Walter Pincus leads off with yet another story from an Ex—CIA official whining about the Administration not taking the professionals' sage advice.  This time, the whiner is Paul R.Pillar:

"The former CIA official who coordinated U.S. intelligence on the Middle East until last year has accused the Bush administration of 'cherry—picking' intelligence on Iraq to justify a decision it had already reached to go to war, and of ignoring warnings that the country could easily fall into violence and chaos after an invasion to overthrow Saddam Hussein."

Pillar was the top analyst at the CounterTerrorismCenter for most of the 1990s.  In April 2001, he published a book, Terrorism and U.S. Foreign Policy (published by the Brookings Institution). In this book he argued that weapons of mass destruction were less likely to pose a threat than more conventional threats, that terrorism would not ever go away, and that we should work instead to contain it.

He opposed tough approaches to terrorism as too simplistic, arguing for  international cooperation and diplomacy. He obviously would be a man more comfortable with John Kerry or any other Democrat in the White House than he would be with the President America twice elected.

Pillar has long been a front line warrior in the CIA's war on President Bush.  

As to his "cherrypicking" charge, just in case you forgot, Pillar's boss,the head of the CIA, told the President the WMD issue was a "slam dunk".  And the only question I recall which elicited that assurance was "Are you sure?" 

In any event, this latest Pincus offering, reminds me of  another ex—CIA official, Larry Johnson, who in July, 2001 said terrorism wasn't a big threat in an op ed in the New York Times just before terrorists attacked us. And then made a splash again claiming Valerie Plame had been "outed" in retaliation and her career ruined———claims as solid as his assertion that terrorism posed no threat to the U.S.

Clarice Feldman   2 10 06