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Dissenting opinions removed from public report on Iraq
The public version of the key prewar assessment of Iraq's arms programs was stripped of dissenting opinions, warnings of insufficient information and doubts about Saddam's intentions, a review of the document and its once-classified version shows.
What that comparison showed is that while the top-secret version delivered to pResident Bush, his top lieutenants and Congress was heavily qualified with caveats about some of its most-important conclusions about Iraq's illicit weapons programs, those caveats were omitted from the public version.
The caveats included the phases "we judge that," "we assess that" and "we lack specific information on many key aspects of Iraq's WMD (weapons of mass destruction) programs."
Those phrases, according to current and former intelligence officials, long have been used in intelligence reports to stress an absence of hard information and underscore that judgments are extrapolations or estimates.
What that comparison showed is that while the top-secret version delivered to pResident Bush, his top lieutenants and Congress was heavily qualified with caveats about some of its most-important conclusions about Iraq's illicit weapons programs, those caveats were omitted from the public version.
The caveats included the phases "we judge that," "we assess that" and "we lack specific information on many key aspects of Iraq's WMD (weapons of mass destruction) programs."
Those phrases, according to current and former intelligence officials, long have been used in intelligence reports to stress an absence of hard information and underscore that judgments are extrapolations or estimates.
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