Iraq Evidence 'Manipulated,' Inquiry Finds
WASHINGTON — A controversial intelligence unit set up in the Pentagon provided skewed prewar analysis to support Bush administration claims that Saddam Hussein was an ally of Al Qaeda, an investigation by Democrats on the Senate Armed Services Committee has found.
The intelligence unit, run by Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Douglas J. Feith, shaded analytic judgments, ignored contrary evidence and sidestepped the CIA to present dubious findings to senior officials at the White House, the investigation concluded.
The report was released Thursday by Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.) after a 16-month inquiry conducted by Democratic staff members on the committee. Levin has been a persistent critic of Feith and the Bush administration on Iraq.
The report concluded that "intelligence relating to the Iraq-Al Qaeda relationship was manipulated by high-ranking officials in the [Department of Defense] to support the administration's decision to invade Iraq."
Republicans criticized the report as politically motivated. "Sen. Levin's report is clearly a partisan effort to influence the upcoming election rather than an attempt to correct the flaws in our intelligence community," said Sen. John Cornyn of Texas, a Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee.
The Defense Department issued a statement saying other investigations had found no evidence of wrongdoing by Feith's office, and that Levin's report appeared to "depart from the bipartisan, consultative relationship" between the Pentagon and Congress.
Feith, a lightning rod for critics of the Bush administration, was a leading proponent of the war in Iraq, and was in charge of postwar planning. He has said that his office created the intelligence unit -- the Counterterrorism Evaluation Group -- shortly after the Sept. 11 attacks to conduct a broad examination of state sponsors of terrorism.
The unit focused much of its energy on finding a link between Hussein and Al Qaeda. Subsequent investigations, including that of the independent bipartisan Sept. 11 commission, have concluded that although there were contacts between Iraq and Al Qaeda, there was no evidence of a collaborative relationship or Iraqi involvement in the Sept. 11 plot.
Much of the material in Levin's report has been previously disclosed. But the 46-page document includes new details that, according to Levin, show how Feith's analysts repeatedly sought to outflank the CIA, which was much more skeptical of Iraq-Al Qaeda ties.
