On the Brink with Tyler Drumheller

By Ken Silverstein

There have been many books written on the topic of the war in Iraq but Tyler Drumeller's On the Brink: An Insider's Account of How the White House Compromised American Intelligence is definitely worth picking up. Drumheller, who recently retired from the CIA after twenty-five years with the agency, offers one of the clearest accounts available on how the Bush Administration manipulated intelligence in order to pave the way for the invasion of Iraq.

One chapter (selectively censored by the CIA) describes how, during the fall of 2002, an allied European intelligence agency offered the agency access to a senior official from Saddam Hussein's government. The official—who is not named in the book but who has elsewhere been identified as Naji Sabr, the then Iraqi foreign minister—had told the Europeans, through an intermediary, that “Saddam's nuclear program was going nowhere, that his biological weapons were comparable to a kid's science set, and that his chemical stockpiles, having been scattered around the country, represented little more than a nuisance to a sophisticated invading force. In sum . . . it was a ridiculous exaggeration to suggest the Iraqi leader was preparing a mushroom cloud for the American people.”

Drumheller says that he and others were desperate to establish contact with the Iraqi official. “He was the closest thing anyone had to a solid source in Baghdad,” he writes. “His information was of immeasurable consequence to the Iraqis, our allies and us.” But the Bush Administration did not share their enthusiasm. According to Drumheller, the administration “chose to interpret what the Iraqi source was saying as an attempt by the European ally to delay the war and as “a treacherous bid to help Saddam prepare for it.” When one of Drumheller's colleagues pressed the matter, he was told, “It's time you learned it's not about intelligence anymore. It's about regime change.”

(Drumheller first discussed this story during an appearance on 60 Minutes earlier this year, which prompted an investigation by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. In the committee's subsequent report, three G.O.P. senators wrote an addendum that contradicted Drumheller's account, saying that Sabr had in fact revealed that Saddam possessed vigorous WMD programs. Drumheller stands by his account.)

I recently spoke with Drumheller. He told me that, while the CIA has always been subject to political pressure, the situation has never been as bad as under the Bush Administration. “This administration came in very focused on Iraq,” he said, “even before 9/11, and they were very heavy-handed about it. They viewed Iraq as a serious threat to the Middle East, and if your reporting didn't back that up it was because you were incompetent or not supportive enough of the policy. That got worse over time—they were absolutely certain that they were right. If you disagreed you were seen as incompetent, or opposed to their plans for political reasons. You had people rushing over to the White House to deliver material that supported the administration's case.”

According to Drumheller, understanding the way the Bush Administration manipulated intelligence is central to determining an exit strategy from Iraq. “We can't begin to address the conflict until the pre-war period is confronted in an honest fashion,” he said. “We don't even know what we're confronting over there because we keep changing the reason that we went there in the first place.”

The CIA, he says, needs to be restructured so that it is “free from politics—or at least free enough that the director can tell the President things he may not want to hear.” During the Reagan years, he recalled, the President was “really sympathetic to the white South Africans, he thought they were ‘guys like us’ and just misunderstood. But there was good reporting coming out of South Africa on their development of nuclear programs. And while Reagan never publicly changed his position, there was a quiet change on policy. The Reagan people were as conservative as the current administration, but you could give them information they might not like without worrying about being deemed disloyal.”

Another lesson from Iraq has implications for U.S. policy towards Iran, Drumheller said. He noted that many of the same individuals and organizations that backed the war in Iraq are pushing a hard line on Iran. Some of them, in concert with Iranian expatriate communities, are actively promoting the idea that the Iranian people are keen for the mullahs to be overthrown (at which point, presumably, Americans would be welcomed with flowers).

The reality, says Drumheller, is that, similar to in Iraq, there's an educated Iranian elite that doesn't like the government—but that doesn't mean they want to see their country conquered by the United States. The fastest way to bring Iranians together is for the U.S. to come in as the enemy force.

A few months ago, Drumheller was concerned that the administration was headed towards a military strike against Tehran. He now believes that such a path is not being pursued because the war in Iraq has “sucked so many resources out of the military and intelligence agencies” that both are badly depleted. Iraq, he said, has shown that conquering and occupying a decent-sized country is a recipe for disaster. “There are plenty of diplomatic avenues that haven't been explored yet,” he said. “Military force has got to be the last resort because it's so unpredictable, and if it fails, it's hard to get out. The only time it's justified is when there is a real existential threat to the country.”

[More Washington Babylon]

[Contact Ken Silverstein]

[About Washington Babylon]