Whether or how our national leadership should be held accountable for having inaccurately asserted, at war's outset, that Iraq was armed with weapons of mass destruction is ultimately a matter for the politicians to debate and the electorate to resolve. But two consequences with ominous implications for our national security call for a more urgent response: U.S. credibility worldwide has been badly hurt by the WMD affair, and U.S. intelligence capabilities have been exposed as woefully inadequate.
America is preponderant in the world today, but it is not omnipotent. Thus America must have the capacity, when needed, to mobilize the genuine and sincere support of other countries, particularly of its closest allies. It can do so only if it is trusted.
That U.S. credibility has been hurt is indisputable. It is a serious matter when the world's No. 1 superpower undertakes a war claiming a casus belli that turns out to have been false. Numerous public opinion polls demonstrate there has been a worldwide drop in support for U.S. foreign policy. There is manifest resentment of recent American conduct and a pervasive distrust of America's leaders, even in countries that have participated in the coalition in Iraq. Trust is an essential ingredient of power, and its loss bears directly on our long-term national security. An America that is preponderant but distrusted is an America internationally weakened.
The first line of homeland defense as well as the point of departure for an effective global security policy is reliable and internationally credible U.S. intelligence. The sad fact is that in the Iraq crisis U.S. intelligence was not up to par. There are many reasons for that failure, but the most obvious one is the absence of an effective human clandestine intelligence service, compounded by excessive reliance on foreign intelligence services (the Niger uranium fabrications being a case in point).
Over the years the United States has been remarkably innovative in technological-scientific intelligence aimed at the Soviet Union, whose arsenal also depended heavily on science and technology. Consequently, the United States was well informed about the scale, deployments and even war plans of its most likely strategic opponent.
Regarding Iraq, the opposite has been the case. The United States, we now know, was uninformed not only about the level of Iraqi military capabilities but also about Iraqi military and political planning. That indicates the means used to define with reasonable accuracy the nature and scale of the Soviet arsenal were not helpful in deciphering Saddam Hussein's relatively backward military capabilities or in penetrating his primitive regime, even though it was hated by significant portions of the Iraqi population.
There is no excuse for the inadequacy of the intelligence that provided the background for the decision-making and the articulation of U.S. policy. Though an autocracy, Iraq was a much more porous state than the totalitarian Soviet Union had been. It was certainly much more porous than contemporary North Korea. The misjudgments made and the imprecision of the information provided, based (we now know) largely on extrapolations and hypothetical conclusions, are just not acceptable. The evident shortcomings of U.S. intelligence, if allowed to persist, pose too many risks for the future.
Today, in the more diffused post-Cold War circumstances, access to reliable political intelligence derived from high-level human penetration of potential adversaries is the essential requirement of responsible and globally credible strategic policymaking. It is therefore a matter of high national urgency that several steps be promptly taken to give our national decision makers a more reliable basis for shaping policies that command international support:
• The administration should candidly acknowledge that the United States was misinformed about the state and level of Iraqi armaments, a fact already quite evident to much of the world. Continued evasion on this subject is a disservice to America.
• A shake-up of leadership in the intelligence community is needed and appropriate; measures to that end should be promptly taken. Accountability is needed to restore credibility.
• A small committee of experienced individuals trusted by the administration (hence not including its critics, such as the undersigned) should be tasked on a short deadline to present the president a plan for changing the priorities and the modus operandi of the intelligence community, with high emphasis on the development of an effective clandestine service.
Our national security is too much at risk for the issue to be handled in a traditional fashion. The usual reliance on a comprehensive review by a high-level commission working at a leisurely pace would not be an adequate response. Sweeping the matter under a rug would be even worse. A globally preponderant power, if blind, can only lash out when it senses danger. America's leadership in the world calls for something better than that. For the world at large, America's word should again be America's bond.
The writer was national security adviser to President Jimmy Carter. His latest book, "The Choice: Domination or Leadership," is to be published this month.
