Bush Ignored Cia Advice on Iraq, Says Former Spy

The CIA official in charge of intelligence on the Middle East until last year has accused the Bush administration of ignoring assessments that sanctions and weapons inspections were the best way to deal with Saddam Hussein, and that an invasion would have a "messy aftermath".

In an article in the next edition of the bimonthly journal, Foreign Affairs, Paul Pillar, has become the highest-ranking CIA official from the prewar period to accuse the White House of manipulating the intelligence on Iraq’s alleged weapons of mass destruction.

The allegations contradict the findings of two official inquiries into the intelligence debacle, which have largely blamed the CIA and absolved the administration. They also emerged on the day it was reported that Lewis Libby, a former aide to Vice-President Dick Cheney, had told a grand jury that he had been "ordered" by "his superiors" to leak classified WMD information to the press to bolster the case for going to war.

The White House made no direct response to Mr Pillar’s claims. Mr Pillar said the White House had simply ignored intelligence that did not conform with its intention to invade. "It went to war without requesting - and evidently without being influenced by - any strategic-level intelligence assessments on any aspect of Iraq." The "broadly held" intelligence assessment, he said, was that the best way to deal with the weapons problem was through an aggressive inspections program to supplement the sanctions already in place.

"If the entire body of official intelligence analysis on Iraq had a policy implication, it was to avoid war - or, if war was going to be launched, to prepare for a messy aftermath."

Mr Pillar said a CIA assessment of the implications of a US-led occupation had "presented a picture of a political culture that would not provide fertile ground for democracy and foretold a long, difficult, and turbulent transition", including guerrilla attacks and sectarian conflict.