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	Mobilizes knowledge on important public issues by Social Science Research Council (SSRC) USA   The SSRC has produced a number of online forums providing social science perspectives on topical issues. The typical forum consists of 10-12 edited essays that SSRC programs have commissioned from individuals in their networks with specialized knowledge.   A number of these forums have become the basis for subsequent work by the Council. For instance, our After September 11 forum developed into a five-book series with the New Press. The Privatization of Risk forum developed into a MacArthur-funded working group that commissioned six volumes for a joint Columbia University Press/SSRC series on the subject.   And our Understanding Katrina forum developed into the SSRC Katrina Task Force that secured major funding for its work and is now in the process of producing a series of books from its findings.   More recent forums cover such topics as change in Cuba, the Fourth Wave (gender and HIV/AIDS), and the controversy surrounding the Department of Defense’s Minerva initiative.   The Social Science Research Council is an independent, nonprofit international organization founded in 1923. It nurtures new generations of social scientists, fosters innovative research, and mobilizes necessary knowledge on important public issues. Visit the related web page
	Ex-CIA official: Bush administration misused Iraq intelligence by CNN International / Reuters USA   February 10, 2006   The Bush administration disregarded the expertise of the intelligence community, politicized the intelligence process and used unrepresentative data in making the case for war, a former CIA senior analyst alleged.   In an article published on Friday in the journal Foreign Affairs, Paul R. Pillar, the CIA"s national intelligence officer for the Near East and South Asia from 2000 to 2005, called the relationship between U.S. intelligence and policymaking "broken."   "In the wake of the Iraq war, it has become clear that official intelligence analysis was not relied on in making even the most significant national security decisions, that intelligence was misused publicly to justify decisions already made," Pillar wrote.   Although the Clinton administration and other countries" governments also believed that Iraqi President Saddam Hussein was amassing weapons of mass destruction, they supported sanctions and weapons inspections as means to contain the threat, he said.   The Bush administration"s decision to go to war indicates other motivations, Pillar wrote, namely a power shake-up in the Middle East and a hastened "spread of more liberal politics and economics in the region."   The Bush administration "used intelligence not to inform decision-making, but to justify a decision already made," Pillar wrote. "It went to war without requesting -- and evidently without being influenced by -- any strategic-level intelligence assessments on any aspect of Iraq."   Though Pillar himself was responsible for coordinating intelligence assessments on Iraq, "the first request I received from any administration policymaker for any such assessment was not until a year into the war," he wrote.   Pillar: Intelligence was right   Pillar said much of the intelligence on Iraq proved to have been correct.   Prior to the March 2003 invasion, the intelligence community concluded that the road to democracy in Iraq would be "long, difficult and turbulent" and forecast power struggles between Shiites and Sunnis, Pillar said.   Intelligence experts also predicted that an occupying force would be attacked "unless it established security and put Iraq on the road to prosperity" immediately after the fall of Hussein, he wrote.   As to whether Iraq pursued nuclear weapons, intelligence reports had concluded Iraq was years away from developing them and was unlikely to use such weapons against the United States unless cornered, Pillar said.   The biggest discrepancy between public statements by the Bush administration and judgments by the intelligence community centered on the relationship between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda, he said.   "The enormous attention devoted to this subject did not reflect any judgment by intelligence officials that there was or was likely to be anything like the "alliance" the administration said existed."   Rather, "the administration wanted to hitch the Iraq expedition to the "war on terror" and the threat the American public feared most, thereby capitalizing on the country"s militant post-9/11 mood," Pillar wrote.   White House at odds with intelligence   Pillar cited an August 2002 speech by Vice President Dick Cheney that said "intelligence is an uncertain business" and that intelligence analysts had underestimated how close Iraq was to developing a nuclear weapon before the 1991 Persian Gulf War.   "His conclusion -- at odds with that of the intelligence community -- was that "many of us are convinced that Saddam will acquire nuclear weapons fairly soon." After such remarks, the intelligence community was left "to register varying degrees of private protest," he said.   Pillar also cited President Bush"s claim, made in his 2003 State of the Union address, that Iraq was purchasing uranium ore from an African country.   "U.S. intelligence analysts had questioned the credibility of the report making this claim, had kept it out of their own unclassified products, and had advised the White House not to use it publicly," Pillar said.   "But the administration put the claim into the speech anyway, referring to it as information from British sources in order to make the point without explicitly vouching for the intelligence."   Reorganization criticized   Pillar described a "poisonous atmosphere" in which intelligence officers, including himself, were accused by administration officials of trying to sabotage the president"s policies.   "This poisonous atmosphere reinforced the disinclination within the intelligence community to challenge the consensus view about Iraqi WMD programs; any such challenge would have served merely to reaffirm the presumptions of the accusers."   Pillar also criticized the December 2004 reorganization of the intelligence community that made intelligence leaders serve at the pleasure of the president, saying they need more independence.   Congress and the American people must get serious about "fixing intelligence," he said. "At stake are the soundness of U.S. foreign policymaking and the right of Americans to know the basis for decisions taken in the name of their security."   Pillar, now on the faculty of Georgetown University"s Security Studies Program, called for experienced intelligence officers to lead nonpartisan oversight of U.S. intelligence efforts as well as inquiries at the request of members of Congress.   He also called for public discussion on how to improve the relationship between intelligence officials and policymakers, but said there is no clear fix.   "The current ill will may not be reparable, and the perception of the intelligence community on the part of some policymakers -- that Langley is enemy territory -- is unlikely to change," Pillar wrote, referring to CIA headquarters.   Feb 2006   US Vice-President authorised Aide to leak in CIA Case: Report. (Reuters)   US Vice-President Dick Cheney directed his aide Lewis "Scooter" Libby to use classified material to discredit a critic of the Bush administration"s Iraq war effort, the National Journal has reported.   Court papers released last week show that Libby was authorised to disclose classified information to news reporters by "his superiors", in an effort to counteract diplomat Joe Wilson"s charge that the Bush administration twisted intelligence on Iraq"s nuclear weapons to justify the 2003 invasion.   The US weekly magazine, citing attorneys familiar with the matter, reported that Mr Cheney was among those superiors referred to in a letter from prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald to Libby"s lawyers.   A lawyer for Mr Cheney had no immediate comment.   Libby, Mr Cheney"s former chief of staff, faces perjury and other charges in the leak of the identity of Wilson"s wife Valerie Plame, a move that effectively ended her career at the CIA.   Libby has pleaded not guilty to five counts of perjury, making false statements and obstruction of justice.   Mr Cheney"s name has surfaced in other court documents as well. According to an appeals-court decision made public last Friday, "the Vice-President informed Libby "in an off sort of curiosity sort of fashion" that Mr Wilson"s wife worked at the CIA one month before her identity was made public.   Both documents cite testimony Libby made to a grand jury.   Lawyers for Libby could not be reached for comment.   Senator Edward Kennedy, a Massachusetts Democrat, said Mr Cheney"s efforts to discredit Wilson could have risked national security.   "The Vice-President"s vindictiveness in defending the misguided war in Iraq is obvious. If he used classified information to defend it, he should be prepared to take full responsibility," he said.   White House spokesman Scott McClellan declined to comment. "Our policy is we"re not going to discuss this while there"s an ongoing legal proceeding," he said.   17 December 2005   Colin Powell describes his disappointment with failings of US Intelligence on Iraq. (BBC News)   In an interview with Sir David Frost for the BBC World TV channel, Ex-US Secretary of State Colin Powell described his disappointment with the failings of US intelligence on Iraq, and his arguments with Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld over the campaign.   He accepted that Washington"s moral authority was under pressure at the moment. "The United States is going through a period right now where public opinion world-wide is against us. "I think that"s a function of some of the policies we have followed in recent years with respect to Iraq and in not solving the Middle East"s problem and perhaps the way in which we have communicated our views to the rest of the world, we have created an impression that we are unilateralist, we don"t care what the rest of the world thinks. "I don"t think it"s a fair impression"   Questioned on the evidence held up by the US as proof that Iraq had a weapons of mass destruction programme, he said: "I was deeply disappointed in what the intelligence community had presented to me and to the rest of us, and what really upset me more than anything else was that there were people in the intelligence community that had doubts about some of this sourcing, but those doubts never surfaced up to us."   He also referred to his relationship with Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Vice-President Dick Cheney - often depicted as icy. "Secretary Rumsfeld and Vice President Cheney and I occasionally would have strong differing views on matters. And when that was the case we argued them out, we fought them out, in bureaucratic ways," he said.   "Often maybe Mr Rumsfeld and Vice-President Cheney would take decisions into the president that the rest of us weren"t aware of. That did happen, on a number of occasions."   Asked about post-war planning for Iraq, Mr Powell said his state department staff drew up detailed plans, but they were discarded by Mr Rumsfeld"s defence department, which was backed by the White House. "Mr Rumsfeld and I had some serious discussions, of a not pleasant kind, about the use of individuals who could bring expertise to the issue. And it ultimately went into the White House, and the rest is well known."
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