Senate Report Reveals Further Ways the Bush Administration Misused Intelligence From Iraq

Senate Report Reveals Further Ways the Bush Administration Misused Intelligence From Iraq

A new Senate report finds the Bush Administration's case for the going to war in Iraq contradicted information and intelligence. Two different reports totally 230 pages lay out numerous examples where the Bush Administration publicized to Congress and to the American people false or inaccurate findings. Senator Jay Rockefeller is the Chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, which authored the report.
"It's often been said that truth is the first casualty of war. This is the case in the Bush Administration's march to war in Iraq. The tragic fact is that on issues of war an peace… in short, we announce today…the Administration was careless with its word and contradicted by the available intelligence."
The report found that intelligence did not back up many statements by the Administration in the lead up to the war. For example, it found intelligence did not show a connection between Iraq and Al Qaeda. The report also found that the alleged leader of the September 11th attacks, Muhammad Atta, did not meet with Iraqi officials in Prague, that there was no confirmation that Iraq's chemical weapons program continued and that intelligence warned the US would not be welcomed as liberators. Chair Rockefeller called the Bush Administration's handling of the war "heinous' but he said he will not endorse criminal prosecution.
"It would mean nothing else would get done. If you pressed for that, it's like pressing for impeachment, it's a grand act. But it's a futile act and a wrong act. Should it be done in the wide sweep of history? Yes. Should it be done now? No."
These findings are the final parts of a 4-year investigation by the Senate panel - a panel that overwhelmingly endorsed the Administration's case for war in 2002. Some Republicans on the Senate Committee called the findings political and said they were without merit.

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