World Tribune.com

Israeli intelligence blamed
for faulty Iraq estimate

SPECIAL TO WORLD TRIBUNE.COM
Friday, December 5, 2003

TEL AVIV Ñ Israel's failure to accurately assess Iraq's weapons of mass destruction program has damaged the credibility of the intelligence community, a prominent think tank has concluded.

The damage could diminish Israel's effort to persuade the international community that Iran intends to develop nuclear weapons.

A new report said Israeli intelligence was as much responsible for the faulty assessment on Iraqi WMD program as other Western intelligence services. The report by the Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies said exaggerated Israeli assessments of Iraqi missile and WMD capability contributed to the mistakes of the British and U.S. intelligence communities.

Authored by Shlomo Brom, a senior researcher and former head of Israeli Air Force intelligence, the report said Israel sustained considerable damage in its assessment that Iraq was capable of striking the Jewish state with medium-range missiles and biological or chemical warheads. The damage could affect Israeli intelligence liasion with other Western services as well as the nation's deterrence.

"Israel's potential enemies might conclude in retrospect that if Israel was so frightened by what was apparently such a negligible threat, it clearly has good reason to be," the report said.

The report also cited the financial costs of Israeli preparations against an Iraqi WMD attack as well as the psychological toll on the population. Other damage asserted by the report include the erosion of trust by Israelis in their leadership as well as that by foreign countries in the Jewish state.

"Foreign intelligence services might stop trusting intelligence received from Israel, and foreign countries might suspect that Israel is giving them false intelligence in order to influence their political positions," the report said. "Indeed, in the past Israel has been accused of disseminating false information that serves its own interests. Such suspicions, for example, could harm Israel's efforts to convince others that the intelligence on Iran's nuclear project is solid, despite the fact that the case of Iran is different from that of Iraq in that Israel's assessments in this regard are based on good, solid information."

The Israeli intelligence assessment of Iraq has been examined by the Israeli military as well as the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Relations Committee. The report called for an investigation by what it termed an independent professional body that was not linked to political parties.

The report said Israeli intelligence on Iraqi capabilities resembled its counterparts in the United States and other Western countries. Israeli intelligence failed to obtain information regarding Iraqi WMD and missile programs since the 1995 defection of Saddam Hussein's son-in-law, Hussein Kamel.

But Israeli intelligence, despite lack of supporting evidence, decided that Iraq had succeeded in concealing a growing missile and WMD program in wake of the 1998 departure of United Nations inspectors, the report said.

Brom attributed this to what he termed a "dogmatic conception" that has plagued Israeli intelligence since the 1973 Arab-Israeli war as well as a lack of technical understanding within military intelligence of how missiles operate.

Over the last 30 years, the report said, Israeli military intelligence has preferred to submit worst-case scenarios that are largely unsubstantiated. The concept assumes that a worst-case scenario only improves military readiness and produces no harm.

"Intelligence analysts feel that by giving bleak assessments they decrease the threat to themselves," the report said. "If the assessment ends up being correct they will be heroes, and if it ends up being untrue, no one will give them any trouble because everyone will be pleased that their bleak prophecies did not materialize. When this is the psychological state of intelligence analysts, biases and serious distortions result."

The report suggests that Israeli military intelligence might have been influenced by the U.S. perception of the Iraqi WMD threat. Israel and the United States have disagreed on the extent of many threats in the Middle East and the Jewish state has long felt that Iraqi WMD capability was exaggerated.

"The United States was wont to emphasize the Iraqi threat, while Israel tended to express its understanding that the Iraqi threat was contained and under control, and it was the Iranian threat that loomed as far more serious," the report said. "Once the Bush administration decided to take action against Iraq, it was more difficult for Israel to maintain its position that dealing with Iraq was not the highest priority, especially when it was obvious that the war would serve Israel's interests. Considering the circumstances, it would therefore be difficult to expect the Israeli government to express its doubts Ñ if any Ñ about Iraq's capabilities."

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