Posted on 03/09/2006 5:20:20 PM PST by West Coast Conservative
A former top CIA official said Thursday that despite the overthrow of Saddam Hussein, Iraq is likely to be looking for weapons of mass destruction within the next five to 10 years.
Paul Pillar, who until last year was in charge of intelligence assessments for the Middle East, said the CIA warned the Bush administration before the Iraq invasion in 2003 that a change of regimes would not necessarily solve any WMD problem.
In a speech at the Middle East Institute here, Pillar said Iraqis live in "a dangerous neighborhood," with rival countries pursuing weapons of mass destruction. So the CIA had warned that a future Iraqi government would likely want the very weapons Hussein was (wrongly) suspected of hiding, including nuclear weapons, he said.
"Iraq may turn once again to ... a WMD program," Pillar, who is retired from the CIA, said Thursday. "And wouldn't that be ironic?"
Pillar recently published an article in Foreign Affairs magazine that for the first time fully laid out the CIA's side of the battle with the Bush administration over Iraq intelligence.
Pillar charges that the administration never sought strategic assessments from the CIA about Iraq. He said in his article that the Bush administration made its decision to go to war and then "cherry-picked" items from intelligence assessments in an effort to justify the decision to the public.
The biggest discrepancy between the CIA's intelligence and the administration's line on Iraq was the claim by Bush that there was a relationship between Hussein and al-Qaida, Pillar wrote. There was no intelligence supporting that theory, Pillar said, but the administration wanted to capitalize on "the country's militant post-9/11 mood," he wrote.
(Excerpt) Read more at newsday.com ...
The CIA doesn't have a clue what it is talking about. They are inept outside of their SAD (which is actively hunting HVTs and has nothing to do with strategic type thinking / planning).
These former employees looking to salvage their reps need to STFU.
Another CIA incompetent tries to re-write history to serve the feeble liberal minds of the MSM and the Demagogic Party.......
So, wait, isn't this a confirmation that Saddam was looking for WMDs?
Way to go, Pillar, you just betrayed your entire side's argument!
We need to start "retiring" these guys the good-old-fashioned way. They just go on "permanent assignment" or something.
the CIA couldn't predict the Hamas victory in the PLO nor the outcome of the Iranian election....we should believe their forecast of Iraq in five-to-ten years????
Silliest story ever. Few governements will be as worrisome with WMD's as Sadaam Hussein would have been. Lots of countries have WMD - England, France, Russia, etc. How they relate to the USA is the crucial question. And you have a lot less chance of a friendly Iraq even trying to acquire WMD's.
In the end, it isn't about WMD.
India has nukes, and we don't care.
If a country has WMD, and they are shooting at us every day, dealing with terror organizations under the table, threatening countries who are friendly to us, then we are likely to get testy. But it isn't the WMD, its the rest of the litany that gets our attention.
If on the other hand, you have WMD, and you only point them at bad people, we'll huff and snort and register public disapproval, but in the end, we don't care because we don't expect to see them unleashed on innocent people.
If Iraq starts promoting terror again, and invading its neighbors again, with or without WMD, we have their address.
Cops and upstanding citizens carrying guns, and criminals carrying guns, are not equivalent. We are capable of distinguishing between the two.
But could they predict which direction the sun will rise in. Given recent history they have a 1 in 4 chance.
Lots of formers around of lately. Perhaps Goss had this bum thrown out on his butt. Real idiot.
I really don't give a $&*$ if they do or not.
We did not go into Iraq to prevent a decent Iraqi govt. from having WMD.
We went in to prevent ****SADDAM's**** govt. from having them, the former regime.
The focus was COMPLETELY on Saddam's govt.
As far as I am concerned, the new govt. can do what it wishes unless it turns tyrannical as well.
Iraq's NOT friendly as long as Iran controls its government. You can thank George W. Bush for that one.
So yes, I do thank George Bush and only wish instead of the left we had a right wing pushing to finish the mission - in Iran.
Pillar also thought the Pats a lock to win this past Super Bowl.
You don't want the Shia to run Iraq because they are influenced by Iran. But Al Queda is largely Sunni in origin, from Saudi Arabia and with support from Syria. Every Middle East Arab country has Sunni, Shia, or sizeable amounts of both. So you aren't going to be happy with either.
I thank George Bush for getting rid of Sadaam Hussein, and I will thank him more if he can topple the current Iranian regime. A non-radical, friendly Iran would be just fine influencing Iraq.
Maybe I am a genius, thanks for the compliment.
To: cookcounty
http://www.mideasti.org/html/bio-wilson.html and on the MEI; http://216.239.37.104/search?q=cache:IRKdQ1Ptv7sJ:www.iht.com/articles/56717.htm+%22Middle+East+Institute%22+saudi+arabia+espionage&hl=en&ie=UTF-8The institute [Middle East Institute] also receives funds from Saudi Arabia, which opposes the INC specifically and Bush's approach to regime change in Iraq in general.
And in passing, this one is so telling;
http://www.la.utexas.edu/chenry/oil/press02/Oil%20for%20Security%20Fueled%20Close%20Ties%20(washingtonpost_com).htm
Walker, the former assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern affairs, is president of the Middle East Institute in Washington, which promotes understanding with the Arab world. Its board chairman is former senator Wyche Fowler, ambassador to Riyadh in the second Clinton administration. Saudi contributions covered $200,000 of the institute's $1.5 million budget last year, Walker said.
[Saudia Arabian Prince] Bandar has told associates that he makes a point of staying close to officials who have worked with Saudi Arabia after they leave government service. "If the reputation then builds that the Saudis take care of friends when they leave office," Bandar once observed, according to a knowledgeable source, "you'd be surprised how much better friends you have who are just coming into office."
28 posted on 10/03/2003 11:53:08 AM PDT by swilhelm73 [ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 22
In a country seriously committed to winning a war, Wilson and Plame would be on trial, not those who may have leaked Plame's role in sending Wilson.
This is especially true considering the fact that Wilson is on the payroll of a Saudi funded think tank (read front) [Middle East Institute] as part of their policy of buying ex-diplomats.
What role did Wilson's bosses in Riyadh have in sending him and/or his faulty "investigation"? It certainly could not have more perfectly meshed with what the Saudis wanted. This is most certainly not an academic matter either as in the similar case of the Nigerian forgeries we now know they were created by the French government.
1 posted on 12/15/2004 2:44:07 PM PST by swilhelm73
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