Two New Studies Undermine Case For War

Anthony Cordesman, a Middle East and intelligence expert who is a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, found that "even a cursory review" of charges the US and British governments made in white papers released before the Iraq war "shows that point after point that was made was not confirmed during the war or after the first [six] months of effort following the conflict."

Although the US has the most sophisticated technical systems for collecting and analysing intelligence, Mr Cordesman found, Iraq shows that US intelligence is "not yet adequate to support grand strategy and tactical operations against proliferating powers or to make accurate assessments of the need to pre-empt." Pre-emption, or waging war to prevent an enemy from attacking, is a key part of George Bush's war on terrorism.

el - Anthony Cordeman is very smart and I have downloaded much of his works at CSIS.

Another new non-governmental report, on the Bush Administration's claim that Iraq was seeking specialised aluminum tubes to use in a centrifuge to create nuclear weapons material, raises questions about whether policymakers ignored qualified critics to promote the Iraqi threat.

It finds shortcomings in the way the US intelligence community handled technical questions involving the tubes. Nothing has been uncovered in Iraq to support the notion that Saddam had such weapons or entertained any such weapons transfer.

el - The tubes exactly fit the spefications of an Italian missile design that Iraq was using for its missiles. They are exactly wrong for centrifuges.