John Negroponte as DNI does the CYA thing

At the end of yesterday's post about the data that surfaced on Saddam Hussein's WMD program, I asked where John Negroponte, the Director of National Intelligence, stood in the matter. During his tenure as DNI, Mr Negroponte was and remains heavily invested in seeing the book closed on the question of Saddam-era WMD programs; as to why: according to John Loftus, President of the Intelligence Summit:

One would think that the Bush administration would have been happy for the Summit to confirm that, despite all the prewar intelligence failures, at least one Iraqi WMD program did in fact exist. However [...] John Negroponte had advised the President to the contrary, and had previously convinced the President to make a public apology.

In 2005-2006, when the Summit began to uncover long-ignored documents indicating that perhaps the nuclear WMD error was Negroponte's, the result was an extreme example of abuse of power by a [...] bureaucrat.

Negroponte tried repeatedly to shut the Intelligence Summit down using inappropriate and even unethical tactics. He secretly smeared one of our leading donors, Mr. Michale Cherney of Israel, as a criminal, knowing full well that the charges were false and had been fully investigated. Apparently it did not matter to [Negroponte] that the Summit members are staunchly bipartisan, patriotic, and extremely professional.

No American charity has ever been a target of such a vicious, prolonged and laughably ineffective attacks from a political hack.(1)

I am afraid Mr Negroponte's attacks have been very successful at keeping Washington officialdom from reexamining the issue of Iraq WMD. The Summit's advisory board "has always consisted of retired generals, heads of intelligence services and other high level executives," according to a Summit press release. The board has their work cut out, if they are to get the WMD case reopened. John Loftus observed:

At the very least, someone should remind Mr. Negroponte that, in America, freedom of speech and association permits the public debate of controversial issues. Whoever turns out to be right or wrong about the WMD does not matter. Congress and the American people deserve to know the truth, and the truth will only emerge if both sides of an issue are allowed to be heard.

1:30 PM Update
Dan Riehl at Riehl World View picked up the link on this post and one of his readers observed in essence that we shouldn't be surprised or upset about another revelation regarding Bush Administration machinations.

The reader was responding to John Loftus's observation that "No American charity has ever been a target of such a vicious, prolonged and laughably ineffective attacks from a political hack."

Pundita is all a-twitter because John Negroponte is not just any old political hack; he is now in the number two position at the US Department of State (as Deputy Secretary of State). So if Condoleezza Rice leaves State to run as GOP Veep in the 2008 presidential campaign, that will put Mr Negroponte in the top position at America's foreign office -- one of the world's most powerful positions -- and during a time of war.

Negroponte has been away from the US for decades and his thinking is steeped in the EU view. And if we dredge up some unpleasant things about Negroponte's earlier career in the service of the United States, it's to be remembered that he is a ruthless operative behind the mask of diplomacy. The history of his actions in the service of State suggests that he will stop at nothing to gain an objective. In one way, that makes him very useful; in another way, it makes him dangerous.

John Loftus's claims about Negroponte's actions to silence the Intelligence Summit on the WMD issue suggest that Negroponte has again acted true to form, in his effort to close the book on the Iraq WMD issue. That could be bad news for the US war effort in Iraq and elsewhere -- not to mention US diplomatic efforts to strengthen support for sanctions against Iran.

While I'm on a clarification kick, I received a question about the intelligence on Iraq WMD that Loftus recounted; in particular this passage:

Saddam constructed four incredibly expensive underwater nuclear storage and production facilities under the Euphrates River during the last six months of 2002. [...]

(See the earlier Pundita post (link above) for more on that intel. The quotes I provided are from a press release that discusses some of the breaking news that will come out of next month's Intelligence Summit conference. I'm sure that once the intel has been formally announced at the conference, more details will be forthcoming. Translation: They are getting their ducks in a row. It might be possible to squeeze out little more information but otherwise, we'll just have a wait.

1) All quotes from an Intelligence Summit press release.