The attached Washington Post article reports on a declassified National Intelligence Estimate report from last fall. The document was the consensus opinion of the six major intelligence organizations working to keep tabs on the Iraqi situation. As described in the article, the analysis sent to the White House included:

1) Attacking Iraq would create a more dangerous situation where the Hussein leadership might feel compelled to respond using WMDs.

2) There was no firm intelligence whether or not those WMDs even existed.

3) There was little threat of Iraq handing weapons over to Al-Qaeda, unless the country was about to be invaded.

4) The most dangerous situation would be if the US invaded and failed to capture the leadership team. A rogue leader and his team would present a more signigicant threat than leaving them in power.

As mentioned in the article, now that we are faced with exactly the worst-case situation described in the NIE, the White House is remaining exceptionally quiet. In fact, the President has tried to imply that Iraq can no longer conspire with Al-Qaeda and presents no serious threat. The man clearly never listens to the experts he employs.

Oct Report Said Defeated Hussein Would Be Bigger Threat

Did anyone, including POTUS W himself, even scan this report? (Maybe since it wasn't authored by Cheney's or Rummy's henchpeople directly it got ignored, but....)

I'm actually beyond nonplussed at this point. What else is going to come out about what W and Co. knew BEFORE they got us into this mess?

BTW, I saw today on MSNBC that the current or upcoming issue of Newsweek addresses the 9/11 report; it supposedly details numerous points where the FBI, CIA, and W and Co. flubbed badly. No wonder the White House is doing its damnedest to suppress it. Were things in Iraq going rosily I'm sure they could just bury this bad news, but on top of the shaky economy and the Iraqdebacle, it can only spell more problems.

Whatever the case, the American people deserve to hear the truth about what led up to 9/11, and especially why are superior Air Force could not scramble planes to protect 1) the White House; 2) the Capital; and 3) the Pentagon! I mean, not everyone has forgotten that sorry aspect to one of the most tragic days in our nation's history.

fantomas - they didn't even need to scan the report. A retired Marine (colonel, major?) wrote an Op-Ed piece in the Washington Post not two months before the invasion warning that a guerilla warfare scenario, as it is now playing out, was a real possibility - and he was in support of the invasion! He was just trying to warn the adminstration about the challenges ahead.