CIA Felt Pressure to Alter Iraq Data, Author Says
WASHINGTON — In the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks, CIA analysts were ordered repeatedly to redo intelligence assessments concluded that Al Qaeda had no operational ties to Iraq, according to a veteran CIA counter-terrorism official who has written a book that is sharply critical of the decision to go to war with Iraq.
Agency analysts never altered their conclusions, but saw the pressure to revisit their work as a clear indication that Bush administration officials were seeking a different answer regarding Iraq and Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, the CIA officer said in an interview with The Times.
"We on the Bin Laden side [of the agency's analytic ranks] were required repeatedly to check, double-check and triple-check our files about a connection between Al Qaeda and Iraq," said the officer, who spoke on condition that he be identified only by his first name, Mike.
Asked whether he attributed the demands to an eagerness among officials at the White House or the Pentagon to find evidence of a link, he said: "You could not help but assume that was the case. They knew the answer [they wanted] before they asked the question."
The officer is the author of a forthcoming book titled, "Imperial Hubris: Why the West Is Losing the War on Terror," published by Brassey's Inc. of Dulles, Va. He is listed as "Anonymous" on the book, which describes him as a "senior U.S. intelligence official with nearly two decades of experience in national security issues."
The author has held a number of high-ranking agency positions, including serving from 1996 to 1999 as head of a special unit tracking Bin Laden.
The book was approved for publication by the CIA after a four-month review -- creating an unusual situation in which one of the secretive agency's senior officers was offering public criticism of administration policies and the prosecution of the war on terrorism.
CIA spokesman Bill Harlow emphasized that the opinions in the book were those of the author, not the agency. He acknowledged that the book's publication was awkward for an agency that sought to be apolitical, but that the CIA found no classified material in it, and therefore allowed its release.
Some have questioned the author's motives, noting that he was removed as head of the Bin Laden unit in 1999 over concerns about his performance. An intelligence official who has worked with the author at the CIA said that he might have been embittered by his removal, but that "people tend to think of him as a straight shooter."
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