This week the Bush administration made a number of important reforms to the Intelligence Community (IC) that have long been supported and encouraged by the bipartisan 9/11 Commission, intelligence experts, and Congress. The reforms give the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) greater ability to coordinate and oversee the IC.

These reforms come too late to reverse the Bush administration’s intelligence legacy of neglect, mismanagement and politicization. It is a legacy that has done great damage to our nation’s IC and made America less secure.

From Iraq to Iran to Afghanistan, the Bush administration has completely ignored the IC’s assessments. Throughout 2002 and 2003, President Bush implied that Iraq might give weapons of mass destruction to terrorists even though the IC said that was unlikely. The administration has consistently made threats towards Iran, despite conclusions by the IC that Iran was still some years away from developing a nuclear weapon and could be persuaded by international pressure and diplomacy. Finally, the administration has ignored the IC’s conclusion that the greatest danger to our homeland comes from the Afghanistan-Pakistan border – not Iraq. In some cases, especially in the run up to the Iraq War, the Bush administration went even further, badly misrepresenting some of the conclusions of the IC and using disproven information to help make the case for war. It then exacerbated the situation by bringing in its political allies to remake the CIA and accepting a half-baked intelligence reform bill that only created more bureaucracy instead of better integrating and streamlining the IC.

THE INTELLIGENCE COMMUNITY HAS BEEN MISMANAGED AND DEMORALIZED

The Bush administration mishandled the intelligence reorganization, further exacerbating problems within the IC. Upon the recommendation of the bipartisan 9/11 commission, the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention act of 2004 created a Director of National Intelligence (DNI) to oversee the IC. However, Donald Rumsfeld maneuvered internally to ensure that authority over roughly 80% of the IC’s budget remained inside the Pentagon. The new DNI position remained weak and unable to bring greater coordination to the community, which was the entire point of the reforms in the first place. As a result, “the reorganization added more bodies to a community already suffering from bloat. It did nothing to fix the real weakness of the old system, which was that the DCI had little control over the sprawling Pentagon intelligence archipelago.” [Washington Post, 6/18/08]

Porter Goss’s tenure damaged the morale of the IC and further politicized the Community. Goss “Came under fire almost immediately, in part because he brought with him several top aides from Congress who were considered highly political for the CIA… Among those Goss pushed out during his tenure were the deputy director of intelligence, the chief of the clandestine service, two deputy chiefs of the clandestine service, the chief of the directorate of intelligence, the director of the counterterrorism center and the comptroller.” Goss’s tenure dramatically undermined the CIA’s morale and ability to function effectively. Since then, DNI McConnell and new CIA Director Hayden have worked to repair the damage. [Associated Press, 5/5/06]

The Bush administration’s treatment of the IC and its use of raw intelligence has made the IC wary of political leadership. As noted by Paul Pillar, the national intelligence officer responsible for the Middle East from 2000 to 2005, “In the wake of the Iraq war, it has become clear that…that damaging ill will developed between policymakers and intelligence officers.” In Foreign Affairs, Pillar details the sources of that mutual mistrust. Pillar notes that the pursuit of the Saddam-al Qaeda link by the administration “became even more time-consuming as the conflict between intelligence officials and policymakers escalated into a battle, with the intelligence community struggling to maintain its objectivity even as policymakers pressed the Saddam-al Qaeda connection. The administration's rejection of the intelligence community's judgments became especially clear with the formation of a special Pentagon unit, the Policy Counterterrorism Evaluation Group. The unit…was dedicated to finding every possible link between Saddam and al Qaeda, and its briefings accused the intelligence community of faulty analysis for failing to see the supposed alliance.” [Foreign Affairs, March/April 2006]

THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION HAS CONSISTENTLY IGNORED THE ANALYSIS OF THE INTELLIGENCE COMMUNITY

The Bush administration ignored the IC on Iraq. Reports indicated that the continued maintenance of his own power was of a higher priority to Saddam Hussein than the ambitions of Osama bin Laden. As stated in the recently released Senate Intelligence Committee report, “the October 2002 NIE assessed that Saddam Hussein was unwilling to provide weapons of mass destruction to terrorist groups at that time, because he did not want to put his regime’s survival at risk.” However, in a speech given in the run up to the Iraq War, President Bush stated, “Iraq could decide on any given day to provide a biological or chemical weapon to a terrorist group or individual terrorists. Alliance with terrorists could allow the Iraqi regime to attack America without leaving any fingerprints.” [Senate Intelligence Committee Report. White House, 10/7/02]

The Bush administration has ignored the IC’s assessment of Iran. A National Intelligence Estimate released in December 2007 reported that, “in fall 2003, Tehran halted its nuclear weapons program” and that “Iran's decision to halt its nuclear weapons program suggests it is less determined to develop nuclear weapons than we have been judging since 2005.” The NIE also found that the regime is open to some combination of international diplomacy and pressure. But instead of testing the NIE’s conclusions, President Bush moved further to link a policy of diplomacy with Iran to appeasement, stating: “Some seem to believe that we should negotiate with the terrorists and radicals… We have an obligation to call this what it is -- the false comfort of appeasement.” [NPR, 1/17/08. NIE, 11/07. White House, 5/15/08]

The Bush administration for too long ignored the IC on Pakistan and Afghanistan. America’s 16 intelligence agencies agree that al Qaeda is growing stronger and that the threat emanating from the Afghanistan-Pakistan border is the single biggest danger to American security. America’s Intelligence Community has stated that the al Qaeda threat in Pakistan and Afghanistan represents the most direct danger to the American homeland. The GAO, in concert with the unclassified 2007 NIE, State and embassy documents and Defense, and State officials found that “al Qaeda’s central leadership, based in the border area of Pakistan, is and will remain the most serious terrorist threat to the United States…” and “…is now using the Pakistani safe haven to put the last element necessary to launch another attack against America into place…” But rather than focus on this threat the administration continues to argue that Iraq is the central front in the war on terror. [NIE, 4/06. NIE, 7/07. NY Times, 9/24/06. GAO, 4/08]

THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION MISREPRESENTED ASSESSMENTS OF THE INTELLIGENCE COMMUNITY AND MISALLOCATED RESOURCES

In the lead up to the Iraq War, the administration deliberately made statements suggesting a strong relationship between al Qaeda and Iraq that were “not substantiated by intelligence.” A Senate Intelligence Committee report states in its conclusion, “multiple CIA reports and the November 2002 NIE dismissed the claim that Iraq and al Qaeda were cooperating partners.” The 9/11 Commission concluded that there was no operational relationship between Iraq and al Qaeda. [Senate Intelligence Committee Report. 9/11 Commission Report]

Bush’s claim that Iraq had tried to buy uranium in Africa was debunked by U.S. intelligence prior to its appearance in the 2003 State of the Union address. While the Bush administration has conceded that the claim made by the President was based on forged evidence that Iraq had tried to buy "yellow cake" refined uranium from Niger, a number of sources have pointed out that the White House must have been aware that the claim was false, as it had been examined and dismissed by U.S. intelligence a year before. CIA sources insist that the Bush administration was made aware that the Niger allegation was false prior to the 2003 State of the Union Address. Former U.S. diplomat, Ambassador Joseph Wilson, has said publicly that he had travelled to Africa to investigate the uranium claims and that there was no evidence to support them. The CIA has confirmed that the findings were passed onto the White House nearly a year earlier. [TIME, 7/9/03; BBC, 7/9/03]

The Bush administration has diverted crucial resources from the fight against those who pose the greatest threat to U.S. security. The New York Times reported that, “the White House shifted its sights, beginning in 2002, from counterterrorism efforts in Afghanistan and Pakistan to preparations for the war in Iraq.” According to current and former military and intelligence officials, the war in Iraq has consistently diverted resources and high-level attention from the fight against al Qaeda. Intelligence officials report that by 2006, the Iraq war had drained away most of the CIA officers with field experience in the Islamic world. “You had a very finite number” of experienced officers, said one former senior intelligence official. “Those people all went to Iraq.” [New York Times, 6/30/08. National Intelligence Estimate, 7/07]