Nikola Drobac – 4/7/05

This page was last updated on April 9, 2005.

Questions on intelligence; Nikola (Nick) Drobac; Beaver County Times; April 7, 2005.

This is the 16^th anti-Bush and/or anti-Republican rant by Mr. Drobac since July 1, 2004.

Below is a detailed critique of the subject letter.

“A very disturbing article (‘Iraq weapons assessments ‘dead wrong’’) was published in USA Today on Friday.”

[RWC] I know this is nitpicking, but the article was dated March 31^st on the USA Today web site. Friday was April 1^st. Mr. Drobac also didn’t provide the full title of the article, which was “Iraq weapons assessments ‘dead wrong,’ Bush told.”¹ I think we know why.

“In addition, some very important questions were left unanswered.

“A presidential commission wrote that ‘President Bush received ‘flawed’ and ‘overstated’ intelligence briefings on Iraq’s supposed weapons of mass destruction.’”

[RWC] More nitpicking on my part. The commission did not write the above quote. This was simply how the referenced article’s author summarized commission conclusions.

“It was further reported that the ‘commission found that the (intelligence) briefs given to Bush consisted of short articles with attention-grabbing headlines that left out doubts, nuances and alternative views.’

“The big question never answered, why were the doubts, nuances and alternative views left out? Was this an honest omission of facts or a deliberate act orchestrated by the president in an effort to shift blame for starting what Pope John Paul II called an immoral war?”

[RWC] Mr. Drobac appears to ignore the fact that the same information was presented to the Clinton administration. Indeed, most of the high-ranking intelligence officials of the Bush administration were holdovers from the Clinton administration. George Tenet (CIA Director) and Richard Clarke (anti-terrorism group leader) are only two examples.

Let’s answer the “big question never answered.” Intelligence agencies are charged with providing their best assessment to policymakers. When a leader asks for your assessment, he wants to know what you believe to be true based on the information you have. He doesn’t want all of the detail behind your assessment because there’s no way for him to wade through all of the data and make informed decisions about “doubts, nuances and alternative views.” The job of the CIA Director et al is to filter out the “noise.”

Let’s see what the report says about the second question.

“Finally, we closely examined the possibility that intelligence analysts were pressured by policymakers to change their judgments about Iraq’s nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons programs. The analysts who worked Iraqi weapons issues universally agreed that in no instance did political pressure cause them to skew or alter any of their analytical judgments.”²

Every review beginning with the David Kay team came to the same conclusion.

Given this and previous Drobac letters, I’m not inclined to believe his statements of fact. Did Pope John Paul II call the Iraq War “immoral?” I don’t know, but let’s assume he did. I would expect nothing different from any Pope. We need to remember the Pope also opposed the 1991 Iraq War to force Saddam Hussein out of Kuwait.

“The next big question: Why did the intelligence briefs given to Bush consist of short articles with attention-grabbing headlines? Does the president have attention deficit disorder? Or, is he just plain stupid? I would hope that it is the latter rather than the former.”

[RWC] I think the answer to “the next big question” is fairly obvious. It’s pretty much the same answer as above. Any president is a very busy person with an incredible number of responsibilities on his plate. There’s no way he could read every single relevant intelligence report and draw informed conclusions. No president has the time or the expertise. (Bush #41 may have been an exception to the expertise comment because he once served as CIA Director.) It is the responsibility of the intelligence agencies to present actionable information in a concise format.

Indeed, the article Mr. Drobac referenced answered his question. The briefs to which Mr. Drobac referred were part of the President’s Daily Brief, “an intelligence summary for the president that is essentially a highly classified newspaper.”¹

Mr. Drobac hopes President Bush is “just plain stupid” rather than having ADD?

“All of the above does not exonerate the president from starting this illegal war that has cost the lives of more than 1,500 service men and women in Iraq.”

[RWC] I’m not a lawyer, so perhaps Mr. Drobac can cite the violated laws that made the war “illegal.”

“After all, before the war started, there were many (most notably Hans Blix, the United Nations weapons inspector) informing the president that Iraq was no threat to the United States, had no ties to al Qaeda, had nothing to do with Sept. 11, 2001, and had no weapons of mass destruction.”

[RWC] Let me get this straight. The President of the United States should have listened to a UN weapons inspector instead of United States intelligence agencies? Remember, CIA Director George Tenet essentially staked his career on the integrity of the WMD intelligence when he told President Bush it was a “slam dunk.”

Regarding the rest of the sentence, Mr. Drobac keeps repeating the same discredited claims. See my critique of his March 17^th letter.

1. Iraq weapons assessments ‘dead wrong,’ Bush told; John Diamond; USA Today; March 31, 2005.

2. Report to the President of the United States; The Commission on the Intelligence Capabilities of the United States Regarding Weapons of Mass Destruction; March 31, 2005.