CNN.com - Report slams CIA for Iraq intelligence failures

In a highly critical report issued Friday, the U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee found that the CIA's prewar estimates of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction were overstated and unsupported by intelligence.

Committee Chairman Pat Roberts, R-Kansas, told reporters that intelligence used to support the invasion of Iraq was based on assessments that were "unreasonable and largely unsupported by the available intelligence."

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"Before the war, the U.S. intelligence community told the president as well as the Congress and the public that Saddam Hussein had stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons and if left unchecked would probably have a nuclear weapon during this decade," Roberts said.

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Sen. Jay Rockefeller, the leading Democrat on the panel, said that "bad information" was used to bolster the case for war.

"We in Congress would not have authorized that war with 75 votes if we knew what we know now," the West Virginia Democrat said.

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Roberts listed several points emphasized in the October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate that were "overstated or "not supported by the raw intelligence reporting," including:

# Iraq was reconstituting its nuclear program.

# Iraq had chemical and biological weapons.

# Iraq was developing an unmanned aerial vehicle, probably intended to deliver biological warfare agents.

# The research, development and production of Iraq's offensive biological weapons program was active and that most elements were larger and more advanced than they were before the Persian Gulf War.

He also said the intelligence community failed to "accurately or adequately explain the uncertainties behind the judgments in the October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate to policymakers."

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"The committee found no evidence that the intelligence community's mischaracterization or exaggeration of intelligence on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction capabilities was the result of politics or pressure," Roberts said.

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Roberts also called intelligence failures before the war "global" and not confined to the United States.