June 28 issue - Frustrated by the CIA's refusal to declassify large portions of what is expected to be a sharply critical report on prewar intel, the Senate Intelligence Committee may try to embarrass the agency into reconsidering. Committee members are mulling publishing a version of the document that includes conspicuous blank sections where info has been censored. Congressional sources say investigators edited out scads of sensitive material from early drafts and that some of what the CIA wants left out is clearly unclassified. Intel officials say the current version still contains sensitive info about both human and technical collection methods, and references to CIA dealings with foreign spy agencies.
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Sources familiar with the still-secret document say it harshly criticizes the CIA for faulty prewar judgments about Iraq's WMD and ties to terrorism. One controversy examined by Senate investigators is the CIA's claim that Saddam was buying aluminum tubes to use to make bomb-grade uranium. A congressional source said investigators found the CIA's analysis "sloppy" and that key analysts were pushing a "point of view" rather than judging evidence objectively. Also in the congressional cross hairs: CIA assertions—amplified by Colin Powell in a speech to the U.N. that Saddam had built mobile biological-weapons labs. Even officials close to the CIA concede that two key sources Powell cited were dubious characters linked to controversial Iraqi pol Ahmad Chalabi. The veracity of two other sources cited by Powell has also been questioned, and Powell has expressed dismay that he was misled about their credibility.
