This report is the result of an inquiry initiated on June 27, 2003 by Senator Carl Levin, Ranking Member of the Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC), and conducted by the SASC Minority Staff. The report focuses on 1) the establishment of a non-Intelligence Community source of intelligence analysis in the office of Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Douglas Feith; and 2) the extent to which policy makers utilized that alternative source rather than the analyses produced by the Intelligence Community (IC) with regard to the Iraq-al Qaeda relationship. This report is highly relevant to the current Congressional consideration of intelligence reform. As the House and Senate consider legislation in response to the recommendations of the 9/11 Commission, it is of critical importance that any new structure or organization correct, to the greatest possible degree, one of the most serious and persistent flaws of the current system of intelligence analysis and estimates: the politicization of intelligence. Full text of the 46-page report is available here. |