Declassified Document Describes CIA Errors in Iraq

Before the 2003 invasion of Iraq, the US intelligence community claimed that Saddam Hussein was hiding stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons.

Those intelligence analysts warned that Hussein would probably have a nuclear weapon within a decade.

That intelligence justified the invasion of Iraq.

But it proved faulty.

In a newly declassified document, the CIA offers its rationale for why it got things so wrong.

Thomas Blanton worked to get the document released.

He directs the National Security Archive at George Washington University.

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Lisa Mullins: Our next topic the war in Iraq. You’re excused if you haven’t thought of it a lot lately. Most American troops have left the country. The war stopped generating daily headlines long ago. But a recently declassified CIA document reminds us of the intelligence failure at the heart of the decision to go to war in Iraq back in 2003. The document tries to explain why the CIA got it wrong when it came to determining whether Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. Thomas Blanton directs the National Security Archive in Washington and he worked to get the CIA document declassified. You have called what has been released now declassified, a remarkable CIA Mea Culpa. Can you tell us what is contained in it, and what‘s so remarkable about it?

Thomas Blanton: Well here you have the CIA analysts themselves looking back at years and years of intelligence reports that now, at the point they’re writing this document in 2006, they know we’re completely wrong. That Saddam Hussein did not have a nuclear weapons capacity. That he did not have a chemical weapons or bio weapons capacity. All those infrastructures, components, weapons rotted away, rusted in the desert or have been destroyed by more than a decade of inspections. So the CIA had assured the President, the Congress, and themselves that, “Hey, there’s weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, and they’re an imminent threat.” No such thing. Here, for the first time we have the agency itself looking at its own navel and saying “You know, the problem was we interpreted everything through an American lens. We should have looked at all of these episodes, maybe through Iraqi eyes.” And it raises those much bigger questions today, is the CIA doing any better a job looking at the Iranian nuclear program through Iranian eyes or through the multiple Iranian positions, or North Korea for that matter. So that’s what makes this document really astounding as both mea culpa, it’s our failure, but also what it says about the inherent problems of trying to figure out what an enemy is up to, and the gulf between where we sit and where they sit.

Mullins: But there were, as the document states, there were inspectors who are on the ground there. Is the document saying that the Administration did not listen to them, or that the inspectors themselves came to the wrong conclusions?

Blanton: You have to read between the lines because if you put this document together with what the inspectors were saying, remember the inspectors in 2002 and early 2003 were saying, “Give us four, five, six months. We’ve gone to every site that you guys, you Americans have told us there’s weapons there, and we haven’t found anything. So let us keep going and we’ll prove it negative, which is pretty hard to do.” So the document doesn’t speak whether the inspectors were right. What it speaks to is the failure of the endless back in Washington, back at Langley, back in the US intelligence community to figure out that the Iraqi reaction to these inspections, yes, it was deceptive, but it wasn’t deceptive because they were covering up their weapons. It was deceptive because they were trying to protect their regime.

Mullins: It’s tough to think that the CIA, given the stakes in that period, wouldn’t have looked at the [xx] through Iraqi eyes. Or maybe it’s not so tough. One would think that it would be lessons learn, inspections 101 or diplomacy 101.

Blanton: That’s exactly the question here. Did the CIA learn these lessons? Are we doing it any better today? When we go back and look at the weapons of mass destruction intelligence, the single summary document was this estimate that the CIA put together, but it was on behalf of all the other intelligence agencies. And it has a whole bunch of little footnote dissents where the Air Force says unmanned vehicles can’t really deliver any bio weapons. And the State Department says well that yellow cake isn’t really for uranium enrichment. And another agency says, “Wait a second. That was aluminum tubes. They really weren’t for uranium. They were for rockets.” And it turns out all the dissents were right, but no one agency and no one analyst dissented on everything. So it’s a lesson for us to be contrarian. And when you get a chunk of received wisdom from the powers that be or a conventional wisdom, probably our obligation as citizens and certainly the CIA’s obligation as intelligence analysts is to, as in the words of the old bumper sticker, question authority.

Muller: Right, thank you very much for talking to us about this declassified report. Thomas Blanton directs the National Security Archive at George Washington University. The declassified CIA document he’s talking about is called “Misreading intentions Iraq’s Reaction to Inspections Created Picture of Deception.” It’s been published for the first time in foreignpolicy.com. For a link visit us at theworld.org. Thank you very much Tom.

Blanton: Thank you Lisa.

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