WASHINGTON, DC – The U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, chaired by Senator Pat Roberts, today released two "Phase II" reports concerning pre-war intelligence on Iraq.

"Overall, I am pleased the committee was able to release these reports so the American people can have access to the information and decide for themselves what it means," Roberts said. "We’ve heard highly-charged political rhetoric, but for the first time, the public can read the facts to see whether the rhetoric was accurate."

The reports are:

• "The Postwar Findings About Iraq's Weapons of Mass Destruction and Weapons Programs and Links to Terrorism and How they Compare with Prewar Assessments," and,
• "The Use by the Intelligence Community of Information Provided by the Iraqi National Congress (INC)."

With respect to the report on the accuracy of the prewar intelligence assessments, Chairman Roberts said:

"I think that anyone who has been paying attention the last couple of years will recognize that there is little that is new in this report. As we have all known since 2004, this nation and our allies, experienced an intelligence failure with respect to the prewar intelligence on Iraq.

"Just as this Committee reported in 2004 – by an unanimous, bipartisan vote –

and the President's WMD Commission reported in 2005, the majority of the prewar intelligence assessments were based upon flawed analysis and were just plain wrong.

"Postwar findings indicate that almost all of the major assessments in the 2002 National Intelligence Estimate about Iraq’s WMD programs were wrong. Postwar findings indicate that the accuracy of the Intelligence Community's assessments of the Iraqi regime’s links to terrorism was at best mixed. Contrary to the assertions of some of my colleagues, I have seen no evidence that there was an effort to distort or manipulate intelligence."

Concerning the report on the use by the Intelligence Community of INC information, Chairman Roberts said:

"I have some real concern with the final version of this report. Very simply, the conclusions are misleading and are not supported by the facts.

"During markup of the report, the proposed conclusions by committee analysts were replaced with a sweeping amendment offered by the Democrats. I opposed this amendment. The altered conclusions suggest that the INC intentionally provided false information to the Intelligence Community and that the Intelligence Community used that information to support key judgments about Iraq's WMD programs and links to terrorism. These conclusions distort the extent to which the Intelligence Community used INC information and they mischaracterize the significance of the information that was used.

"It is important that people can read the body of the report as well as my additional views to get the underlying facts. Together, these tell the real story. Here's the bottom line on the INC as reflected in the findings of fact in the Committee’s report:

• Some information provided by the INC was accurate, some was inaccurate, and some remains ambiguous, even today. We found no evidence to suggest that the INC intentionally provided false information.
• Information supplied by the INC played a minimal role in the Intelligence Community's prewar judgments concerning Iraq's WMD programs.
• INC information was not used to support the Intelligence Community's key judgments about Iraq's links to terrorism.

"We must remember that intelligence -- particularly human intelligence -- is a tough business. All human intelligence sources, whether they are from the INC or some other group, have agendas or counterintelligence concerns. This doesn’t mean they should be dismissed as sources. It means intelligence operatives should pursue their information and accurately report what they say with appropriate warnings and caveats. Analysts then have a responsibility to assess the information, take warnings and caveats into account, and convey the information and their own judgements to policymakers.

"Overall, I am disappointed that some of my colleagues have twisted the facts to reach conclusions that support other agendas. It is my view that the public should not focus on the conclusions in this report, but rather on the underlying facts.

There is no question that the flawed prewar intelligence assessments on Iraq were the result of a tragic intelligence failure. The real causes of that failure, explained in detail in the Committee's exhaustive 2004 report, had nothing to do with Ahmed Chalabi and the INC."

For text of the full report please visit: http://intelligence.senate.gov/