Former CIA Chief Speaks Out On Pre-War Intelligence

In my entry on the CIA whistleblower firing, I mentioned that a former top CIA official was set to discuss on '60 Minutes' more on how the administration cherry-picked intelligence to force their case for war. Well that interview has aired now and here's the highlights. Tyler Drumheller, the former chief of the CIA’s Europe division, revealed that in the Fall of 2002 George Tenet informed the President, Vice President, and Condoleeza Rice that a key informant had told them Iraq had no WMD program. Think the White House cared? If you said 'yes', then you haven't paid any attention to this saga.

From a transcript-

BRADLEY: According to Drumheller, CIA Director George Tenet delivered the news about the Iraqi foreign minister at a high level meeting at the White House.

DRUMHELLER: The President, the Vice President, Dr. Rice…

BRADLEY: And at that meeting…?

DRUMHELLER: They were enthusiastic because they said they were excited that we had a high-level penetration of Iraqis.

BRADLEY: And what did this high level source tell you?

DRUMHELLER: He told us that they had no active weapons of mass destruction program.

BRADLEY: So, in the fall of 2002, before going to war, we had it on good authority from a source within Saddam’s inner circle that he didn’t have an active program for weapons of mass destruction?

DRUMHELLER: Yes.

BRADLEY: There’s no doubt in your mind about that?

DRUMHELLER: No doubt in my mind at all.

BRADLEY: It directly contradicts, though, what the President and his staff were telling us.

DRUMHELLER: The policy was set. The war in Iraq was coming, and they were looking for intelligence to fit into the policy, to justify the policy.

Video- here.

Josh Marshall also also spoke to Drumheller and shares his thoughts on the story-

Drumheller's account is pretty probative evidence on the question of whether the White House politicized and cherry-picked the Iraq intelligence.

So why didn't we hear about any of this in the reports of those Iraq intel commissions that have given the White House a clean bill of health on distorting the intel and misleading the country about what we knew about Iraq's alleged WMD programs?...

...I asked Drumheller just those questions when I spoke to him early this evening. He was quite clear. He was interviewed by the Robb-Silbermann Commission. Three times apparently.

Did he tell them everything he revealed on tonight's 60 Minutes segment. Absolutely...

...What Drumheller has to say adds quite a lot to our knowledge of what happened in the lead up to war. But what it shows even more clearly is that none of this stuff has yet been investigated by anyone whose principal goal is not covering for the White House.

As Atrios notes, "The real point isn't the actual revelation, it's that he's revealed it before to people tasked with investigating this stuff, who promptly filed it in the circular filing cabinet."

Meanwhile, In Iraq, the violence continues while we prepare to stay for the long haul.

We need accountability for this. And, again, it appears the November elections may be the last chance to get it.

[PS- Former Colin Powell chief of staff asks- Is U.S. being transformed into a radical republic?. Seems like it, sure.]