"Stylistic" changes to the NIE

It appears that the unclassified version of the National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq was used to intentionally mislead the public as to the status of Iraq's weapons programs. The LA Times is reporting that the Senate Intelligence committee's report finds that the classified version of the NIE contained caveats and even open disagreements with the assessment of Iraq's weapons and capabilities. The qualifying language and the messy footnotes noting different opinions were edited out. Instead, the public got blunt assessments of the Iraqi threat.

For example, the panel cited changes made in the section of the NIE dealing with chemical weapons:

"Although we have little specific information on Iraq's CW stockpile," the classified NIE read, "Saddam Hussein probably has stocked at least 100 metric tons" of such poisons.

In the unclassified version of the report, the phrase "although we have little specific information" was deleted. Instead, the public report said, "Saddam probably has stocked a few hundred metric tons of CW agents."

The Senate report also noted one instance in which a dissenting view was left out of the unclassified version.

In that example, the classified NIE stated that Iraq was developing unmanned aerial vehicles, or UAVs, "probably intended to deliver biological warfare agents."

But in a footnote, the U.S. Air Force's director for intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance said he did not agree.

By eliminating that footnote from the unclassified version, the panel said, the public NIE "is missing the fact that [the] ? agency with primary responsibility for technological analysis on UAV programs did not agree with the assessment."

During a nationally televised speech in October 2002, President Bush cited the threat of Iraqi drone aircraft being used for terrorist attacks against the United States. Secretary of State Colin L. Powell also discussed the UAVs in his speech to the United Nations on Feb. 5, 2003.

The committee's report describes not just sins of omission, but of addition.

The classified NIE stated, for instance, that "Iraq has some lethal and incapacitating BW [biological weapons] agents and is capable of quickly producing ? a variety of such agents, including anthrax, for delivery by bombs, missiles, aerial sprayers and covert operatives."

In the unclassified version, the words "potentially against the U.S. homeland" are inserted at the end of the statement.

Of course, it is best to eliminate the passive voice in reports like this. Makes them more compelling to the reader. I just wonder who was leading this effort to tighten up the language.