A former leading CIA official said on Sunday that the White House deliberately ignored intelligence that showed that there were no weapons of mass destruction in the run-up to the war in Iraq.
Tyler Drumheller, who was once the highest-ranking CIA officer in Europe, told CBS's 60 Minutes program that the White House shifted its focus to regime change in the months before the invasion.
"The policy was set. The war in Iraq was coming and they were looking for intelligence to fit into the policy," Drumheller said.
Meanwhile a leaked Pentagon document showed that US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld is pressing ahead with plans to reshape the armed forces despite recent criticism of his stewardship from several retired military officers. Plans approved last month by Rumsfeld and leaked to the Washington Post revealed the increasing use of special forces and an increased role for the military in areas that have been the domain of the CIA. Drumheller, who had a senior role in the run-up to the war, told 60 Minutes that the CIA provided the White House with information from Iraq's then foreign minister, Naji Sabri.
"[The source] told us that there were no active weapons of mass destruction programs," Drumheller said.
He said that the then-CIA director, George Tenet, passed the information on to President George W. Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney and other senior officials, who were initially excited. But that changed, he said.
"The [White House] group that was dealing with preparation for the Iraq war came back and said they were no longer interested. And we said `Well, what about the intel?' And they said `Well, this isn't about intel anymore. This is about regime change," Drumheller said.
Drumheller said the decision to invade Iraq would be remembered as a grave mistake.
"It just sticks in my craw every time I hear them say it's an intelligence failure ... This was a policy failure ... I think, over time, people will look back on this and see this is going to be one of the great, I think, policy mistakes of all time," he said.
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