Bush's Secret Iraq Deal

Kenneth Katzman, a specialist in Middle East affairs for the Congressional Research Service, also testified at yesterday's congressional hearing. Dan Robinson reports for Voice of America that Katzman "believes chances are unlikely of securing Iraqi parliament approval of any draft agreement by July.

"'Maliki is going to have to water down the agreement so much, and try to limit what the U.S. military can do in Iraq so much, that it would then become unacceptable to the U.S. military in terms of what legal status the U.S. military would be under, and mainly the freedom of action enjoyed by U.S. forces after such agreements,' said Katzman."

For more, see the declaration of principles that Bush and Maliki signed in November, and my ensuing column, Locking Us Into Iraq?

Misuse of Intelligence

The Senate Intelligence Committee this morning released its long-awaited report on "Whether Public Statements Regarding Iraq by U.S. Government Officials Were Substantiated by Intelligence Information."

I'll have more on this tomorrow, but here's some initial coverage:

Randall Mikkelsen writes for Reuters: "President George W. Bush and his top policymakers exaggerated Saddam Hussein's links to terrorism and ignored doubts among intelligence agencies about Iraq's arms programs as they made their case for war, a Senate committee reported on Thursday.

"The Senate intelligence committee said in a study that major Bush administration statements that Iraq had a partnership with al Qaeda and provided it with weapons training were unsupported by intelligence, and sometimes contradicted it.

"It also said statements on Iraq's weapons before the March 2003 U.S.-led invasion were substantiated in most cases by available U.S. intelligence, but that they failed to reflect internal debate over those findings.

"The long-delayed Senate study supported previous reports and findings that the administration's main case for war -- that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction -- was inaccurate and deeply flawed."

Jeff Bliss writes for Bloomberg: "President George W. Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney and then-Secretary of State Colin Powell exaggerated and oversimplified intelligence about the threat Iraq posed before the U.S. invaded the country in March 2003, according to a Senate report. . . .

"At the White House, spokeswoman Dana Perino said there was nothing especially new in the report concerning Saddam Hussein and weapons of mass destruction.

"'We had the intelligence that we had, it was fully vetted and it was wrong,' Perino said. 'We certainly regret that, and we've taken measures to fix it.'"