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“WHAT INFORMATION LED US INTO IRAQ?” mentioning the U.S. Dept of State was published in the House of Representatives section on pages H4760 on June 2, 2003.
The publication is reproduced in full below:
WHAT INFORMATION LED US INTO IRAQ?
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Strickland) is recognized for 5 minutes.
Mr. STRICKLAND. Mr. Speaker, not many weeks ago, we sent our sons and daughters into a war where many lost their lives, and in fact, our soldiers are currently under threat in Iraq, and just last week, others were killed.
There is a remaining question in the minds of many Americans as to exactly what information led us to make this decision to go into Iraq as we did, and in Sunday's edition of the Columbus, Ohio, Dispatch, there was a column written by Nicholas Kristof who writes for the New York Times, and the headline for his column is this: ``U.S. Intelligence Officials Incensed Over Manipulating Their Data to Invade Iraq.''
Mr. Kristof begins his column, ``On Thursday, Day 71 of the hunt for Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, once again nothing turned up. Maybe we'll do better on Day 72 or 73 or 74. But we might have better luck searching for something just as alarming: the growing evidence that the administration grossly manipulated intelligence about those weapons of mass destruction in the run-up to the Iraq war.''
Then Mr. Kristof says this, A column that he had written earlier in the month ``drew a torrent of covert communications from indignant spooks who say that administration officials leaned on them to exaggerate the Iraqi threat and deceive the public.''
He continues, `` `The American people were manipulated,' bluntly declared one person from the Defense Intelligence Agency who says he was privy to all of the intelligence there on Iraq. These people are fiercely proud of the deepest ethic in the intelligence world--that it should be nonpolitical--and are disgusted at efforts to turn them into propagandists.''
He quotes, `` `The al Qaeda connection and nuclear weapons issue were the only two ways that you could link Iraq to an imminent security threat to the U.S.,' said Greg Thielmann, who retired in September after 25 years in the State Department.'' The last four of those years he was in the Bureau of Intelligence and Research. He said, ``The administration was grossly distorting the intelligence on both things.
``The outrage among the intelligence professionals is so widespread that they have formed a group, Veterans Intelligence Professionals for Sanity,'' and they wrote President Bush this month to protest what they called ``a policy and intelligence fiasco of monumental proportions.
`` `While there have been occasions in the past when intelligence has been deliberately warped for political purposes,' the letter said,
`never before has such warping been used in such a systematic way to mislead our elected representatives into voting to authorize the launching of a war.' ''
``Some say,'' according to Mr. Kristof, ``that top Pentagon officials cast about for the most sensational tidbits about Iraq and then used them to bludgeon Secretary of State Colin Powell and seduce the President. The Director of Central Intelligence, George Tenet, has been generally liked and respected within the agency ranks, but in the past year, particularly in the intelligence directorate, people say that he has kowtowed to Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and compromised the integrity of his organization.''
Now, Mr. Kristof emphasizes that ``The CIA is examining its record, and that's welcome. But the atmosphere within the intelligence community is so poisonous, and the stakes are so high--for the credibility of America's word and the soundness of information on which we base American foreign policy--that an outside examination is essential.''
Mr. Kristof concludes his column by saying, ``Congress must provide greater oversight, and President Bush should invite Brent Scowcroft, the head of the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board and a man trusted by all sides, to lead an inquiry'' in a public report so that we can restore confidence in America's intelligence agencies.
Mr. Speaker, this is an important issue. The American people are paying attention, and the President needs to provide us with some answers.
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