Surprise surprise surprise. HIs most important point goes to the Bush administration's now-defense, gosh the intel was bad, that wasn't our fault, we just followed the lead of that bad bad CIA:
"Official intelligence on Iraqi weapons programs was flawed but even with its flaws, it was not what led to the war," Pillar said in an article written for the March/April issue of Foreign Affairs and posted on the magazine's Web site on Friday.And the White House only chose to use the intelligence that supported their argument, while ignoring the intelligence that said that war would be a disaster.
"If the entire body of official intelligence analysis on Iraq had a policy implication, it was to avoid war -- or, if war was going to be launched, to prepare for a messy aftermath," he said.
Pillar, a widely respected intelligence analyst who spent 28 years at the CIA, said it has become clear since the 2003 invasion that the White House did not use official intelligence analysis in making even the most significant national security decisions.
Policymakers instead employed a "cherry-picking" approach that selected pieces of raw intelligence that seemed most favorable to its WMD claims and the charge of a relationship between Iraq and al Qaeda.
The White House ignored intelligence reports that said Iraq was not fertile ground for democracy and warned of a long, difficult turbulent post-invasion period that would require a Marshall Plan-type effort to restore the country's economy despite its abundant oil reserves.
Reports also predicted an occupying force would be a target of resentment and attacks including guerrilla warfare.
Pillar said the Bush administration politicized Iraq intelligence by repeatedly calling for more material that would contribute to its case for war, a tactic that he said skewed intelligence resources toward topics favoring the White House.
