Intelligence Failures Proved Costly for Many

Re “U.S. Spy Efforts Face a New Round of Criticism,” March 28: It is humanly possible to make the mistake of misreading intelligence information regarding weapons of mass destruction.

What is absolutely not right is that in the process of that mistake you kill tens of thousands of people who had nothing to do with WMD. That you detain without trial many thousands of individuals who had nothing to do with WMD. That you torture and denigrate many hundreds and that you kill while in custody many dozens who also had nothing to do with WMD.

That is a war crime, not a mistake.

Pablo Behrens

London

We have a report on the shortcomings of U.S. intelligence that claims the American intelligence community provided faulty intelligence to the president, leading to an invasion of Iraq.

It was this faulty intelligence that led to the loss of nearly 1,600 U.S. soldiers (to date), tens of thousands wounded and who knows how many Iraqis killed or maimed.

Apparently, the administration thinks that most Americans have the intelligence of a jar of out-of-date mayonnaise.

There is ample evidence that President Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz and the rest of that gang simply wanted to invade Iraq -- maybe for its oil, maybe for postwar billions in profits for Halliburton, maybe for George II to fix something George I had left and thus prove himself -- and the intelligence community simply provided them with the rationale that they demanded.

This administration’s pattern of avoiding accountability, blaming others and most recently prosecuting grunt soldiers for carrying out their own policies is utterly shameful.

Ken Keaton

Lauderhill, Fla.

The only real U.S. intelligence failure on Iraq’s weapons programs was to have dismissed Hans Blix and his U.N. team’s precise assessment based on years of dedicated and incessant evaluation, inspection and dismantling of Saddam Hussein’s weapons programs.

I recall their last estimate, prior to being forced out of Iraq by the impending U.S. invasion, was that at least 95% of Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction were accounted for and/or destroyed.

The Bush administration would rather attack its own intelligence services than admit the obvious truth -- it didn’t matter what anyone said, it was going to take out Hussein and we are now paying an enormous price for this arrogant and criminal power play.

Robert Corsini

Los Angeles