In public, Bush Administration officials pointed to Iraq's acquisition of aluminum tubes and its supposed interest in buying uranium in Africa as signs of a renewed program. Neither of these infamous claims has held up. But before the war, intelligence analysts at the Energy and State departments dissented from the view that the aluminum tubes were destined for a nuclear weapons program, and the State Department analysts called the uranium-from-Niger charge "highly dubious." They also concluded, according to the NIE, that there was no "compelling case that Iraq is currently pursuing...an integrated and comprehensive approach to acquire nuclear weapons." These analysts were not the only ones who accurately assessed the situation. On March 7, 2003, IAEA director general Mohamed ElBaradei reported that his agency's renewed inspections had found "no indication of resumed nuclear activities...nor any indication of nuclear-related prohibited activities at any inspected sites."

There were other areas where intelligence analysts were more on target than melodramatic Bush officials. In his Cincinnati speech, Bush said, "We've also discovered through intelligence that Iraq has a growing fleet of manned and unmanned aerial vehicles that could be used to disperse chemical and biological weapons across broad areas." He raised the prospect of Iraq attacking the United States with these drones. But the NIE concluded only that Iraq had a "development program"--not a "growing fleet"--of UAVs. And the intelligence analysts with the most expertise in the UAV area--those at the Air Force--believed that the UAVs under development were intended for reconnaissance, not WMD attacks. "The jury is still out," Tenet said, "on whether Iraq intended to use its newer, smaller [UAVs] to deliver biological weapons."

Much of the current controversy over the prewar intelligence has fixated on WMDs. But Bush's primary case for war was based on the suppositions that Saddam had horrible weapons, had an operational alliance with Al Qaeda and would be willing to share his WMDs with the murderers of 9/11. In November 2002 Bush said Saddam was "dealing with" Al Qaeda. At the UN Powell said there was a "sinister nexus" between the Iraqi dictator and Al Qaeda. Aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln on May 1, Bush called Saddam an "ally" of Al Qaeda.

But the NIE's "key judgments" did not conclude that Saddam Hussein was in cahoots with Osama bin Laden, and the estimate reported that intelligence analysts believed Saddam would consider slipping chemical or biological weapons to a terrorist outfit only as an "extreme step" if he were "already engaged in a life-or-death struggle against the United States." Prior to the invasion, war opponents and some terrorism experts challenged the Administration's efforts to link Iraq to Al Qaeda. After Powell's presentation at the UN, Judith Yaphe, a senior fellow at the National Defense University who'd worked for twenty years as a CIA analyst, said that Powell's description of the purported connection between the two "appeared to have been carefully drawn to imply more than it actually said." And intelligence officials quoted anonymously in the New York Times and the Washington Post revealed there was no solid confirmation of such a link. To date, no strong proof of an operational relationship between Al Qaeda and Saddam has emerged. In fact, captured Al Qaeda leaders have told interrogators there was no partnership between bin Laden and Saddam. Their word, of course, is suspect. But is Powell's? In mid-January, he conceded, "I have not seen smoking-gun concrete evidence about the [Saddam-Al Qaeda] connection, but I think the possibility of such connections did exist and it was prudent to consider them at the time that we did." Prudent to consider the possibility? That's not how Bush put it before the war.

Tenet did not address the missing link to Al Qaeda in his Georgetown speech, but in defending his analysts he said they had never concluded Iraq was an "imminent" threat. Instead, he said, they portrayed Saddam as a "brutal dictator who was continuing his efforts to deceive and build programs that might constantly surprise us and threaten our interests." Might, he said. Bush turned might into had. While Bush seemingly never publicly used the word "imminent," he did say before the war that Iraq was able to launch a biological or chemical weapons attack within forty-five minutes and to hand WMDs to terrorists "on any given day." He warned that "Hussein and his weapons are a direct threat to this country," and the White House asserted that there was a "high risk" Iraq would use WMDs "to launch a surprise attack against the United States or its armed forces or provide them to international terrorists who would do so." What was the basis for such declarations? Not the intelligence in hand.

Before the war, many people in the United States and elsewhere--policy experts, past and present military officials, legislators and citizens--challenged Bush's depiction of Iraq as an immediate threat. It looks as if they, too, were right, as well as those who called for further and tougher inspections instead of war. Kay has acknowledged that the UN inspections process succeeded in "holding the [Iraqi WMD] program down and keeping it from breakout."

Kay's judgments are hardly final, as Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has argued. (He can hope.) And the WMD search continues in Iraq--albeit with fewer resources. But the early returns are not good for Bush. As his new intelligence commission reviews the prewar intelligence, its members should not ask, Why did everyone get it wrong? Instead, they should wonder, Why did some get it wrong, but not others? Kay has said the intelligence community owes the President an explanation. But Bush owes the public one. The rap cannot be pinned entirely on the intelligence crowd. Bush has to answer for the way he used the intelligence. Kay, for one, has urged the commission--which will not release its findings until months after Bush stands for re-election--to examine whether there was "an abuse of the [intelligence] by politicians." That is a polite way of asking if Bush and his aides turned misinformation into disinformation. The overall assessment assembled by the intelligence community was, it currently appears, seriously wrong. The notion that the CIA messed up has become widely accepted, and Bush and his allies may attempt to hide behind the cloak of the spies. But Bush & Co. took the dubious work produced by the intelligence agencies and made it even more wrong. Can they--will they--get away with it?

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