Passing the Buck

The Bush administration's strategy for addressing questions about the war in Iraq is now clear – shift the blame for prewar failures to the intelligence community and claim the war was justified regardless of any solid evidence of an imminent threat from Iraqi weapons of mass destruction. But the administration must be held accountable for its prewar misstatements and deceptions.

• There was no "imminent threat" from Iraq worthy of going to war without the full backing of our allies. As David Kay’s testimony before Congress yesterday confirmed, there was no imminent threat from Iraq prior to the administration's demand for a rapid invasion of the country last spring. Iraq did not possess any large stockpiles of biological and chemical weapons or have a reconstituted nuclear program capable of threatening the U.S. and its allies in any meaningful way. As Kay stated in the hearing, "It turns out we were all wrong."
• The intelligence community warned the White House that it was on shaky ground. Throughout 2002, the CIA, DIA, Department of Energy and United Nations all warned the Bush administration that its selective use of intelligence was painting a weak WMD case. Those warnings were repeatedly ignored by the administration. Instead of listening to the warnings, intelligence officials say the White House instead pressured them to drive their reports toward a pre-determined policy.
• President Bush himself is responsible for sending the country to war based on false information and misleading statements. As Senator Carl Levin stated yesterday during Kay’s testimony, "The administration, in order to support its decision to go to war, made numerous vivid, unqualified statements about Iraq having in its possession weapons of mass destruction – not programs, not program-related activities, not intentions – actual weapons is what the administration’s statements focused on." It wasn’t the CIA that sent us to war; it was the president and his national security team that did.

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