"Drawing on the unusually extensive official documentation that has emerged through multiple inquiries on both sides of the Atlantic, as well as insider accounts of CIA deliberations, the contributors to this volume offer careful and insightful analyses of the national security decision-making process, the foreign policy roles of the President and Prime Minister, the roles of Congress and Parliament, the management and limits of intelligence, the shaping of public opinion, and the ethics of humanitarian military intervention. The book also discusses the dilemmas faced by Australia, a junior ally in the War on Terror, and their implications for Australian intelligence."--BOOK JACKET.

Assesses ¿whether public statements and reports and testimony regarding Iraq by U.S. Gov¿t. officials made between the Gulf War period and the commencement of Operation Iraqi Freedom were substantiated by intelligence info.¿ The Committee reviewed 5 major policy speeches by Admin. officials regarding: the threats posed by Iraq, Iraqi weapons of mass destruction programs, Iraqi ties to terrorist groups, and possible consequences of a U.S. invasion of Iraq. The Committee selected particular statements that pertained to 8 categories: nuclear weapons, biological weapons, chemical weapons, weapons of mass destruction (generally), methods of delivery, links to terrorism, regime intent, and assessments about the post-war situation in Iraq.

This publication sets out the report of the inquiry by the five-member committee, chaired by Lord Butler, established in February 2004 to examine the quality of intelligence used as justification for UK military participation in the war against Iraq in March 2003. The inquirys remit was: i) to investigate discrepancies in the gathering, evaluation and use of intelligence on Iraqi weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) (including the September 2002 intelligence dossier which alleged Iraq was capable of deploying WMDs within 45 minutes), given the subsequent failure by the Iraq Survey Group to find WMDs in Iraq; and ii) to make recommendations for future practice, in the light of the difficulties of operating in countries of concern. The report focuses on structures, systems and processes rather than on the actions of individuals. Issues discussed include: the nature and use of intelligence; countries of concern other than Iraq and global trade; international terrorism and intelligence responses; counter-proliferation machinery; Iraqs WMD programmes since 1990 and intelligence assessments; the role of intelligence in assessing the legality of the war; validation of human intelligence sources; the links between Al Qaida and the Iraqi regime; the intelligence machinery including the work of the Defence Intelligence Staff (DIS) and the Joint Intelligence Committee (JIC), and the machinery of government.

Presents the findings of the bipartisan Iraq Study Group, which was formed in 2006 to examine the situation in Iraq and offer suggestions for the American military's future involvement in the region.

Michael Massing describes the American press coverage of the war in Iraq as "the unseen war," an ironic reference given the number of reporters in Iraq and in Doha, Qatar, the location of the Coalition Media Center with its $250,000 stage set. He argues that a combination of self-censorship, lack of real information given by the military at briefings, boosterism, and a small number of reporters familiar with Iraq and fluent in Arabic deprived the American public of reliable information while the war was going on. Massing also is highly critical of American press coverage of the Bush administration's case for war prior to the invasion of Iraq: "US journalists were far too reliant on sources sympathetic to the administration. Those with dissenting views—and there were more than a few—were shut out. Reflecting this, the coverage was highly deferential to the White House. This was especially apparent on the issue of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction .... Despite abundant evidence of the administration's brazen misuse of intelligence in this matter, the press repeatedly let officials get away with it." Once Iraq was occupied and no WMDs were found, the press was quick to report on the flaws of pre-war intelligence. But as Massing's detailed analysis demonstrates, pre-war journalism was also deeply flawed, as too many reporters failed to independently evaluate administration claims about Saddam's weapons programs or the inspection process. The press's postwar "feistiness" stands in sharp contrast to its "submissiveness" and "meekness" before the war—when it might have made a difference.

The goal of this case study is to outline how the United States chose to go to war in Iraq, how its decision making process functioned, and what can be done to improve that process.