Friday, July 16, 2004

American and Bristish Intelligence Services Must Have Been Comparing Notes.

Look at what was reported in today's Washington Post:
 
Although the Joint Intelligence Committee's confidential assessments to Blair before the war emphasized that sources were thin and questionable, the dossier prepared for the public omitted those caveats. "Warnings were lost about the limited intelligence base on which some aspects of these assessments were being made," the panel concluded. This was "a serious weakness."
When new intelligence from an untested source arrived in September, two weeks before the dossier was published, MI6 used it in the dossier but refused to share it with weapons experts at the Defense Ministry's intelligence service who might have cast doubts on its validity, the inquiry said. That intelligence was withdrawn in July 2003 because it was found to be unreliable.



Of course, you might remember that this is pretty much the same thing that the Senate Intelligence Committee reported.  But in case you forgot, here's a little snip from an article I linked to in a previous post not too long ago:
 

Although the Joint Intelligence Committee's confidential assessments to Blair before the war emphasized that sources were thin and questionable, the dossier prepared for the public omitted those caveats. "Warnings were lost about the limited intelligence base on which some aspects of these assessments were being made," the panel concluded. This was "a serious weakness."
When new intelligence from an untested source arrived in September, two weeks before the dossier was published, MI6 used it in the dossier but refused to share it with weapons experts at the Defense Ministry's intelligence service who might have cast doubts on its validity, the inquiry said. That intelligence was withdrawn in July 2003 because it was found to be unreliable.