Review of the Pre-Iraqi War Activities of the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy (PDF; 5.38 MB)
Source: Inspector General, U.S. Department of Defense, Deputy Inspector General for Intelligence
From press release (Office of U.S. Senator Carl Levin, Chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee):

In releasing the report, Levin said: “It is important for the public to see why the Pentagon’s Inspector General concluded that Secretary Feith’s office ‘developed, produced and then disseminated alternative intelligence assessments on the Iraq and al-Qaeda relationship,’ which included ‘conclusions that were inconsistent with the consensus of the Intelligence Community,’ and why the Inspector General concluded that these actions were ‘inappropriate.’ Until today, those details were classified and outside the public’s view.”

The Feith office alternative intelligence assessments concluded that Iraq and al Qaeda were cooperating and had a “mature, symbiotic” relationship, a view that was not supported by the available intelligence, and was contrary to the consensus view of the Intelligence Community. These alternative assessments were used by the Administration to support its public arguments in its case for war. As the DOD IG report confirms, the Intelligence Community never found an operational relationship between Iraq and al-Qaeda; the report specifically states that,“the CIA and DIA disavowed any ‘mature, symbiotic’ relationship between Iraq and al-Qaida.”

See also: Declassified briefing slides (PDF; 607 KB)

This entry was posted on Friday, April 6th, 2007 at 10:15 am and is filed under Government and politics, Middle East, Military and defense, Terrorism. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.