into account the 
complex social, political, and sectarian dynamics at work about which 
the intelligence community was well aware. Yet this administration 
still led the American people to believe our troops would be welcomed, 
that the war would be short, that the burden in lives and dollars would 
be light, and that victory would be absolute. This delusion has cost 
our service men and women and our Nation every day since. Once again, 
it was not true. It just was not true.
  If this administration had made the least effort to give an honest 
review of classified intelligence, it would have been known to be 
untrue. All too often in these 7 long years we have seen this 
administration cast aside facts and principles that did not conform 
with its political aims.
  We have seen it attempt to take great institutions of our country--
our intelligence community, our Environmental Protection Agency, the 
Department of Justice--and twist them to its own ends, without due 
regard for the welfare of the American people. I believe the 
irresponsibility and mismanagement of this administration will go down 
in our history as among the darkest moments our Government has 
witnessed. It rocks the very fiber of democracy when our Government is 
put to these uses. We do not yet know all the damage that has been 
done. Yet we hope, through the efforts of this committee and this body, 
to continue the long and difficult repair work we have begun.
  We can look ahead to next January when we in our Nation can begin 
again with a new administration, an administration that will not break 
the essential compact of honesty with the American people.

                          ____________________