Part II (The findings on terrorism can be found at my initial post.)
Consider for a moment that a Republican controlled Senate Intelligence Committee released the reports today that are so damning to the lies Bush and Cheney repeated ad nauseum for the last three and a half years. What the hell is in the three additional reports that they don't want to release until after the November elections? It is difficult to imagine the truths still to be told.

These reports make clear that the case for war in Iraq was manufactured by ignoring the intelligence. However, this is not only an indictment of Republicans; it is an indictment of every Democrat who voted for going to war. Can't these people read? If the National Intelligence Estimate reflected a clear, unanimous opinion, then the Democrats could argue, "we were mislead by the intelligence". Hell bells, folks, the NIE consistently had dissenting opinions. That means there was NO AGREEMENT among intelligence analysts. Shame on every Republican and Democrat who were too goddamn lazy to read the NIE!

The first report, Postwar Findings about Iraq's WMD Programs and Links to Terrorism and How they Compare with Prewar Assessments destroys every lie advanced by Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld to advance their case for starting a war in Iraq. These findings also show how bankrupt are the claims of Laurie Mylroie (who argued vociferously that Mohamad Atta met Iraqi agents in Prague), Stephen Hayes (who insists that Al Qa'ida and Saddam were in cahoots), and Christoper Hitchens. They are wrong.

The first section deals with the WMD issues. Here are the conclusions from the report:

1. Postwar findings do not support the 2002 National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) judgment that Iraq was reconstituting its nuclear weapons program. Information obtained after the war supports the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research's (INR) assessment in the NIE that the Intelligence Community lacked persuasive evidence that Baghdad had launched a coherent effort to reconstitute its nuclear weapons program.
2. Postwar findings do not support the 2002 National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) assessment that Iraq's acquisiton of high-strength aluminum tubes was intended for an Iraqi nuclear program. The findings do spport the assessments in the NIE of the Department of energy's Office of Intelligence and the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR) that the aluminum tubes were likely intended for a conventional rocket program.
3. Postwar findings do not support the 2002 National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) assessment that Iraq was "vigorously trying to procure uranium ore and yellowcake" from Africa. Postwar findings support the assessment in the NIE of the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR) that claims of Iraqi pursuit of natural uranium in Africa are "highly dubious".
4. Postwar findings do not support the 2002 National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) assessment that "Iraq has biological weapons" and that "all key aspects of Iraq's offensive biological weapons (BW) program are larger and more advanced than before the Gulf War."
5. Postwar findings do not support the 2002 National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) assessment that Iraq possessed, or ever developed, mobile facilites for producing biological warfare (BW) agents.
6. Concerns existed within the Central Intelligence Agency's (CIA) Directorate of Operations (DO) prior to the war about the credibility of the mobile biological weapons program source code-named CURVE BALL. . . .
7. Postwar findings do not support the 2002 National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) assessments that Iraq "has chemical weapons" or "is expanding its chemical industry to support chemical weapons (CW) production."
8. Postwar findings support the 2002 National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) assessment that Iraq had missiles which exceeded United Nations (UN) range limits. The findings do not support the assessment that Iraq likely retained a covert force of SCUD variant short range ballistic missiles (SRBMS).
9. Postwar findings do not support the 2002 National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) assessments that Iraq had a developmental program for an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) "probably intended to deliver biological agents: or that an effort to procure U.S. mapping software "strongly suggests that Iraq is investigating the use of these UAVs for missions targeting the United States." Postwar findings support the view of the Air Force, joined by DIA and the Army, in an NIE published in January 2003, that Iraq's UAVs were primarily intended for reconnaissance.

It is important that the average American understand the meaning of intelligence judgments in an NIE. If the community agrees on an issue it is very important. If there is no agreement, then other agencies dissent and present their views. If you are a policymaker or legislator the presence of dissent is the ultimate FLASHING YELLOW LIGHT.

Now we know that on almost all critical judgments concerning Iraq's weapons of mass destruction there were key dissents. The CIA drafters at the National Intelligence Council almost always were wrong. The failure at the CIA was confined primarily to the National Intelligence Council. However, the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR) was always right. Any policymaker or politician who tries to argue that they were acting on the intelligence is either a liar or a lazy incompetent. Despite the view of the CIA, there were sufficient dissenting views in the NIE to give any member of Congress reason to question the case for going to war. The dissents expressed by INR, the DIA, and the Department of Energy were sufficient warnings of potential problems to anyone interested in probing what the intelligence actually said.

It is astonishing at this juncture that there has not been a major shake up at the National Intelligence Council (NIC). In fact, those responsible for the sections with the most errors are still on the job and, in one instance, given more authority. The principal drafters of the October 2002 NIE were Robert Walpole, National Intelligence Officer for Weapons of Mass Destruction and Proliferation; Lawrence K. Gershwin, the National Intelligence Officer for Science and Technology; retired Army Maj. Gen. John R. Landry, National Intelligence Officer for Conventional Military Issues, and Paul R. Pillar, NIO for the Near East and South Asia. Walpole oversaw the entire effort but had specific responsibility for nuclear issues. Gershwin handled issues related to biological weapons, Gordon focused on chemical weapons, and Pillar dealt with the issues pertaining to international terrorism. Only Pillar got it right.

Although Christopher Hitchens has insisted that Wissam al-Zahawie was proof that Joe Wilson, who reported that there was no evidence that Iraq was trying to acquire uranium, was wrong, the Senate report concludes (see page 54):

The purpose of a visit to Niger by the Iraqi ambassador to the Vatican, Wissam al-Zahawie, was to invite the president of Niger to visit Iraq.

No uranium. Chris, I suggest you spend less time drinking and more time getting your facts right. Joe Wilson is no liar. You are. Joe Wilson correctly noted in his 2003 July op-ed that the claim that Iraq was trying to buy uranium from Niger was bogus. Now, a Republican Intelligence Committee confirms that finding.

The findings of the Senate Intelligence Committee are clear-- the Bush Administration shopped for intelligence to support its case to go to war and ignored volumes of intelligence that undermined their argument. In the coming days enterprising bloggers will cull through the public statements of Bush officials and clearly demonstrate that they chose to ignore intelligence. This was picking and choosing. They seized on conclusions that supported their pre-determined views and ignored dissents expressed by other intelligence officials.

Our sons and daughters who went to war in Iraq based on the lie that Iraq was tied, somehow, to the attacks on 9-11, were betrayed by George Bush and his government. The truth is there for all willing to see.

UPDATE: Greg Miller in the LA Times offers up these examples of the gap between Bush Administration claims and reality.

Prewar claims versus report findings

A report by the Senate Intelligence Committee found no evidence connecting Iraq to weapons of mass destruction and Al Qaeda:

On connections between Iraq and terrorists

"We clearly know that there were in the past and have been contacts between senior Iraqi officials and members of Al Qaeda going back for actually quite a long time."

Condoleezza Rice, Sept. 25, 2002

"We are especially concerned about Iraq because of the developments we see with respect to [Hussein's] weapons of mass destruction, because he has in the past, for example, had a relationship with terrorist organizations, has provided sanctuary in Iraq for terrorist organizations of various kinds."

Vice President Dick Cheney, Sept. 9, 2002

Committee finding:

• "According to debriefs of multiple detainees — including Saddam Hussein and former Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz — and captured documents, Saddam did not trust Al Qaeda or any other radical Islamist group and did not want to cooperate with them. Hussein reportedly believed, however, that Al Qaeda was an effective organization because of its ability to successfully attack U.S. interests."

*

On Iraq's desire and ability to acquire nuclear weapons

"Saddam Hussein promised the U.N. that he would destroy and cease further development of weapons of mass destruction and long-range missiles, and that he would submit to unrestricted inspections. He has flatly broken these pledges, producing chemical and biological weapons, aggressively pursuing a nuclear weapons program and working to develop long-range ballistic missiles."

Vice President Dick Cheney, Sept. 27, 2002

Committee findings:

• "Postwar findings do not support the 2002 National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) judgment that Iraq was reconstituting its nuclear weapons program. Information obtained after the war supports the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research's (INR) assessment in the NIE that the intelligence community lacked persuasive evidence that Baghdad had launched a coherent effort to reconstitute its nuclear weapons program."

• "Postwar findings do not support the 2002 National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) assessment that 'Iraq has biological weapons' and that 'All key aspects of Iraq's offensive biological weapons (BW) program are larger and more advanced that before the Gulf War.'

• "The ISG [Iraq Survey Group] uncovered no evidence indicating that Iraq maintained a stockpile of chemical weapons or had been producing chemical weapons…. Since the spring of 2003, coalition forces have discovered approximately 500 filled and unfilled degraded chemical munitions. All of the munitions appear to be pre-1991 CW [chemical weapons] and not part of an active weapons stockpile…. Postwar inspections of the sites suspected of having a CW role revealed that they were likely used for the production of non-CW dual-use materials, and had a limited capability to restart the manufacture of CW."

On Iraq developing unmanned aerial vehicles for delivering weapons of mass destruction

"We know that he has been working hard on developing a means to disseminate those weapons…. We have evidence that he has been looking at aerial vehicles."

Then-Secretary of State Colin Powell, Sept. 8, 2002

Committee finding:

• "Postwar findings do not support the 2002 National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) assessments that Iraq had a developmental program for Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) 'probably intended to deliver biological agents' or that an effort to procure U.S. mapping software 'strongly suggests that Iraq is investigating the use of these UAVs for missions targeting the United States.' Postwar findings support the view of the Air Force, joined by the DIA [Defense Intelligence Agency] and the Army, in an NIE published in January 2003, that Iraq's UAVs were primarily intended for reconnaissance."