Probe of Intelligence Failure Is Canceled

Re “No Need for CIA Abuse Probe, Republican Says,” March 11: The Senate committee overseeing U.S. intelligence has shut down its investigation into whether top administration officials distorted intelligence evidence to build the case for war on Iraq. Distorted? Really?

One of the Bush administration’s first acts was to replace Pentagon intelligence with civilian political appointees (“the Office of Special Plans” under Pentagon policy chief Douglas Feith). The OSP’s job was to provide “intelligence” to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.

Rumsfeld and the rest then painted a rosy picture of Marines greeted with flowers by cheering Iraqi crowds, financed with Iraqi oil money. Remember Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz saying the whole thing would be a cakewalk? Congress believed it.

Now the CIA has been blamed for the “intelligence failure” and Congress members have made a deal to look the other way, or using their word, “forward.” This is intelligence failure, all right.

Peter Barus

Swarthmore, Pa.