Senate Panel: Bush Misrepresented Iraq Threat

Last Thursday the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence released Phase Two of its report on prewar Iraq intelligence.
In the report, the committee analyzes speeches by Bush, Cheney, and other key officials, and compares them with intelligence reports released before March 2003.

While the Committee found that the Administration relied on substantiated intelligence in regards to Iraq's desire to develop nuclear weapons, and its possession of chemical and biological agents, the report found that officials exaggerated the level of certainty in the intelligence community, and downplayed uncertainty. They also that the administration misrepresented evidence of contact between Al Quaeda and the Iraqi government to conclude that Saddam Hussein was supplying them with weapons training and other aid.

The evidence in the report led Committee Chair Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) and other members of the majority to accuse the Bush Administration of deliberately misleading the American people in its justification of the Iraq War. Minority dissenters on the report accuse the Democratic majority of partisan bias.