As the Second Gulf War begins to fade into history, a consensus is emerging about the role of intelligence in shaping the George W. Bush administration's decision to launch a preventive strike against Iraq. There is agreement that US and UK intelligence estimates were flawed. The finding that Iraq had ongoing chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons programs was based on the slimmest evidence, which also happened to be wrong. Evidence that Saddam Hussein was restarting his nuclear program reverberated in intelligence estimates, policy memoranda, and public statements, while information that Iraq's weapons of mass destruction programs were moribund failed to gain much traction within intelligence and policy circles. The irony lurking behind this instance of intelligence failure is that most observers, including the contributors to Intelligence and National Security Policymaking on Iraq, believe that these flawed estimates had little to do with the Bush administration's decision to attack the Ba'athist regime. Intelligence was used to build support within the British and American governments to pursue regime change in Iraq. Intelligence was used to bolster a policy choice, not to choose policy.

The breakdown in the traditional relationship between intelligence and policy evidenced in the run-up to the invasion of Iraq probably has more to do with the situation faced by the British and American governments in the aftermath of the 9/11 terrorist attacks than with the personalities of key decision-makers. The decision to attack was a political one, based on the judgment that the United States and Great Britain would be more secure, and the cause of peace in the Middle East would be better served, if Saddam Hussein was no longer in charge in Baghdad. Once this decision had been made, information that supported regime change was welcomed, while information that called this policy into question was ignored, a situation that was recognized at the time by senior intelligence officials. Intelligence communities might have produced flawed estimates that suffered from sloppy methodology and poor tradecraft, but officials had no incentive to raise issues of quality and rigor when it came to a policy decision that had already been made.

The contributors to this volume also touch upon a dilemma faced by those contemplating preventive war: if they wait for definitive information about the opponent, the opportunity to launch a preventive attack will probably be lost. Definitive proof will only come after a nuclear, chemical, or biological weapon is used against some civilian or military target. Under these circumstances, intelligence will always be more suggestive than definitive. Although the case for war was built on a flimsy factual foundation, once the political decision was made to move forward, there was little in intelligence estimates that might have forced British or American leaders to reconsider their plans.

The contributors to this outstanding volume understand this dilemma, even though they do hold out some hope that better intelligence might have derailed the Second Gulf War. Their narratives tell a fascinating, informed, and persuasive story about how intelligence communities on both sides of the Atlantic produced flawed estimates, how policymakers used those estimates to support their policies, and how governments attempted to understand what went wrong after it was discovered that Saddam's chemical, biological, and nuclear programs were shut down. The contributors to Intelligence and National Security Policymaking on Iraq have produced a balanced and insightful survey of how policy and intelligence communities interacted on the issue of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction. They also demonstrate that the intelligence community will find it difficult to change policy once a government chooses a course of action.