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WASHINGTON, March 31: A US presidential commission said on Thursday that US intelligence agencies were ?dead wrong? in pre-war assessments of Iraq?s weapons of mass destruction and still know woefully little about US enemies. The panel warned in a scathing report of nearly 600 pages that the decision to invade Iraq based on accusations that could not be confirmed after the March 2003 invasion had done damage to US credibility that will take years to fix.
?We conclude that the intelligence community was dead wrong in almost all of its pre-war judgments about Iraq?s weapons of mass destruction,? the commission said. ?We simply cannot afford failures of this magnitude.? US President George Bush, who ordered the panel?s creation, formally accepted the report at the White House, while press secretary Scott McClellan vowed to review its advice and act on it ?in a fairly quick period of time?.
?One of the key conclusions in the report is that the intelligence community needs fundamental change to better address the threats of the 21st century, and the president agrees,? said Mr McClellan.
The commission rejected suggestions that Iraq was a unique blunder and warned that flaws in the intelligence community?s performance before the invasion ?are still all too common?.
?The bad news is that we still know disturbingly little about the weapons programs and even less about the intentions of many of our most dangerous adversaries,? the commission said.
?Across the board, the intelligence community knows disturbingly little about the nuclear programs of many of the world?s most dangerous actors. In some cases, it knows less now than it did five or 10 years ago,? it said. The US intelligence community also ?has not kept pace? with the spread of weapons of mass destruction and increasing eagerness, among terrorists like those who carried out the Sept 11, 2001, attacks, to acquire them.
The 10-member commission said its year-long enquiry, though focused on Iraq, had also considered the state of intelligence on ?countries that pose current proliferation threats, including Iran, North Korea, China and Russia?.
The panel said its classified report included a chapter on US covert actions and another on Iran and North Korea, neither of which could be included in the unclassified version.
?We can say here that we found that we have only limited access to critical information about several of these high-priority intelligence targets,? the commission said.
North Korea has been open about its nuclear arms program and says it has already manufactured bombs. Six-party talks with Pyongyang, including the United States and regional countries, ground to a halt last year.
The presidential commission had some good news on at least one front, praising ?innovative? US intelligence efforts on Libya?s now-abandoned nuclear arms program as ?fundamentally a success story?.?AFP
?We conclude that the intelligence community was dead wrong in almost all of its pre-war judgments about Iraq?s weapons of mass destruction,? the commission said. ?We simply cannot afford failures of this magnitude.? US President George Bush, who ordered the panel?s creation, formally accepted the report at the White House, while press secretary Scott McClellan vowed to review its advice and act on it ?in a fairly quick period of time?.
?One of the key conclusions in the report is that the intelligence community needs fundamental change to better address the threats of the 21st century, and the president agrees,? said Mr McClellan.
The commission rejected suggestions that Iraq was a unique blunder and warned that flaws in the intelligence community?s performance before the invasion ?are still all too common?.
?The bad news is that we still know disturbingly little about the weapons programs and even less about the intentions of many of our most dangerous adversaries,? the commission said.
?Across the board, the intelligence community knows disturbingly little about the nuclear programs of many of the world?s most dangerous actors. In some cases, it knows less now than it did five or 10 years ago,? it said. The US intelligence community also ?has not kept pace? with the spread of weapons of mass destruction and increasing eagerness, among terrorists like those who carried out the Sept 11, 2001, attacks, to acquire them.
The 10-member commission said its year-long enquiry, though focused on Iraq, had also considered the state of intelligence on ?countries that pose current proliferation threats, including Iran, North Korea, China and Russia?.
The panel said its classified report included a chapter on US covert actions and another on Iran and North Korea, neither of which could be included in the unclassified version.
?We can say here that we found that we have only limited access to critical information about several of these high-priority intelligence targets,? the commission said.
North Korea has been open about its nuclear arms program and says it has already manufactured bombs. Six-party talks with Pyongyang, including the United States and regional countries, ground to a halt last year.
The presidential commission had some good news on at least one front, praising ?innovative? US intelligence efforts on Libya?s now-abandoned nuclear arms program as ?fundamentally a success story?.?AFP
