What other inquiries found

The report by the presidential commission follows three major examinations in 2004 of the role of U.S. intelligence. Here are the findings of the previous investigations:

Senate Intelligence Committee

The United States went to war with Iraq on the basis of flawed intelligence assessments that “either overstated or were not supported by” the underlying evidence on Baghdad’s weapons programs, the committee’s July 9, 2004, report said. It documented systemic failures at the CIA and other U.S. intelligence agencies that led to erroneous conclusions that Iraq had stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons and was reconstituting its efforts to build a nuclear bomb. “Groupthink” rendered CIA analysts incapable of considering that Iraq might have dismantled its weapons programs, the report said, and the agency depended on dubious accounts from defectors and questionable information from foreign intelligence services.

Sept. 11 commission

The independent commission investigating the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks concluded that the U.S. government had been hobbled by “failures of imagination, policy, capabilities and management,” and warned that sweeping reforms were needed to prevent another catastrophic terrorist strike. The July 22, 2004, final report, the result of a 20-month investigation, documented dozens of intelligence breakdowns and squandered opportunities to detect or disrupt the plot. It scolded Congress for inadequate oversight and called for the overhaul of key elements of U.S. foreign policy as well as a restructuring of the nation’s intelligence community. It did not say whether the attacks were preventable.

Iraq Survey Group

The Oct. 6, 2004, report by Charles A. Duelfer, head of the CIA’s Iraq Survey Group weapons-hunting teams, found that President Saddam Hussein did not produce or possess any weapons of mass destruction for more than a decade before the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq. Hussein intended to someday reconstitute his illicit programs and rebuild at least some of his weapons if U.N. sanctions were eased and he had the opportunity, the report concluded. But the Iraqi regime had no formal, written strategy to revive the programs after sanctions, and no staff or infrastructure in place to do so, investigators found.

Source: Los Angeles Times

Los Angeles Times