Social Sciences Case Study: What were the most important factors in the collection and analysis of intelligence that led to the failure to correctly assess the Iraqi WMD program?

What were the most important factors in the collection and analysis of intelligence that led to the failure to correctly assess the Iraqi WMD program?
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Introduction
In 2003, the United States of America public was informed that invading Iraq was aimed at eliminating the threat that Saddam Hussein posed to the Americans because he possessed Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD). However, the invasion and the justification given for the same remains the most controversial event in Bush’s administration as it focused on ‘war on terror’. Bush’s administration did not find any WMD in Iraq, implying that the threat was illusory and not imminent, and the U.S has continued paying a heavy price in treasure, blood, and diplomatic stature for what has been described as unnecessary action. Despite the damage imposed on Iraq including thousands of deaths, the WMD program was a great failure as the prewar assessments by Bush’s administration were wide off the mark.
Reasons for the Failure of the WMD Program
Collection failures were one of the major causes of the WMD program failure. According to Phythian (2006), the Senate Select Committee concluded that intelligence collection as one of the causes of the failure of the WMD intelligence. This was also supported by the findings of the Silberman-Robb report (2005), which concluded that there was no adequate information for the Intelligence Community to analyze and disseminate. Collectors and analysts relied on past assumptions and inferences that had been drawn based on the past intentions and behaviors of Iraq. The Intelligence Committee also over relied on the UNSCOM inspectors in the period 1991-1998 and failed to use the period to establish HUMINT sources to replace the inspectors if they departed. As such, this means that the Intelligence Committee failed to perform its duties effectively, leading to over reliance on old assumptions and lack of sources to replace any departed inspectors.
The groupthink diagnosis and analytical failures also contributed to the WMD program. Phythian (2006) adds that the U.S Intelligence Community (IC) analysts should take responsibility of the failed WMD program in Iraq. This was also supported by the findings of the Senate Select Committee and Silberman-Robb Report. The Senate Select Committee noted that the IC concluded that Iraq was reconstituting its nuclear power program, but there was no intelligence to support this assessment. Despite the intelligence showing evidence of the purchase of dual-use equipment, there was no proof that the equipment was meant for use in a nuclear program (U.S. Congress 2004 cited by Phythian (2006)). Silberman-Robb (2005), as cited by Phythian (2006), added that the analysts failed to question the assumptions made and correctly apply their tradecraft as further contributions to the WMD program failure. This also implies that the Intelligence Community failed to authenticate the documents, paucity in information collection, and errors in factual and technical analysis by the Committee contributed to the failure of the program.
Organizational and management failures further added to the WMD program failure. According to the Senate Select Committee Report, the U.S Intelligence Community IC managers failed to use established mechanisms to challenge the assumptions that they used about Iraq. For instance, the managers did not use ‘devil’s advocacy’ or ‘red teams’ approaches, which would otherwise have enabled competing analyses. This also means that the managers failed to honor their duty of encouraging the analysts to challenge the assumptions at their disposal, fully considering alternative arguments other than the assumptions, accurately characterizing the reporting of the intelligence, and that some of the analysts lost objectivity. The U.S. Congress (2004), as cited by Phythian (2006), adds that Human Intelligence (HUMINT) was excessively compartmentalized, and this inhibited efficient data and information analysis. The process that the U.S Intelligence Community (IC) uses in calculating the risks and benefits of sharing human intelligence that is rather sensitive is excessively skewed towards withholding information. In addition, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) failed to share crucial information with specialist agencies that could have helped in challenging the assumptions made in the process. The U.S Intelligence Community (IC) failed to include known dissenting opinions from other categories of the U.S Intelligence Community (IC) in the assessments; the views could have been used in challenging the dominant assumptions made during the WMD program. In some instances, assessments which conformed to the assumptions that dominated the decisions made during the WMD program bypassed the specialist agencies that should gave challenged them. As such, the assumptions were implemented without being subjected to challenge.
Poor prewar invasion planning and WMD assessment further contributed to intelligence failure of the WMD program. As mentioned by Fitzgerald and Lebow (2006), the two issues paint an image of Bush’s administration as one that was infatuated with the fallacious potential of its strength power, ideology, and contemptuous of any critic who did not support their vision. This also explains why the administration did not take any criticism or challenges by those who did not agree with the U.S Intelligence Community (IC)’s vision. The administration was always ready to ignore and manipulate analysis and intelligence, run activities without proper invasion planning, and exclusively ...