The New Republic has a long article by John B Judis & Spencer Ackerman detailing the subversion of the intelligence agencies to the political agenda of the pro-war hawks in the Bush Administration. The job of the Central Intelligence Agency is to provide the U.S. with credible information on threats to national security. Subverting it to fit a political agenda is the real threat to national security.
“Had the administration accurately depicted the consensus within the intelligence community in 2002 – that Iraq’s ties with Al Qaeda were inconsequential; that its nuclear weapons program was minimal at best; and that its chemical and biological weapons programs, which had yielded significant stocks of dangerous weapons in the past, may or may not have been ongoing – it would have had a very difficult time convincing Congress and the American public to support a war to disarm Saddam.”