Commission on the Intelligence Capabilities of the United States Regarding Weapons of Mass Destruction: Final Report

The Final Report of the Commission on the Intelligence Capabilities of the United States Regarding Weapons of Mass Destruction was released March 31, 2005. [1]

• Read the full report.

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The Report

"In a scathing report," the Commission said that "America's spy agencies were 'dead wrong' in most of their judgments about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction before the war and that the United States knows 'disturbingly little' about nuclear threats posed by many of its most dangerous adversaries." [2]

The Commission said that "dramatic change" was necessary "to prevent future failures." It "outlined 74 recommendations," saying that President George W. Bush "could implement most of them without action by Congress." [3]

The Commission also "urged Bush to give broader powers to John Negroponte, his choice to be the new director of national intelligence, to deal with any challenges to his authority from" the CIA, Department of Defense "or other elements of the nation's 15 spy agencies." [4]

Additionally, the report "called for sweeping changes at the FBI to combine the bureau's counterterrorism and counterintelligence resources into a new office." [5]

Reactions

• "Why did this failure happen? Here the report is really whitewashing, claiming 'analytical shortcomings.' Me, I do not believe that for a minute - the Bush Administration wanted a certain conclusion and they got it. And 2 years later, 1500 U.S. deaths later, 13,000 U.S. and allied casualties later, tens of thousands of Iraqis dead later, hundred of billions of dollars spent later - we have an Iraq Debacle that, contrary to the CW of the Media, is headed nowhere good fast. ... Yep, it is a slam dunk." --Aramando at Daily Kos, March 31, 2005.

SourceWatch Resources

• 9/11 Report Critique
• Bush administration homeland security
• Bush lies and deceptions: The Pakistani Exception
• Congressional Joint Inquiry into Intelligence Community Activities Before and After the Terrorist Attacks of September 11, 2001
• Hart-Rudman Task Force on Homeland Security
• Homeland defense
• Homeland security
• nuclear weapons
• U.S. Commission on National Security/21st Century / Hart-Rudman Commission

External links

• Commission website.
• Full Washington Post Coverage. Note: Not all articles listed below.
• David E. Sanger and Scott Shane, "Panel's Report Assails C.I.A. for Failure on Iraq Weapons," New York Times, March 29, 2005.
• David E. Sanger and David Johnson, "Bush Views New Report on Spy Lapses With Favor," New York Times, March 30, 2005.
• Katherine Shrader, "Panel: Agencies 'Dead Wrong' on Iraq WMDs," AP, March 31, 2005; copy also available at CBS/AP.
• "Report joins 10 others on intelligence failures," AP, March 31, 2005.
• "US 'knows little about its foes'," BBC, March 31, 2005.
• Steve Holland and Adam Entous, "Report Finds U.S. Intelligence Still Flawed," Reuters, March 31, 2005.
• "Bush panel rips U.S. intelligence abilities. 'Dead wrong' on Iraq; little known about today's enemies," MSNBC, March 31, 2005.
• Mark Oliver, "US spies 'dead wrong' on Iraq WMD," Guardian/UK, March 31, 2005.
• Julian Borger, "Iraq WMD Report to Lay Blame on CIA," Guardian/UK, March 31, 2005.
• Maureen Dowd, "I Spy a Screw-Up," New York Times, March 31, 2005.
• Caroline Wadhams and Ken Gude, "Memo to the Community on the Silberman-Robb Report," Center for American Progress, March 31, 2005: "Investigation Lacks Analysis of Bush Administration's Use of Pre-War Intelligence."
• Eric Umansky, "The Most Important Sentence in the Commission Report," ericumansky.com, March 31, 2005: "'We were not authorized to investigate how policymakers used the intelligence assessments they received from the Intelligence Community,' - Page 8. ... P.S. Now see if you can find that sentence in the NYT's happy-to-get-played take on Monday." (See article above dated March 29, 2005, by David E. Sanger and Scott Shane.)
• "Transcript: Bush and Co-Chairs of the Commission on Intelligence Capabilities Press Conference," Washington Post, March 31, 2005.
• Dana Milbank, "After 14-Month Inquiry, Many Questions Remain," Washington Post, April 1, 2005.
• Ben Russell, "Two nations, two reports, two very different languages," Independent/UK, April 1, 2005.
• Todd S. Purdum, "A Final Verdict on Prewar Intelligence Is Still Elusive," New York Times, April 1, 2005.
• Eric Lipton, "Panel Warns That Defense Against Germ Attack Is Weak," New York Times, April 1, 2005.
• David Barstow, "Doubts on Source for Key Piece of Data Were Suppressed, Report Says," New York Times, April 1, 2005.
• Dafna Linzer and Barton Gellman, "Doubts on Weapons Were Dismissed," Washington Post, April 1, 2005.
• Dana Priest, "Panel Warns of 'Headstrong Agencies'. Bush Is Urged to Intervene to Break Adherence to 'Irrelevant' Status Quo," Washington Post, April 1, 2005.
• Walter Pincus and Peter Baker, "Data on Iraqi Arms Flawed, Panel Says. Intelligence Commission Outlines 74 Fixes for Bureaucr," Washington Post, April 1, 2005.
• Eric Lichtblau, "For F.B.I., Not Enough Progress in Combating Terrorism," New York Times, April 1, 2005.
• David Johnston, "How Bitterness Tainted Links With the C.I.A.," New York Times, April 1, 2005.
• David E. Sanger and Scott Shane, "Bush Panel Finds Big Flaws Remain in U.S. Spy Efforts," New York Times, April 1, 2005.
• Walter Pincus, "Panel Seeks Intelligence Culpability. Report Faults the Actions of Army, CIA, Pentagon Agencies," Washington Post, April 2, 2005.
• Michael Isikoff and Daniel Klaidman, "Look Who's Not Talking—Still. A new report says U.S. intelligence agencies haven't learned to share information, despite lessons of 9/11," Newsweek, April 4, 2005 (issue).
• Walter Pincus, "Analysts Behind Iraq Intelligence Were Rewarded", Washington Post, May 28, 2005 - Pincus reported that the two civilian analysts responsible for the false pre Iraq war intelligence claim that Iraq had acquired aluminium tubes for centrifuges, which was cited in the Silberman/Robb report as an egregious example of poor intelligence methodology have twice been promoted since that time.