Outsourcing Intelligence

http://www.harpers.org/archive/2007/07/hbc-90000450

Beginning in 2002, it was apparent that Rumsfeld and Cheney had jointly developed a plan aimed at shifting the center of gravity in the U.S. intelligence community away from the Central Intelligence Agency and towards the Pentagon. In a sense it was always there. The portion of the national intelligence budget claimed by the Defense Department always dwarfed the CIA’s cut. Nevertheless, the CIA had the edge in analytical areas that mattered to Rumsfeld and Cheney. Among other things, these areas were essential to making a case for a war against Iraq. As we now know, the CIA and the National Intelligence Council had been skeptical of claims advanced and pushed by Cheney and Rumsfeld about Iraqi capabilities in the area of weapons of mass destruction.