The Bush administration's briefings on the "slam dunk" certainty that the US would find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, now universally discredited, dog the Obama administration's claims that its intelligence to justify airstrikes in Syria is credible.
Today's Congress must make a decision about use of force in Syria "in the shadow of the war in Iraq, which included a political mortal sin that misled people to war," says Sen. Richard Durbin (D) of Illinois, the assistant majority leader, who backs the Obama administration on Syria.
To most Americans, distrust of the Obama intelligence on Syria is largely a reflection of the discredited Bush claims. But increasingly, the news media and some members of Congress are questioning Obama claims, as well.
One issue is whether intelligence proves that the Assad regime ordered the use of chemical weapons against its own people on Aug. 21. In an unclassified intelligence assessment made public on Aug. 30, the Obama administration says that it has "high confidence" that that is the case.
"We assess that the scenario in which the opposition executed the attack on August 21 is highly unlikely," the report concludes. "The body of information used to make this assessment includes intelligence pertaining to the regime’s preparations for this attack and its means of delivery, multiple streams of intelligence about the attack itself and its effect, our post-attack observations, and the differences between the capabilities of the regime and the opposition."
But the Obama administration's unclassified assessment does not include the satellite imagery or transcripts that marked then-Secretary of State Colin Powell's case before the United Nations that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. The evidence was later discredited but was, at least, presented to the public with enough specificity to make such debunking possible.
British members of Parliament cited doubts about intelligence on Aug. 29, before rejecting, 272 to 285, participation alongside the US in airstrikes against Syria. Now US critics are challenging whether the Obama administration has, in fact, "cherry-picked" the intelligence or, at least, failed to provide the satellite images or the actual text of military intercepts to back up its claims.
To counter such concerns, the administration needs to release the intercepted messages and satellite images that show that the Assad regime was preparing for a chemical weapons attack on the eve of Aug. 21 or that missiles were launched from Assad-controlled territory, critics say.
Critics also charge that Kerry's characterization of the Syrian opposition as increasingly dominated by moderates is at odds with other intelligence reports.
"Who are the rebel forces?" said Rep. Michael McCaul (R) of Texas, who chairs the House Homeland Security Committee. "Every time I get briefed on this, it gets worse and worse because the majority now of these rebel forces – and I say majority now – are radical Islamists pouring in from all over the world to come to Syria for the fight."
"Are the rebel forces, the extremists, going to take over not only the government but these weapons? Because they are the ones most likely to use these weapons against Americans in the United States," he added at a Sept. 4 hearing.
"There's no clarity," said Hagel, in response. "Every point you made, the complications of the various terrorist groups which we have noted are there.... [But] we are seeing some movement ... in the right direction."
Another point not clear in the unclassified version of the US intelligence assessment is why on Aug. 21, with United Nations inspectors on the ground in Syria, the Assad regime chose to launch a chemical weapons attack. The British intelligence assessment, released Aug. 29 by the British Joint Intelligence Organisation, made a similar point: "The JIC had high confidence in all of its assessments except in relation to the regime's precise motivation for carrying out an attack of this scale at this time, although intelligence may increase our confidence in the future."
