Iraq Intelligence Commission

The Commission on the Intelligence Capabilities of the United States Regarding Weapons of Mass Destruction is a panel created by Executive Order 13328, signed by U.S. President George W. Bush in February 2004.

[1][2][3] The impetus for the Commission lay with a public controversy occasioned by statements, including those of Chief of the Iraq Survey Group, David Kay, that the Intelligence Community had grossly erred in judging that Iraq had been developing weapons of mass destruction (WMD) before the March 2003 start of Operation Iraqi Freedom.

Chief among these flaws were "an analytical process that was driven by assumptions and inferences rather than data", failures by certain agencies to gather all relevant information and analyze fully information on purported centrifuge tubes, insufficient vetting of key sources, particularly the source "Curveball," and somewhat overheated presentation of data to policymakers.

With regard to Iraq, the commission was meant to "specifically examine the Intelligence Community's intelligence prior to the initiation of Operation Iraqi Freedom and compare it with the findings of the Iraq Survey Group and other relevant agencies or organizations concerning the capabilities, intentions, and activities of Iraq relating to the design, development, manufacture, acquisition, possession, proliferation, transfer, testing, potential or threatened use, or use of Weapons of Mass Destruction and related means of delivery."

Days before the American commission was announced, the government of the United Kingdom, the U.S.'s primary ally during the Iraq War, announced a similar commission to investigate British intelligence, known as the Butler Inquiry or the Butler Review.