Intelligence community didn't vet Bush, Cheney's opening arguments for war: report

Intel didn't vet Bush rationale: report

When President Bush and Vice President Cheney began building their case for the pre-emptive invasion of Iraq, they did so in high profile speeches that received no vetting or approval from US intelligence agencies that were gathering information about Saddam Hussein's regime, according to a new Senate report.
It turned out that most of their assertions were wrong.
In a sweeping, 200-plus page review of the administration's pre-war case for invasion, the Senate Intelligence Committee found that the American public was being fed information at odds with prevailing views, and officials were ignoring contemporary disagreements in the Intelligence Community.
“In making the case for war, the Administration repeatedly presented intelligence as fact when in reality it was unsubstantiated, contradicted, or even non-existent. As a result, the American people were led to believe that the threat from Iraq was much greater than actually existed,” Intelligence Committee Chairman John Rockefeller (D-WV) said in a press release announcing the new report.
“It is my belief that the Bush Administration was fixated on Iraq, and used the 9/11 attacks by al Qa’ida as justification for overthrowing Saddam Hussein. To accomplish this, top Administration officials made repeated statements that falsely linked Iraq and al Qa’ida as a single threat and insinuated that Iraq played a role in 9/11. Sadly, the Bush Administration led the nation into war under false pretenses."
The full report is available as two large .pdf files here and here. Rockefeller summarized its findings as follows: