In addition to the Downing Street memo, we now have former chief of the CIA's European division, Tyler Drumheller, in an interview with Spiegel Magazine discussing that the administration ignored CIA advice and used whatever information it could find to justify an invasion of Iraq.
The most controversial paragraph of the Downing Street memo is a report on a visit to Washington D.C. by the head of the U.K. Secret Intelligence Service, Sir Richard Dearlove.
He stated:
"Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy.
" Former chief of the CIA's Europe division, Tyler Drumheller discusses the situation:
SPIEGEL: The German government was convinced that "Curveball" would not be used in the now famous presentation that then US Secretary of State Colin Powell gave in 2003 before the United Nations Security Council.
Drumheller: I had assured my German friends that it wouldn't be in the speech. I really thought that I had put it to bed. I had warned the CIA deputy John McLaughlin that this case could be fabricated. The night before the speech, then CIA director George Tenet called me at home. I said: "Hey Boss, be careful with that German report. It's supposed to be taken out. There are a lot of problems with that." He said: "Yeah, yeah. Right. Don't worry about that."
SPIEGEL: But it turned out to be the centerpiece in Powell's presentation — and nobody had told him about the doubts.
Drumheller: I turned on the TV in my office, and there it was. So the first thing I thought, having worked in the government all my life, was that we probably gave Powell the wrong speech. We checked our files and found out that they had just ignored it.
SPIEGEL: So the White House just ignored the fact that the whole story might have been untrue?
Drumheller: The policy was set. The war in Iraq was coming and they were looking for intelligence to fit into the policy. Right before the war, I said to a very senior CIA officer: "You guys must have something else," because you always think it's the CIA. "There is some secret thing I don`t know." He said: "No. But when we get to Baghdad, we are going to find warehouses full of stuff. Nobody is going to remember all of this."
Of course, we know the DOD's first response to 9/11 was to invade Iraq and the war flags were waving (Iran today?), but it is nice to have independent corroboration.
