After October 7, 2002: Administration Neoconservatives Purge Intelligence Community of Undesirables

Senior Bush neoconservatives, angry at the US intelligence community’s refusal to allow the Iraq-Niger uranium deal allegations into President Bush’s Cincinnati speech (see October 5, 2002 and October 6, 2002), begin purging “troublesome” intelligence analysts. One such victim is Bruce Hardcastle (see Early 2002), the DIA’s intelligence officer for the Middle East, South Asia, and Counterterrorism. Hardcastle has challenged Bush officials, telling them “that the way they were handling evidence was wrong.” In retaliation, not only does Hardcastle lose his job, but his position is eliminated entirely. DIA analyst Patrick Lang will later recall: “They wanted just liaison officers who were junior. They didn’t want a senior intelligence officer who argued with them.” Lang will recall Hardcastle saying, “I couldn’t deal with these people.” Lang continues: “They are such ideologues that they know what the outcome should be.… They start with an almost psuedo-religious faith. They wanted the intelligence agencies to produce material to show a threat, particularly an imminent threat. Then they worked back to prove their case. It was the opposite of what the process should have been like, that the evidence should prove the case.” [Unger, 2007, pp. 262-263]