Bush Administration and Iraq War: A History of Lies and Deceit

The Bush Administration released the 2006 National Intelligence Estimate under pressure from leaks already trickling out. Check NY Times release of the declassified portions on Sept. 27, 2006. Check out this Christian Science Monitor article link for a nice survey of media response. The big point that is being taken out of the report is this:

The intelligence estimate, completed in April, is the first formal appraisal of global terrorism by US intelligence agencies since the March 2003 invasion of Iraq, and it represents a consensus view of the 16 different spy services inside government. The estimate asserts that Islamic radicalism, rather than being in retreat, has metastasized and spread around the globe.

An opening section of the report, "Indicators of the Spread of the Global Jihadist Movement," cites the Iraq war as a reason for the diffusion of jihad ideology. The report "says that the Iraq war has made the overall terrorism problem worse," one US intelligence official said.

(Tom Regan, Christian Science Monitor)

Even more apalling is this article in the Boston Globe, Sept. 29, 2006 on Bob Woodward's analysis of the Bush administration's systematic denial of the level of violence in Iraq.

The Bush administration is concealing the level of violence against U.S. troops in Iraq and the situation there is growing worse despite White House and Pentagon claims of progress, journalist Bob Woodward said in advance of a new book.

Insurgent attacks against U.S.-led forces in Iraq occurred, on average, every 15 minutes, Woodward said in a CBS "60 Minutes" interview taped for broadcast on Sunday.

"It's getting to the point now where there are eight, 900 attacks a week. That's more than a hundred a day. That is four an hour attacking our forces," Woodward said in excerpts of the interview released on Thursday before the release of his book on the administration, called "State of Denial."

"The assessment by intelligence experts is that next year, 2007, is going to get worse and, in public, you have the president and you have the Pentagon (saying) 'Oh, no, things are going to get better,"' Woodward added.

For earlier NIE editions, see the National Security Archives link at GWU for links and report about the 2004 National Intelligence Estimate.

See the Federation of American Scientists here for a PDF of the Estimate from 2002.