This post is being submitted to the Watcher’s Council:

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This was supposed to be the final installment of the series, but it’s not. Instead, there will be two more. The next one, to be posted late this month or in early February, will cover the period from Abu Ghraib to the first Iraqi election in January 2005. The final installment will cover the period since that election. Parts I and II are here and here.

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From the Invasion of Iraq to Abu Ghraib (March 2003 – April 2004)

The failure to find weapons of mass destruction led to ever-growing misgivings about the credibility of the Bush Administration on the part of the Times. Despite this, and notwithstanding their persistent calls for greater UN involvement, the editors never wavered in their support for the establishment of a secure, democratic government in Iraq. They were in favor of staying the course, not cutting and running.

The second—and by far the longest—section of this installment deals with the evolution of the Times’ editorial stance on the interrelated issues of the failure to find weapons of mass destruction (WMD), the performance of the CIA, and the credibility of the Bush Administration.

  • A little more than a month after the start of the invasion, the editors, while still tending to believe there were WMD stockpiles, averred that it was no longer a certainty.

  • Two months into the war, the Times started to raise concerns about the accuracy of prewar intelligence, whether the intelligence had been hyped, and began to wonder whether the Administration had manipulated the intelligence in making its case for war. In addition, the paper brought up the uranium-from-Niger issue for the first time.

  • In mid June, the editors saw fit to absolve Bush for any responsibility for the Niger uranium affair

  • The Times turned up the heat in July. While the editors were still not ready to point their collective finger at Bush, they were also no longer content to restrict their criticism to the CIA for the inclusion of the famous sixteen words in the 2003 State of the Union address. They upped the ante by assigning the responsibility to the “war camp” within the Administration.

  • On the last day of July, the Times directly attacked Bush for the first time, claiming that he wasn’t leveling with the American people.

  • Two weeks later, the editors, instead of being “reasonably certain,” were “certain” that Bush had exaggerated the threats—with respect to both WMD and al Qaeda.

  • In September, the editors inexplicably took a softer line by claiming that the Administration shouldn’t be blamed for believing that Iraq had WMD stockpiles, as its conclusions were based on the best available evidence.

  • Following David Kay’s (head of the Iraq Survey Group) presentation of his interim report to the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, the paper switched back to a hard line. Unlike their position at the start of the war, the editors made it clear that they were distressed by Kay’s indication that Iraq retained only the ability to restart their WMD programs.

  • On January 11, 2004, the Times flatly stated that “whatever threat Iraq posed did not require an immediate invasion without international support,” accused the Administration of being “obsessed” with Iraq, and launched its call for an investigation. The demand for an investigation was reiterated in editorials dated January 29 and February 1.

  • On February 2, Bush announced that he would appoint an independent commission to examine intelligence gathering. The Times welcomed the announcement but wasn’t satisified with the commission’s mandate and membership.

  • In its last editorial on the subject prior to Abu Ghraib, the editors demanded that the commission be granted subpoena powers.

Throughout this period, the Times wanted the Administration to assign a greater role to the UN. Here’s the reasons:

  • To provide legitimacy and credibility.

  • To facilitate humanitarian relief and reconstruction.

  • To share the burden with other countries.

  • To pave the way to an exit strategy.

  • To improve relations between the United States and Europe

  • To restore the UN’s stature

This installment ends just before the Abu Ghraib scandal broke. Less than a month later, the Times issued its mea culpa:

. . . we have found a number of instances of coverage that was not as rigorous as it should have been. In some cases, information that was controversial then, and seems questionable now, was insufficiently qualified or allowed to stand unchallenged. Look back, we wish we had been more aggressive in re-examining the claims as new evidenced emerged—or failed to emerge.

In the next installment, we’ll see how much more aggressive the Times became.


Staying the Course

While the Times frequently criticized the manner in which the war was being prosecuted, it never wavered from its conviction that American troops would have to stay in Iraq for as long as would be necessary to achieve a favorable outcome.

    [7/10/03] Having declared that America’s security depended on regime change in Iraq, Mr. Bush must now see the job through to a successful conclusion. It can be done, and most Iraqis seem eager for it. The key is not to lose the willingness of the public, either American or Iraqi, to see this through. [7/21/03] . . . establishing a free and peaceful Iraq as a linchpin for progress throughout the Middle East is a goal worth struggling for, even at great costs. We are there now, and it is essential to stay the course. [9/14/03] . . . President Bush is right to refuse to be pushed by guerrilla violence and political pressure into leaving Iraq prematurely . . . If Mr. Bush does not demonstrate a clear and convincing strategy soon, he may face political pressure to bring home American troops under conditions that would be embarrassing for America and perilous for the Middle East. Of all the possible scenarios, the most important one to avoid is a poll-driven scramble to bring the troops home that suffers the same lack of preparation the administration showed at the end of major combat. [11/4/03] Mounting American casualties and the approach of next year’s presidential election could create pressure for a hasty military withdrawal, a course the administration rightly vows to resist. A rush for the exits now would leave Iraq chaotic and a danger to neighboring countries and the wider world. [4/8/04] This page opposed any American invasion of Iraq without broad international support. But once the administration went in with the backing of only Britain and token forces from elsewhere, the United States had a responsibility to the Iraqi people to stay and establish a free and stable government. [4/11/04] If the troops leave, bloody civil war would probably follow and Iraq, which had not been a haven for terrorists, could easily become one. But if there is no vision of a workable exit plan with a better outcome, even that terrible prospect will lose its power to convince the public that this is a fight worth continuing. [4/25/04] We may, in the end, find that the task Mr. Bush has laid out for the brave men and women in the military and the brave Iraqi citizens who are struggling to create a better future is simply impossible to achieve. But we have not reached that point. This is not the moment for retreat and it certainly is not the moment for half measures.

The Threat: WMD, Intelligence, and Credibility

As the war began, the editors sounded quite certain that Iraq possessed WMD stockpiles. However, they considered the possibility that Saddam had destroyed the stockpiles before the war’s start. From the wording of these two editorials, I conclude that the Times, as the war started, would not have been distressed if coalition forces were to find that Iraq had retained only the ability to restart their manufacture. By June, its attitude would change.

    [3/23/03] America will not be able to claim victory in Iraq until it secures Saddam Hussein’s missing troves of unconventional weapons, the ingredients for making them and the network of scientists able to produce them . . . Some experts believe that to avoid detection, Iraq may have retained only seed stocks, growth media and the technical know-how to be able to start up production again quickly.

    [4/9/03] . . . one of the great questions still to be answered is whether Saddam Hussein has the unconventional weapons that were cited as the prime reason for launching the invasion . . . it is also possible that Iraq simply has far fewer horror weapons than many have suspected. Some analysts are now wondering whether Mr. Hussein kept only small quantities of forbidden materials because he presumed that his well-trained scientists and existing manufacturing capacity could be geared up after the United Nations’ scrutiny eased off.

In a series of four editorials published beginning a month after the war’s commencement, the editors expressed their first concerns regarding the failure to find WMD stockpiles. In the first, they (1) called for the involvement of UN and IAEA inspectors, and (2) warned that, if stockpiles were discovered by US forces, a “skeptical world” might believe that the evidence had been “planted or manipulated.” In the second, the Times made it clear – for the first time – that it was no longer certain that Iraq had active WMD programs. In the third editorial, the editors said they still tended to believe that Iraq had WMD stockpiles and again called for the involvement of international inspectors. In the last of the four editorials, the Times renewed its call to bring UN inspectors back into Iraq.

    [4/18/03] The continued failure of American forces to find any ‘’weapons of mass destruction’’ in Iraq must be worrying some officials, particularly at intelligence agencies that assured the White House that Baghdad had such weapons . . . The very fact that pressure is mounting on the Bush administration to prove the presence of unconventional weapons makes it imperative that the White House bring in experienced inspectors from the United Nations and the International Atomic Energy Agency . . . with every passing day, American credibility is called into question, particularly by other nations that were not enthusiastic about military action to begin with . . . The military units . . . need to be buttressed . . . by respected international inspectors . . . Otherwise there is a danger that any findings will be discounted by a skeptical world that is all too ready to believe that the evidence was planted or manipulated.

    [4/23/03] . . . the central question of whether Iraq had active unconventional weapons programs still remains.

    [4/26/03] This page agreed with the president’s conviction that there were world-threatening weapons in Iraq, if not the manner in which the United States went to war. We still tend to believe they are there . . . If everything were indeed destroyed, Saddam Hussein put his nation through years of crippling economic boycotts and brought on the ruin of his regime for no good reason . . . Rather than a smoking gun, inspectors may wind up finding a bullet here, a barrel there and a chamber somewhere else. That makes the credibility of the people doing the inspecting even more important. And it makes President Bush’s decision not to invite international inspectors to monitor the job seem even more misguided.

    [5/13/03] . . . we still believe that the best way to spur this investigation and give its findings credibility is to invite the United Nations to send its inspection teams back in.

On May 26 – a little more than two months after the invasion started – the Times began to raise questions about the accuracy of prewar intelligence reports. The editors started to worry that intelligence had been hyped, and brought the Administration into the mix by wondering out loud whether intelligence data had been “manipulated;” they also brought the uranium-from-Niger issue and al Qaeda into their story for the first time. Two weeks later – on June 8, it reiterated these concerns. The May 26 editorial said that the data “may have been manipulated” by the intelligence agencies; two weeks later, the wording was somewhat different, as the editors asserted that the data many have been “misread” to “stay square” with Bush’s policy. It was in the June 8 editorial that the Times began to point an accusatory finger at the Adminstration by saying that it was “reasonable to ask if the administration’s fixation on Iraq influenced the way intelligence reports were used by top officials.” At his point, then, the editors were critical of both the collectors and users of intelligence. Notwithstanding the concerns expressed on these two dates, the Times asserted that it was still “premature” to conclude that Saddam had ceased its WMD efforts after the first Gulf War.

    [5/26/03] With doubts mounting about the accuracy of prewar American intelligence reports about Iraqi unconventional weapons, we are glad to see that the Central Intelligence Agency has begun a review of the spy assessments. The failure so far to find any weapons of mass destruction in Iraq . . . or definitive links between Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda has raised serious questions about the quality of American intelligence and even dark hints that the data may have been manipulated to support a pre-emptive war . . . Given the scant findings in Iraq so far, it is disturbing to recall how gravely the administration portrayed the dangers of Iraq’s unconventional weapons . . . Numerous questions need to be explored. Some are narrow issues, like how the administration came to rely on forged documents to make the case that Iraq was trying to import uranium for its presumed nuclear weapons program. Others are broader, like the role played by a new special office in the Pentagon that applied its own interpretations to the information and analyses generated by the traditional intelligence agencies. A critical question is what information was presented to the president in the run-up to war.

    [6/8/03] We are as pleased as anyone to see Saddam Hussein removed from power, but the United States cannot now simply erase from the record the Bush administration’s dire warnings about the Iraqi weapons threat . . . It would still be premature to conclude that Iraq abandoned its efforts to manufacture and stockpile unconventional arms after the first Persian Gulf war in 1991. But . . . it seems clear that Iraq was not bristling with horrific arms and that chemical and biological weapons were not readily available to frontline Iraqi forces . . . given the failure so far to find a single weapon of mass destruction, it is fair to wonder if intelligence analysts might have misread the available data, played down ambiguities or even pushed their findings too far to stay square with Bush policy on Iraq . . . It is . . . reasonable to ask if the administration’s fixation on Iraq influenced the way intelligence reports were used by top officials intent on making the case for war. Careful attention should be given to examining the work of a separate Pentagon unit that was created after Sept. 11 to search for terrorist links with Iraq.

On June 13, the Times seemingly absolved Bush for any responsibility for the Niger uranium affair. The editors were still uncertain as to whether or not Iraq had pursued a nuclear weapons program “in recent years.”

    [6/13/03] President Bush cannot be pleased to know that his State of the Union address last January included an ominous report about Iraq that turns out to have been based on forged documents . . . [Bush] should now be leaning on his aides to explain how they let fabricated information about Iraq’s nuclear weapons program slip into his speech. The answer might help explain whether Washington deliberately distorted intelligence to rally the nation for the war against Iraq. It remains to be seen whether Iraq pursued a nuclear weapons program in recent years . . . the matter of the forged documents needs to be explored fully by Congress and a White House advisory board that reviews the performance of intelligence agencies . . . It is especially troubling when the president is put in the position of making alarming claims about a nuclear weapons program that do not stand up to serious scrutiny.

Commenting on Hans Blix’s departure from the UN at the end of June, the became increasingly skeptical that WMD stockpiles were still to be found in Iraq and averred that, should no stockpiles be found, it would be indicative of the efficacy of the inspection program.

    [6/30/03] . . . lately Mr. Blix has sounded as if he gives some credence to the possibility that Iraq really did destroy virtually all of its weapons and toxic agents, retaining only the ability to start banned programs up again once the world stopped looking. If the current hunt for terror weapons ultimately hits pay dirt, the discovery will be a warning that even quite intrusive inspections like those by the Blix team are no guarantee of safety. But if the allied search comes up empty, that will suggest that the inspections were successful in containing a potential weapons threat.

Commenting in two editorials on Tenet’s mea culpa in early July and on the uranium imbroglio, the editors, while again absolved Bush of responsibility, pointed its finger at the “war camp” within the Administration.

    [7/12/03] George Tenet . . . stepped up to the issue yesterday when he said the C.I.A. had approved Mr. Bush’s speech and failed to advise him to drop the mistaken charge that Iraq had recently tried to import significant quantities of uranium from an African nation, later identified as Niger. Now the American people need to know how the accusation got into the speech in the first place, and whether it was put there with an intent to deceive the nation. The White House has a lot of explaining to do. A good deal of information already points to a willful effort by the war camp in the administration to pump up an accusation that seemed shaky from the outset and that was pretty well discredited long before Mr. Bush stepped into the well of the House of Representatives last January.

    [7/15/03] Mr. Tenet has accepted blame for the C.I.A.’s failure to tell the White House to yank it, but the real question is why the White House put it in the address—and kept it there—long after it had been debunked.

By July 21, the Times, while failing to directly indict the President, had become reasonably certain that his Administration had exaggerated the WMD threat. Even so, the editors asserted that it was necessary to “stay the course.”

    [7/21/03] . . . it now seems clear the Bush administration exaggerated its central argument for the mission—the threat of Baghdad’s unconventional weapons. Nevertheless, establishing a free and peaceful Iraq as a linchpin for progress throughout the Middle East is a goal worth struggling for, even at great costs. We are there now, and it is essential to stay the course.

Ten days later, instead of criticizing the Bush Administration, the Times, for the first time, directly attacked Bush, claiming he wasn’t leveling with the American people.

    [7/31/03] Mr. Bush will simply not engage the issue of whether his administration exaggerated the Iraqi threat in the months leading up to the American invasion . . . The president and his advisers obviously still believe that the constant repetition of several simplistic points will hypnotize the American people into forgetting the original question . . . the primary reasons Washington gave for the invasion look increasingly suspect . . . Mr. Bush owes the nation more than a brush-off on these matters.

In mid-August, the editors were certain, rather than “reasonably certain,” that Bush had exaggerated the Iraqi threat – with respect to both WMD and links with al Qaeda.

    [8/14/03] [The Administration] exaggerated the evidence on Iraqi unconventional weapons and links with Al Qaeda . . .
    About three weeks later, they reiterated that need for the President to be up-front with Americans and, for the first time, accused him of convincing the populace that there was a direct link between Saddam and al Qaeda.

    [9/8/03] Given the fact that no weapons of mass destruction have been uncovered in Iraq, the president needs to be much more up-front with the American people about why our troops are there. Polls show most Americans still believe that Iraq was behind the attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, although there is no evidence connecting Saddam Hussein to the terror plot. That is in part because the president continues to draw a line between Sept. 11 and Iraq.

In a curious editorial published the next day, the Times blamed Bush for the faulty judgment about Iraqi WMD and for exaggerating the threat, but seemingly excused him for a “bad guess.”

    [9/9/03] His judgment about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq appears to have been wrong—and, worse, hyped. But over all, it was a bad guess that was shared by intelligence experts from the Clinton administration and many allies.

On the second anniversary of the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, the Times again accused Bush for encouraging the belief that there was a connection between Iraq and al Qaeda.

    [9/11/03] For many, there seemed to be a connection between Saddam Hussein and the terrorists who crashed into the Pentagon and the trade center. That connection was encouraged by President Bush and his administration and taken on faith by much of the country.

A week later, the paper applauded Bush’s public statement that there was no connection between Saddam and 9/11. At the same time, it blamed Bush’s aides for implying there was a link and that they did so to increase support for the forthcoming war.

    [9/19/03] On Wednesday, President Bush finally got around to acknowledging that there was no connection between Saddam Hussein and the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. White House aides will tell you that Mr. Bush never made that charge directly. And that is so. But polls show that lots of Americans believe in the link. That is at least in part because the president’s aides have left the implication burning. Before the war began, Mr. Bush switched the justification for the invasion repeatedly. The argument that was most persuasive, the danger of weapons of mass destruction in the hands of Mr. Hussein, has fallen flat since the weapons have failed to turn up . . . recent polls suggest that the American public is not as enthusiastic about making sacrifices to help the Iraqis as about making sacrifices to protect the United States against terrorism. The temptation to hint at a connection with Sept. 11 that did not exist must have been tremendous.

A week later, the editors took a softer line by saying that the Administration shouldn’t be blamed for believing that Iraq possessed WMD stockpiles, as its conclusions were based on the best available intelligence, which had led the previous administration and U.S. allies to reach the same conclusion. The editorial also noted that Saddam’s behavior was factored into this conclusion.

    [9/26/03] This page did not support the war in Iraq, but it never quarreled with one of its basic premises. Like President Bush, we believed that Saddam Hussein was hiding potentially large quantities of chemical and biological weapons and aggressively pursuing nuclear arms. Like the president, we thought those weapons posed a grave danger to the United States and the rest of the world. Now it appears that premise was wrong. We cannot in hindsight blame the administration for its original conclusions. They were based on the best intelligence available, which had led the Clinton administration before it and the governments of allied nations to reach the same conclusion. Mr. Kay’s draft suggests that the weapons are simply not there. Why Mr. Hussein did not prove that when the United Nations demanded an explanation remains a puzzle. His failure to come clean strengthened the conviction that he had a great deal to hide. His history as a vicious tyrant who had used chemical weapons in war and against his own people lent credence to the fear that he could not be trusted with whatever he was holding and would pose a significant threat.

On October 2, David Kay, head of the Iraq Survey Group (ISG), presented his interim report to the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. The Times reacted to his report and testimony by switching back to a hard line, notwithstanding their admission that his report revealed that Iraq still intended to manufacture WMD and retained the necessary equipment and personnel to do so. As earlier noted, when the war began, the Times indicated that it would not be distressed if Iraq retained only the ability to restart their WMD programs. Less than seven months later, the editors were distressed when they learned precisely that.

    [10/4/03] The most striking findings in David Kay’s interim report . . . are his revelations about the backward state of Iraq’s chemical and nuclear programs . . . it seems clear that these programs barely existed and posed no immediate threat to the global community. To the contrary, it looks as if international inspectors succeeded in reducing or eliminating Iraq’s arsenals and dedicated production capacity, forcing Saddam Hussein to lie low and wait for a new opportunity. The Kay report finds that while Mr. Hussein remained firmly committed to acquiring nuclear weapons, ‘’to date we have not uncovered evidence that Iraq undertook significant post-1998 steps to actually build nuclear weapons or produce fissile material.’’ That conclusion contradicts the administration’s prewar claims that Iraq had reconstituted its nuclear programs and deflates the administration’s dire warnings that we dared not wait for a smoking gun lest it come in the form of a mushroom cloud. The burden of Mr. Kay’s report is that while searchers have not found any weapons of mass destruction so far, they have found evidence that Iraq still intended to build them and had retained equipment and personnel that could be used to do it.

A week after Kay’s appearance, the editors again backtracked; for no apparent reason, they decided that more inspections were necessary before it could be conclusively shown that Iraq did not have an “active program” for manufacturing WMD.

    [10/12/03] There is still a great deal of research needed before anyone can say flatly that Iraq did not have an active program for manufacturing weapons of mass destruction. But evidence seems to be pointing in a different direction than the one Dr. Kay and the administration are promoting. Senior Iraqi scientists have told investigators that the biological weapons program—which obviously existed at one point—was dropped some time ago. Dr. Kay makes no mention of that in his statements.

A few days later, the Times concluded that the CIA “had no idea” what was happening in Iraq and that the assumptions Bush shared with Americans were “hyped.”

    [11/16/03] How did they wind up at what now appears to be a totally incorrect conclusion about Iraq’s weapons programs? The Central Intelligence Agency, we now realize, had no idea of what was going on inside Iraq . . . The C.I.A.’s estimates were basically worst-case scenarios of what the Hussein regime might have been up to in the interim. That was apparently a mistake, if an understandable one. But the assumptions Mr. Bush shared with the American people seem to have been hyped further.

Three new reports reviewed by the Times and noted in a January 11, 2004, editorial strengthened the editors’ conviction that “whatever threat Iraq posed did not require an immediate invasion without international support.” They now accused the Administration of being “obsessed” with Iraq, and again called for a non-partisan commission to investigate. Much the same ground was covered in a January 29 editorial.

    [1/11/04] There seems little doubt that the Bush administration’s prime justification for invading Iraq—the fear that Saddam Hussein harbored weapons of mass destruction—was way off base . . . last week three new reports cast further doubt on the administration’s reckless rush to invade Iraq. Taken together, they paint a picture far different from the one presented to Americans early last year. They depict a world in which Saddam Hussein, though undeniably eager to make Iraq a threatening world power, was far from any serious steps to do that. The reports strengthen our conviction that whatever threat Iraq posed did not require an immediate invasion without international support. And they underline the importance of finding out how far the Bush administration’s obsession with the Iraqi dictator warped the American intelligence reports that did so much to convince Congress and the public that the attack was justified . . . a nonpartisan investigation independent of political pressures from the administration and Congress is needed to get a better sense of how judgments about Iraq were so disastrously mistaken.

    [1/29/04] President Bush needs to move things forward by starting—or allowing Congress to start—an independent investigation that . . . looks into all aspects of the apparent intelligence failures on Iraq . . . It is time to stop refining the spin and make a serious attempt to find out where and how American intelligence went wrong. The public also needs to know, as authoritatively as possible, whether the administration made ambiguous intelligence seem certain for political reasons or, worse, whether analysts were pressured to exaggerate their intelligence . . . Only an independent panel can be trusted at this point to find out what went wrong in Iraq . . .

At the end of January, David Kay again appeared before a Senate Committee. Despite his testimony absolving the Administration from intelligence manipulation, the editors weren’t satisfied and continued to insist that an independent investigation was necessary. This wide-ranging editorial also referenced Ken Pollack, the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, and the National Intelligence Estimate.

    [2/1/04] David Kay . . . gave the Bush administration some insulation last week against charges that it coerced or manipulated the intelligence about [WMD] . . .In Senate testimony, Mr. Kay placed the blame for overestimating Iraq’s weapons capabilities squarely on the intelligence community and said he had seen no evidence that administration officials put pressure on analysts to come up with preconceived results. Yet there are reasons to go slow in accepting Mr. Kay’s version as the full story . . . Only a broad and truly independent investigation can unravel the roots of this colossal failure.

    Ken Pollack . . . [also] placed most of the blame on intelligence failures but, unlike Mr. Kay, he faulted the Bush administration as well. In the months leading up to the war, Mr. Pollack says, he received numerous complaints from friends in the intelligence community that administration officials showed aggressive, negative reactions when presented with information that contradicted what they believed about Iraq.

    Analysts at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace have tracked what they consider a pronounced change in the tone of intelligence estimates, with those made before mid-2002 generally cautious and full of caveats and those thereafter much more alarmist. The shift suggests, they say, that pressure from policy makers led intelligence analysts to reach more threatening judgments about Iraq’s weapons programs.

    . . . the most important intelligence document leading up to the invasion was a National Intelligence Estimate . . . This document contended that Iraq had chemical and biological weapons in hand, as well as active programs to enhance its capabilities in all areas . . . This pivotal analysis is striking for the way it minimizes dissenting views on Iraq’s capabilities . . . the information on which Congress based its war vote seems out of kilter with the government’s own most expert opinions. The great unanswered question is whether this was wholly the work of top intelligence officials or was the result of pressure from above.

On February 2, Bush announced that he would appoint an independent commission to analyze the American intelligence failure. The Times reacted with editorials published on February 3 and February 7.

    [2/3/04] President Bush’s statement yesterday that he will appoint an independent commission to examine American intelligence gathering was a welcome change of heart . . . The question of whether top officials exaggerated intelligence on Iraq or, worse, pressured analysts to hype the threat from Iraqi weapons programs deserves to be a central issue this fall. Mr. Bush should not be able to deflect debate by saying he is not at liberty to discuss the failures in Iraq because he appointed a panel to look into American intelligence. To move forward, the nation needs to know whether that was a matter of poor collection of information . . . or a failure of those who are charged with analyzing intelligence—or, more likely, both. The panel also should look into whether intelligence analysts tailored their reports on Iraq to please their political bosses or were under pressure from above to suit the administration’s policy needs.

    [2/7/04] President Bush’s new commission to review why the intelligence on Iraq misfired looks more like an effort to deflect attention until after the election than a genuine attempt to get to the bottom of the Iraq fiasco. Though dignified and bipartisan, the members lack the technical expertise to really unravel what was wrong with American intelligence and suggest how to fix it. And Mr. Bush withheld the mandate to get at the big political question they could answer: Did the administration hype intelligence to increase support for the war? This group lacks the stature and name recognition that would give its findings commanding credibility. Worse yet, it looks as if Mr. Bush, who chose not to allow a truly independent panel, will limit its mandate to a review of intelligence gathering and analysis . . . Mr. Bush did not ask the panel for an unfettered look at how his administration had presented the intelligence in making the case for war.

On February 9, the editors broached the subject of the forthcoming Presidential election for the first time.

    [2/9/04] Another question average Americans will be asking themselves this election year is whether the Bush administration, which wanted to invade Iraq even before Sept. 11, manipulated the intelligence reports to frighten Congress and the public into supporting the idea. The president’s claim yesterday that Congress had access to exactly the same intelligence he had was inaccurate, and his comments about the new commission he has appointed to look into intelligence gathering made it clear that he has no intention of having his administration’s actions included in the probe.

Another accusation that Bush hyped the pre-war intelligence to garner support for the war.

    [2/17/04] Whatever horrendous errors the intelligence analysts made were surely compounded when the president and other senior officials emphasized unlikely worst-case scenarios to win support for the invasion. In making its case for war, the administration leapt well beyond the battlefield chemical weapons that Iraq had used in the . . . In making such claims, the administration went beyond the intelligence consensus in important areas . . . the Bush administration took unlikely worst-case scenarios and inflated them drastically to justify an immediate invasion without international support. The Senate committee will need to find out not just why the intelligence was so wrong, but also the extent to which the administration misused it to stampede the nation.

Ten days before the war’s start, The Times demanded that the independent commission be granted subpoena powers.

    [3/9/04] The nation will never squarely face up to the intelligence failures that preceded the invasion of Iraq unless President Bush grants subpoena power to the independent commission he reluctantly created to look into the simmering controversy . . . The commission also needs to look beyond its narrow original mandate. The president limited the investigation to analyzing the quality of the intelligence that led up to the invasion. It should also fully investigate allegations that the intelligence about weapons of mass destruction was hyped by administration leaders to justify a pre-emptive war. If the Bush administration never deliberately exaggerated the dangers, a complete accounting would go far to clear the air.

The Role of the United Nations

To provide legitimacy and credibility:

    [3/28/03] The best—and perhaps only—hope of leaving Iraq with a democratic political structure is by making the rebuilding an international effort . . . It can . . . counter perceptions that the United States means to assume Europe’s old colonial role in the Middle East . . . [4/8/03] . . . the legitimacy of the foreign presence will depend on how quickly the authority for governing the country can be transferred to an interim administration under U.N. sponsorship . . . [4/23/03] The hunt for these weapons [of mass destruction] would be aided by the presence of independent experts, and the credibility of any discoveries would be much enhanced if they were confirmed by the U.N. [5/10/03] Only the U.N. can confer legitimacy on American occupation, end sanctions . . . and attest to the representative nature of Iraq’s future government . . . [7/10/03] With broader U.N. involvement, American and British troops will seem less like foreign conquerors and occupiers. [11/16/03] The United Nations has far more international experience, credibility and reputation for neutrality in these matters than the United States does. [12/1/03] The Governing Council as presently constituted is not functional and not adequately representative of the Iraqi people . . . Creating such a [representative] government is best done under the auspices of the U.N., not Washington. So is drawing up a new constitution . . . No solution of this key issue is likely to endure unless it is accepted as legitimate by Iraq’s neighbors. International legitimacy can come only from the United Nations. [2/22/04] Creating stable and legitimate Iraqi political institutions from scratch is turning out to be a far more daunting, and thankless, task than the Bush administration ever acknowledged. The best—perhaps the only—chance for success depends on the United Nations. [4/8/04] . . . it is impossible to build a better nation in Iraq unless there . . . [is] United Nations participation to give the effort international legitimacy . . . [4/25/04] The only possible, but by no means certain, road to a good outcome is to stick with the plan to allow the United Nations to set up an interim Iraqi government, to expand international political support . . .

To facilitate humanitarian relief and reconstruction:

    [3/28/03] By accepting a central role for the U.N., Washington can . . . smooth the flow of humanitarian relief to Iraqi civilians . . . [4/8/03] The U.N. is also by far the best choice to coordinate humanitarian relief and reconstruction aid in postwar Iraq. [5/10/03] Only the U.N. can . . . open the door to substantial international reconstruction . . . [9/24/03] . . . the United Nations must be brought in to take over the political transformation in return for real help in reconstruction and security.

To share the burden with other countries:

    [7/10/03] The pressure on American and British troops can also be eased by bringing in significant peacekeeping forces from other countries, including many not involved in the war. That will be accomplished more easily once Washington embraces a more substantial role for the United Nations. [8/24/03] . . . unless Washington is willing to accept a much larger U.N. role in developing independent Iraqi political institutions, other countries will continue to hold back . . . [8/27/03] The White House should accept a new Security Council resolution broadening U.N. political and economic authority, enabling other countries to make substantial contributions to an international peacekeeping force. [9/4/03] The passage of a new Security Council resolution, even if it does no more than place military operations under U.N. auspices, should permit nations like India, Pakistan, Egypt, Jordan and Turkey to contribute troops.

To pave the way to an exit strategy:

    [4/8/04] . . . it is impossible to build a better nation in Iraq unless there are Iraqi leaders willing to stand up to extremism, United Nations participation to give the effort international legitimacy and a credible exit strategy. [4/17/04] President Bush gave some cause for hope yesterday to Americans looking for signs of how he plans to extricate the United States from the mess in Iraq. Mr. Bush and Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain appeared in the Rose Garden to give a strong, and very welcome, endorsement of the idea that the United Nations would begin to take the political lead, starting with the creation of an interim governing body to replace the American-controlled Iraqi authority on June 30.

To improve relations between the United States and Europe and restore the UN’s stature:

    [3/28/03] By accepting a central role for the U.N., Washington can begin to heal the trans-Atlantic rift and restore some of the U.N.’s badly needed authority for future crises. [10/17/03] President Bush won a big victory yesterday at the United Nations . . . the Security Council approved an American-backed resolution . . . Restoring Security Council unity over Iraq is a substantial achievement after the damaging divisions that emerged last winter.