Senate Intel Report: Administration Dishonest in Lead-up to Iraq War

The Senate Intelligence Committee has just released its looooong awaited report on the Bush administration's public statements in the run-up to the Iraq War. It's the final part of the committee's five-year investigation into the prewar intelligence failures. And from Chairman Jay Rockefeller's statement accompanying the report, it appears to be harder-hitting than was expected:

In making the case for war, the Administration repeatedly presented intelligence as fact when in reality it was unsubstantiated, contradicted, or even non-existent.  As a result, the American people were led to believe that the threat from Iraq was much greater than actually existed....

There is no question we all relied on flawed intelligence.  But, there is a fundamental difference between relying on incorrect intelligence and deliberately painting a picture to the American people that you know is not fully accurate.   

That's about as close as you'll ever hear Sen. Rockefeller come to accusing the administration of lying.

The 88-page report, which also includes voluminous dissension from the Republican members of the committee as to the report's conclusions, is available here (pdf). There's also a 57-page companion report (pdf) faulting the special office set up under former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and run by Doug Feith for "inappropriate" intelligence activities. Let us know (in comments below) what catches your eye.

Update: McClatchy has a good rundown of the report.

Interested in what Paul Kiel is reading today? Read the articles around the Web he’s sharing.

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