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Related: Bush says US intelligence community needs fundamental change
WASHINGTON, March 31 (Xinhuanet) -- Most of the
judgment America's intelligence agencies made about Iraq's weapons of mass
destruction before the US invasion were "dead wrong" and the flaws were still
common across the intelligence community, a presidential commission said in a
report released Thursday.
"We conclude that the intelligence community was dead wrong in almost
all of its prewar judgments about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction," the
commission said, "This was a major intelligence failure."
Bush set up the commission a year ago under increasing pressure to
look into the apparent US intelligence over Iraq's alleged weapons of mass
destruction, which the Bush administration used as a main justifications for
launching the war in March 2003.
The report offers a scathing review of the Central Intelligence
Agency for concluding that Saddam Hussein had secret weapons that ultimately
were never found, while also taking aim at the FBI, the Defense Intelligence
Agency, the National Security Agency and other agencies.
The commission said the flaws found in the intelligence community's
Iraq performance "are still all too common" two years after the Iraqi war.
"Across the board, the intelligence community knows disturbingly little about
the nuclear programs of many of the world's most dangerous actors."
The report calls for "dramatic change" among the intelligence
agencies. "We need an intelligence community that is truly integrated, far more
imaginative and willing to run risks, open to a new generation of Americans and
receptive to new technologies." Enditem |