Faulty Intelligence Part 3

Seymour Hersh reports that Douglas Feith's Office of Special Plans was created in order to find evidence "that Saddam Hussein had close ties to Al Qaeda, and that Iraq had an enormous arsenal of chemical, biological, and possibly even nuclear weapons." ( "Chain of Command" p. 209) Traditionally, intelligence agencies have made certain that sources of important information were vetted. As Seymour Hersh explains, "the vetting process is especially important when one is dealing with foreign reports---sensitive intelligence that can trigger profound policy decisions. In theory, no request for action should be taken directly to higher authorities---a process known as 'stovepiping'---without the information on which it is based having been subjected to rigorous scrutiny." Unfortunately, "the Office of Special Plans circumvented the vetting process." ("Chain of Command" p. 215)