saint_monkey

I know that the administration is naming the "WMD" panel because of congressional pressure, but I find it hard to believe that the administration doesn't already have a very good idea of where the fault in intel lies. This panel will be a Snipe Hunt, possibly leading to the CIA and the ousting of George Tenet. I fully believe that the real fault lies elsewhere.

bush to name bipartisan WMD panel
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/02/03/iraq/main597604.shtml

I seem to recall that just after september 11th, the media got ahold of a story that referenced the creation of a separate intel gathering agency called the Office of Special Plans(OSP) planted in the pentagon by senior bush officials. The job of that agency was reportedly to go through the rejected intel created by the CIA and NSA for any tasty bits that would otherwise never be included in an Intel report to the president. Most articles I found say that Cheney is the person that ultimately created the OSP, but it is headed by Senior Pentagon Official Paul Wolfowitz. But finding hard data or even a reliable news story about the agency is hard to do. The best i can come up with is from the international media.

whitehouse ignored intel
http://www.scoop.co.nz/mason/stories/HL0307/S00202.htm

from above:

The former CIA agents were asked to examine prewar intelligence last year by CIA Director George Tenet and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. They will present a final report to the Pentagon and CIA and possibly Congressional and Senate commitees later this year.

The ad-hoc committee, called the Office of Special Plans, headed by Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Douglas Feith and other Pentagon hawks, described the worst-case scenarios in terms of Iraq’s alleged stockpile of chemical and biological weapons and claimed the country was close to acquiring nuclear weapons, according to four of the CIA agents, speaking on the condition of anonymity because the information is still classified, who conducted a preliminary view of the intelligence.

The agents said the Office of Special Plans is responsible for providing the National Security Council and Vice President Dick Cheney, National Security Adviser Condoleeza Rice and Rumsfeld with a bulk of the intelligence information on Iraq’s weapons program that turned out to be wrong. But White House officials used the information it received from the Office of Special Plans to win support from the public and Congress to start a war in Iraq even though the White House knew much of the information was dubious, the CIA agents said.

That was written by freelance journalist Jason Leopold. no sources are named directly in the article., which means that Leopold can say essentially whatever he likes. However, a gaurdian article names some specific sources in addition to quoting “former pentagon officials”

the spies who pushed for war
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,999737,00.html

from that article:

"They surveyed data and picked out what they liked," said Gregory Thielmann, a senior official in the state department's intelligence bureau until his retirement in September. "The whole thing was bizarre. The secretary of defence had this huge defence intelligence agency, and he went around it."

OSP reportedly met with members of Iraqi groups which now make up the Iraqi Governing Council, most chief of these being Ahmed Chalabi. These men stood to gain from the overthrow of Iraq, so intel from them should have been held as suspect unless it could be corroborated.
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/08/08/1060145871467.html

further reading can be found at this comprehensive site: http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/wot/iraq/office_of_special_plans.html

Seeing this, we can expect the administration to either divert attention to the CIA, since everyone seems willing to scapegoat them after the Intel Failures that led to 9-11, or perhaps it will “uncover” the OSP’s activity, and say that it has overstepped it’s “mandate” and tie it to a senior pentagon official, probably not Wolfowitz, and perhaps not Frieth, but some other high level admin on the panel. This person will be fired, or will take one for the team, like Ollie North.