Let's move from 9/11 and the Saudis to the invasion of Iraq. Do you believe the president misled the American public about the justification for the invasion and the urgency of the security threat?

If he believed the evidence that was being presented to him -- that there were 550 sites in Iraq where weapons of mass destruction were being either produced or stored -- then he was very noncurious about finding out what the basis of that information was. He should have pursued the credibility of the intelligence before he committed us to taking one of the most serious actions any country can take. The user of intelligence has the responsibility to challenge the credibility of the intelligence. When [then CIA director] George Tenet said it was a slam-dunk that there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, the president supinely accepted that.

But a lot of people who were opposed to the war on the grounds that Saddam was already contained did believe there were probably weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. What did you believe?

I was suspicious [about the intelligence], but I was prepared to accept the word of the president of the United States. But my reason for voting against the war was really a more strategic one: that al-Qaida was a greater threat to Americans than was Saddam Hussein, and that we should stay on the task of al-Qaida until we had finished it. I didn't think we should get into a situation where our prestige and reputation would suffer in the entire Middle East and into what now appears to be a quagmire which has no end in sight.

Along those lines, you said that in a meeting at the U.S. Central Command in Tampa, Fla., in February 2002, Gen. Tommy Franks, who was then conducting the war in Afghanistan, told you that resources were already being shifted quietly to Iraq. Additionally, you write that Franks told you that Somalia and Yemen, not Iraq, were the next logical targets in any action to combat terrorism.

Yes. I had just received a briefing on Afghanistan when Gen. Franks invited me to come into his office, just the two of us. He told me that military and intelligence resources were being redeployed from Afghanistan to Iraq. What that suggested to me was [first] that the decision to go to war in Iraq had been made at least 14 months before we actually went to Iraq, and long before there was authorization from Congress and long before the United Nations was sought out for a resolution of support. Secondly, it suggested we couldn't fight the two wars concurrently to victory, but that it would take redeployment of personnel from Afghanistan to Iraq to make that a successful invasion. Third, it suggested that somebody -- I assume the president -- had decided that Iraq was a higher priority for the United States than was completing the war in Afghanistan.

Why do you think Franks told you this?

I don't know what his motivation was, but we had just heard a report on the status of the war in Afghanistan, which was very upbeat, [saying] we were making a lot of progress. So one motivation may have been to caution me that things in reality weren't necessarily what they appeared to be.

Do you believe the White House manipulated the intelligence to persuade the public to back the invasion? "Manipulate" may be too strong a word for you. But it took a request from you and Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., to get the intelligence community to produce a National Intelligence Estimate on the danger posed by Iraq, a step that would seem an obvious one to take, considering the stakes to the nation.

I am comfortable with the word "manipulate." There was a chapter that did not become known until three or four months ago that occurred in May 2002. Various leaders of the CIA were called down to the White House and told that the White House wanted to have a public document that could be released under the CIA's label but which would make the case for going to war with Iraq. I think one of the reasons they didn't want to do a formal National Intelligence Estimate was because it would be done not by the CIA alone but by all of the members of the intelligence community, and it was likely to reach a different conclusion. At least it would contain dissenting opinions and caveats that wouldn't be in a CIA public document.

This description of the CIA is one that is under the complete control of the White House, an agency that is not independent but highly politicized.

That's right. It is the expression of the leadership of the intelligence agencies, trying to placate their masters in the administration.

A later inquiry conducted by the Senate intelligence committee under your successor as chairman, Sen. Pat Roberts, R-Kan., looked at the quality of intelligence on weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and concluded that it was execrable. Yet the Republicans on the panel blocked any probe of whether the administration pressured the intelligence agencies to manufacture the conclusions it sought to justify a war that it had already decided to wage. If you had still been the top Democrat on the committee, would you have insisted that the White House and the agencies be included in that probe?

I think Sen. Jay Rockefeller [D-W.Va.], who is the vice chairman of the committee, did insist, and the effect of that was to make clear to him that there would be no investigation of anything if he persisted. I think he decided the better course was to agree to just do the first component if there was a commitment to do the rest at a reasonably close later date.

You retire at the end of this year. What's next for you?

First, I'll be working on letting the American people know about the opportunity they have to better understand the intelligence matters of the United States by buying this book. (Laughs.) Then, I'll teach at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard for a year and after that come back to Florida to establish a policy center at one or more universities in Florida.

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