NYT: All Roads Lead to Iraq (CIA/Plame story)

By JAMES RISEN

Published: October 2, 2003

The inquiry into whether senior Bush administration officials illegally exposed a C.I.A. officer's identity stems from a long-running battle in the administration over the handling of prewar intelligence on Iraq's programs to develop nonconventional weapons, current and former intelligence officials say they believe.

The struggle pits intelligence professionals, especially analysts and operations officers at the C.I.A. who say they believe that information about the Iraqi weapons programs was deliberately hyped and distorted by the Bush administration in the months before the war, against officials at the White House and Pentagon who have long been dismissive of what they see as an overly cautious culture at the agency.

snip

For months before the Iraq war, analysts at the agency and other intelligence officials quietly complained that they felt under pressure from senior administration officials, all the way up to Mr. Cheney, to tailor intelligence reports to the administration's agenda. In particular, the analysts said White House and Pentagon officials were pressing them to accept the premise of strong connections between Iraq and Al Qaeda.

snip

For officers of the intelligence agency, the idea that the White House would compromise an undercover officer's identity to silence a critic goes to the heart of their sense of institutional independence. Many are carefully watching George J. Tenet, director of central intelligence, to see how well he tries to protect them from political assaults.

"I think very fundamental questions are now being asked in Washington about the role of intelligence, about the relationship between the D.C.I. and the president and the relationship between the C.I.A. and Pentagon," an ex-official with close ties to the agency leadership said. "This may be a watershed year. And in some ways, it may be being brought to head by the Wilson episode."

more at

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/10/02/national/02INTE.html