Intelligence Estimates, Intelligence Assessments, Intelligence Reports Quotes

Could it be that all those reports coming from our own intelligence that Bush ignored was right all along? Could it be that the UN was right all along?

We've had no evidence that Saddam Hussein was involved with the September 11th.

… a brilliant but dangerous megalomaniac who is likely to pursue his own aims in disregard of U.S. interests

We have no reliable inside intelligence on thinking inside the Kremlin …. Our estimates of Soviet long range plans and intentions are speculations drawn from inadequate evidence.

When developing intelligence assessments, initial tactical reports often require additional collection and validation.

Moving from general intelligence to specific targets is the most difficult part of the intelligence business.

Every intelligence agency in the world believed that Saddam Hussein had had weapons of mass destruction, precursor chemicals. The inspectors, over a period of ten years, had managed to gain access to much of those precursor chemicals.

I was with the CIA for only three years. I worked in the Directorate of Operations, which is now called the National Clandestine Service. It's the part of the organization where the spies live. I didn't have much experience beyond the training.

Many intelligence reports in war are contradictory; even more are false, and most are uncertain.

There will be a significant terrorist attack in the coming weeks or months and the attack will be spectacular.

The remarkable failure in our time of political and military prediction. It is curious to reflect that out of al the ‘experts’ of all the schools, there was not a single one who was able to foresee so likely an event as the Russo-German Pact of 1939

To have or not to have [chemical weapons] is a possibility, but to depend on what media says is nonsense, or to depend on some of the reports of the intelligence is nonsense and that was proven when they invaded Iraq ten years ago and they said "Iraq has stockpiles of WMD" and it was proven after the invasion that this was false ; it was fraud. So, we can't depend on what one magazine wrote.

I was an intelligence officer, not a policy-maker.

The main points were: one, the amount of Israel's nuclear weapons, how many Israel had, that no one could predict or know, including the CIA. They were thinking about a number like 10 or 15. But I came out with a number between 150 to 200.

As an intelligence analyst you have to tell the president what you know, what you think you know and what you don’t know.

I do have reason to believe there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

The Chilcot report is damning. It exposes a litany of failures over a long period, including reliance on flawed intelligence assessments, lack of planning and insufficient foresight of obvious consequences. But the report also exposes a chilling lack of rigour and a political culture of deference.

I don't think the intelligence reports are all that hot. Some days I get more out of New York Times.

Some intelligence officers filed reports saying that this is a dangerous group, but at one level it was not forwarded, it was just ignored.

A clearer form of politicization (of intelligence) is the inconsistent review of analysis: reports that conform to policy preferences have an easier time making it through the gauntlet of coordination and approval than ones that do not.

I'm talking about the finding in October that is public now of 17 different intelligence agencies saying Russia tried to meddle with our elections.

There has been no case made - based on anything other than speculation - that Iraq poses a threat.

And I argued with that intelligence estimate and I think it is a responsibility of policymakers to use their best judgment on the basis of the intelligence they've received.

The simple truth is that the inspectors will never find anything the location of which has not been discovered through intelligence operations.

CIA Director George Tenet has now testified before the 9/11 commission and he said we are still making the same dumb mistakes, like leaving memos on the President's desk.