January 2003-March 17, 2003: CIA Provides Centcom with Target Intelligence, but It Is ‘Crap’

The CIA provides Centcom with intelligence for the purpose of planning targets in Iraq. But Centcom sources later tell Newsweek the intelligence was extremely poor. It “was crap,” a Centcom planner later tells Newsweek. Another source tells the magazine that the sites the agency suggests for targeting are for the most part the same ones that were bombed during the First Gulf War. While the CIA has satellite photos of the buildings to be targeted, it turns out they know little about them. “What was inside the structures was another matter,” says the source. “We asked, ‘Well, what agents are in these buildings? Because we need to know.’ And the answer was, ‘We don’t know.’” [Newsweek, 6/9/2003 Sources: Unnamed Centcom planner]