Brooks and the Bottom Line on WMD Intelligence

I read the Brooks column, and in my opinion it's pretty thin soup. In the end he seems to be complaining about the group thought processes of committees and bureaucracies. With this I can sympathize; unfortunately however I believe we are stuck with them. Plato long ago presented the various options, but I think it's too late now for us to pin our hopes on a Philosopher-King. As for mafia-cracies... I suggest Brooks spend some time writing a newspaper column in Russia and report back to us.

He opens by dismissing accusations that Administration officials pressured the CIA to slant the intelligence on Iraq, citing David Kay, Senate Intelligence and an internal CIA probe as support. I understand why he would want to get this one out of the way quickly, but all the same, can't agree with the way he goes about it. Rather than cite three sources of dubious impartiality, rat-a-tat-tat, and whistle Dixie in hopes that this silences the critics, I would have stated that this is an accusation of which the Administration rightfully deserves to be cleared, once and for all, by the President's forthcoming independent commission. Anything less gives the impression that he thinks this Administration has something to hide.

Nonetheless, let us assume that his assertion is correct: the Administration did not pressure anyone at CIA to slant the prewar intelligence on WMD. Instead, let us stick to facts. First fact: Dick, Rummy, and Condi knew the answer they wanted on Iraq before ever asking the question. We knew this before the O'Neill book: Woodward includes quotes to this effect from Wolfowitz in Bush at War, an Administration must-read. You can blame the fact on whatever forces you want (erroneous Clinton-era intelligence? Neocon think-tank excesses?) but that doesn't change its status as a fact. And let me assure you - since as a scientist, I've seen it happen enough times - knowing the answer you want ahead of time is a sure way to get it, even if it's not the truth.

Second fact: the Administration oversold the intelligence that it had. Three examples, conceded by all: (1) Nigerian yellowcake; (2) The aluminum "centrifuge tubes" that turned out to be artillery shell casings; (3) Dick's comment on the 3/16/03 "Meet the Press" that "we believe that he has... reconstituted nuclear weapons." W presented items (1) and (2) in SOTU No. 2, and has since apologized for the first but not the second; Powell avoided any mention of either in his UN presentation. Dick's claim was disowned by anonymous Administration sources the day it was made. It is simply not possible to claim that the CIA was insisting on the truth of these accusations, to the degree that the Administration was presenting them to the nation.

Third fact: the Administration cherry-picked the intelligence that it had, presenting only one side of a complex story, without any concession to uncertainty or doubt. This is so obvious that it is going nearly unmentioned in the current debate. Yet Brooks in his sly way puts his finger right on it: It is simply not possible for a bureaucracy like the CIA to deliver clear, dramatic intelligence of the sort that the Administration presented to the public. This helps clarify how Fact #1 - knowing the answer they wanted before asking the question - led to a wrong answer on Iraqi WMD.

Fourth fact: the Administration - in the person of Condoleeza Rice - is now arguing that it "had no choice" but to presume that Iraq had WMD in the absence of compelling evidence to the contrary. This is an interesting argument, consistent with everything we know about the CIA intelligence, none of which established with certainty Saddam's lack of WMD. However, it was not an argument that the Administration made in any way before the war. In fact, it is not an argument that the Administration made in any way before one week ago, when David Kay resigned and began his media tour. This fact is in some ways the most telling of all: accepting Condi's comments at face value, we conclude that the Administration was privately presuming what it was publicly claiming to know for certain - and was eventually proven to be false.

Ultimately then, even if no Administration official ever exerted political pressure on the CIA to slant intelligence reports on Iraqi WMD, the Administration remains responsible for the way it characterized that intelligence - a characterization which turned out to be completely, utterly, and totally divorced from the truth - to the American people in order to sell the Iraq war. As we have demonstrated, this was no accident: they knew the answer they wanted ahead of time, and they were willing to cherry-pick, presume, and oversell the intelligence in order to get it. Again, reference Wolfowitz: the way to justify an Iraq invasion "bureaucratically" was to argue that Saddam was not disarmed of his WMD and to then link him to Al-Qaeda. Given this concession, and the insight - even brilliance? - of the strategy, there is no reason for anyone, liberal or conservative, to express surprise at the subsequent course of events.

But none of those subsequent events have anything to do with bureaucratic group-think failures at the CIA - whatever those may be.