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Intelligence loses its reputation

By William Pfaff

The findings of the British and American intelligence services on Iraq were edited to deliver the conclusions Tony Blair and George W. Bush wanted.

THE MESSAGE of the United Kingdom's enquiry commission on Iraq headed by Robin Butler and the United States' Senate Select Committee on intelligence has been the same. The British and American intelligence services have been compromised and politicised.

Their findings on Iraq were edited to deliver the conclusions Prime Minister Tony Blair and President George W. Bush wanted, justifying an invasion the two had already decided on.

Criticism has in the past focussed on the issue of deliberate bias or lies introduced into the evidence by interested ideological or exile groups. But more pernicious in the end was probably the analytical distortion produced by the conventional wisdom.

The conventional wisdom of Western intelligence before Iraq's invasion was that Saddam Hussein possessed chemical and biological weapons, and an active programme for acquiring nuclear weapons.

Chemical weapons were not a great success during the Iran-Iraq war, although used by Mr. Hussein against passive civilian populations inside Iraq. His Government tried to develop nuclear weapons before the Gulf War, presumably for deterrent purposes, and for prestige and blackmail.

This history automatically led intelligence agencies after the Gulf War in 1991 to think that, despite U.N. strictures and inspections, Mr. Hussein would go on pursuing a deterrent weapon. That he would give it all up seemed unlikely. But `seemed' is not an intelligence finding.

The institutional damage of this affair for the U.K. Secret Intelligence Service (SIS) and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) is great. The relationship between the two is an old one. The SIS launched modern American intelligence. It has remained ever since in a troubling superiority or dependency relationship with its rich transatlantic `cousins'.At some point, probably recently, probably as a consequence of the shift in American policy after 9/11 and the decision of Mr. Blair to back to the hilt Mr. Bush's ill-defined and open-ended `war on terror,' the intelligence relationship took a disastrous tip.

Each side began to reinforce the other's mistakes, and to feed one another's needs to supply intelligence findings that reinforced the preconceptions and rationalised the actions of a Prime Minister and a President who had already decided to go to war. The findings that were supplied have since blown up in their faces, to their considerable political disadvantage.

The Senate Committee report findings have made it possible for Mr. Bush to say he went wrong only because he believed what the CIA told him. Now that George Tenet is gone, CIA reforms will make it impossible for this to happen again. The November voter can be reassured.

It is not so simple for Mr. Blair. He, his Government, and the SIS have suffered most from the affair. Until now, British intelligence has had a high reputation in Washington, Western Europe and elsewhere.

The Butler report's citation of material sent to the Prime Minister's office in Downing Street (and Parliament), stripped of the qualifications that said it came from sources `open to doubt,' `severely flawed', later `withdrawn as unreliable', or only included for its `eye-catching character,' has greatly damaged the SIS' reputation for professionalism and political integrity.

This is important for a political reason, connected to Britain's relationship to the European Union. Europe's respect for the SIS as an intelligence service is one of Britain's most important international assets.

The British Government and political class continue to assume that their rival American and European relationships can be managed without drama, but this may not remain true. The policies of the Bush administration, and Mr. Blair's resolute commitment to Mr. Bush's leadership have undermined that assumption for many Europeans. They expect American election day in November to be a crucial date in the Europe-America relationship.

They assume that if Mr. Bush is given a new mandate, international affairs will continue to be dominated by an American government with unilateralist, pre-emptive and politically utopian policies.

They conclude that events will deepen existing tension and divisions between the U.S. and Europe, and that the argument that puts forward the shared values of Americans and Europeans would no longer be convincing. — Guardian Newspapers Limited 2004

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