Senate Report On Pre-war Intelligence On Iraq - "Phase Two" of The Investigation

"Phase Two" of The Investigation

At the time of the report's release (July 9, 2004), Democratic members of the committee expressed the hope that "phase two" of the investigation, which was to include an assessment of how the Iraqi WMD intelligence was used by senior policymakers, would be completed quickly. Committee Chairman Pat Roberts (R-KS) said of phase two, "It is a priority. I made my commitment and it will get done."

On March 10, 2005, during a question-and-answer session after a speech he had given at the Woodrow Wilson Center, Senator Roberts said of the failure to complete phase two, "hat is basically on the back burner." Senator John D. Rockefeller (D-WV), vice chairman of the Committee, made a statement later that day in which he said, "The Chairman agreed to this investigation and I fully expect him to fulfill his commitment.... While the completion of phase two is long overdue, the committee has continued this important work, and I expect that we will finish the review in the very near future."

In a statement regarding the release of the report of the presidential WMD commission on March 31, 2005, Senator Roberts wrote, "I don’t think there should be any doubt that we have now heard it all regarding prewar intelligence. I think that it would be a monumental waste of time to replow this ground any further."

On April 10, 2005, Senators Roberts and Rockefeller appeared together on NBC's Meet the Press program. In response to a question about the completion of phase two of the investigation, Roberts said, "I'm perfectly willing to do it, and that's what we agreed to do, and that door is still open. And I don't want to quarrel with Jay, because we both agreed that we would get it done. But we do have--we have Ambassador Negroponte next week, we have General Mike Hayden next week. We have other hot-spot hearings or other things going on that are very important."

Moderator Tim Russert then asked Senator Rockefeller if he believed phase two would be completed, and he replied, "I hope so. Pat and I have agreed to do it. We've shaken hands on it, and we agreed to do it after the elections so it wouldn't be any sort of sense of a political attack. I mean that was my view; it shouldn't be viewed that way."

On August 2, 2005, Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) released the text of a letter she had sent to Senator Roberts, saying, in part, “I am increasingly dismayed by the delay in completing the Committee’s ‘Phase II’ investigation into intelligence prior to the Iraq War.... I stand ready to participate in this investigation in any way possible."

On November 1, 2005, Senator Harry Reid (D-NV), the Senate minority leader, invoked a seldom-used provision of the Senate rules to place the body in a closed session. During a three-and-a-half hour discussion, agreement was reached on the creation of a six-member Senate panel to report by November 14 on "the intelligence committee's progress of the phase two review of the prewar intelligence and its schedule for completion."

On April 26, 2006, an article by journalist Alexander Bolton in the Congressional journal The Hill reported that Committee Chairman Pat Roberts (R-KS) was seeking to further divide the phase two report. Under Roberts' new approach, the following components of the report would be released relatively quickly: pre-war intelligence assessments of post-war Iraq, postwar findings in Iraq regarding WMD and ties to terrorism, and the use by US intelligence of information supplied by the Iraqi National Congress. Two components of the report would be delayed: whether public statements before the war by senior government officials were supported by the underlying intelligence, and the role played by the Department of Defense's Office of Special Plans in developing the prewar intelligence.

A September 7, 2006, article by journalist Jonathon Weisman in the Washington Post reported that the part of the phase two report comparing the Bush administration's public statements about Saddam Hussein with the evidence senior officials reviewed in private would not be released before the November 2006 election.

Two volumes of the phase II report were released on September 8, 2006: "Postwar Findings about Iraq's WMD Programs and Links to Terrorism and How they Compare with Prewar Assessments" and "The Use by the Intelligence Community of Information Provided by the Iraqi National Congress."

After Democrats gained a majority in the Senate during the 2006 midterm election, chairmanship of the committee passed to Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-WV). The former chair, Sen. Pat Roberts (R-KS) left the committee; the ranking Republican and vice chairman of the committee is now Sen. Kit Bond (R-MO).

On May 25, 2007, the committee released a volume of the phase II report titled, "Prewar Intelligence Assessments About Postwar Iraq". This volume of the report includes seven pages of conclusions regarding assessments provided by the intelligence community to U.S. government leaders prior to the Iraq war. The report concludes that the intelligence community had assessed that establishing a stable government in Iraq would be a "long, difficult, and probably turbulent challenge," that Iraqi society was deeply divided and would engage in violent conflict unless an occupying power took steps to prevent it, and that the war would increase the threat of terrorism, at least temporarily. The intelligence community also assessed that a U.S. defeat and occupation of Iraq would lead to a surge in political Islam and increased funding for terrorist groups, and that the war would not cause other countries in the region to abandon their WMD programs.

This volume of the report includes an appendix containing two previously classified reports by the National Intelligence Council (NIC) titled, "Regional Consequences of Regime Change in Iraq" and "Principal Challenges in Post-Saddam Iraq", as well as a long list of recipients within the government of NIC assessments on Iraq. The appendix also contains a number of "Additional Views" in which different members of the committee comment on the history of the committee's work in this area, and criticize what they characterize as the politicization of that work by members of the other party.

Phase II of the report was publicly released on Thursday June 5, 2008 whether statements by US Government officials were substantiated by intelligence reports.

This was a bi-partisan majority report (10-5) and "details inappropriate, sensitive intelligence activities conducted by the DoD’s Office of the Undersecretary of Defense for Policy, without the knowledge of the Intelligence Community or the State Department." It concludes that the US Administration "repeatedly presented intelligence as fact when in reality it was unsubstantiated, contradicted, or even non-existent. As a result, the American people were led to believe that the threat from Iraq was much greater than actually existed.” These included President Bush's statements of a partnership between Iraq and Al Qa'ida, that Saddam Hussein was preparing to give weapons of mass destruction to terrorist groups, and Iraq's capability to produce chemical weapons.

The Chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, Sen.Jay Rockefeller, stated in press release of report's publication“It is my belief that the Bush Administration was fixated on Iraq, and used the 9/11 attacks by al Qa’ida as justification for overthrowing Saddam Hussein. To accomplish this, top Administration officials made repeated statements that falsely linked Iraq and al Qa’ida as a single threat and insinuated that Iraq played a role in 9/11. Sadly, the Bush Administration led the nation into war under false pretenses. While the report highlights many of the problems with the intelligence and criticizes the Bush Administration for its handling of the lead up to the war and its reasons for doing so, the report also supports in many cases that claims made by the Bush Administration about Iraq's Weapons of Mass Destruction programs were "generally substantiated by the intelligence".

“There is no question we all relied on flawed intelligence. But, there is a fundamental difference between relying on incorrect intelligence and deliberately painting a picture to the American people that you know is not fully accurate."

The Chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, Sen.Jay Rockefeller twice alleged that the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy, or its former head Douglas Feith may have engaged in unlawful activities, Phase II of the report "found nothing to substantiate that claim; nothing unlawful about the "alleged" rogue intelligence operation in the PCTEG, nothing unlawful about the Office of Special Plans, and nothing unlawful about the so-called failure to inform Congress of alleged intelligence activities." The previous year, the chairman released a press statement claiming that it appeared that the office's were "not in compliance with the law." Yet, rather than pursue these allegations, Rockfeller decided to pursue an issue unrelated to the intelligence, and unrelated to Iraq. He pursued and inquiry of an exploratory meeting held in Rome in 2001 between two DOD officials and two Iranians. Writing for the Minority Opinion as part of the report it was stated that "After four years of making unsubstantiated allegations of unlawful activities, the calculus appears to be that proclamations of "inappropriate" behavior will generate the desired headlines focusing only on the caustic words, rather than the lack of substance behind them. We hope that these additional views will help redirect that focus to the evidence, or lack thereof."

Despite House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's telling her caucus members "that impeachment is off the table; she is not interested in pursuing it," Dennis Kucinich D-Ohio introduced a formal resolution to the House of Representatives in an attempt to impeach President George W. Bush from the White House. House Democrats unanimously voted to send it to a committee; and maneuver that essentially kills Kucinich's efforts.

Further information: Senate Reports of Pre-war Intelligence on Iraq pertaining to Joseph C. Wilson's Niger trip