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Dems: Bush Ignored Spy Agency Prewar Warnings of Iraq Perils

Democrats on a deeply divided Senate Intelligence Committee on Friday accused the Bush administration of ignoring preinvasion warnings from the nation’s spy agencies that a war in Iraq could be followed by violence and division and that it could strengthen the hands of Al Qaeda and of Iran.

“Sadly, the administration’s refusal to heed these dire warnings, and worse, to plan for them, has led to tragic consequences for which our nation is paying a terrible price,” said Senator John D. Rockefeller IV of West Virginia, the Democratic chairman. His was one of many dueling statements accompanying a long-awaited 226-page committee report on the intelligence agencies’ prewar predictions of the effects of toppling Saddam Hussein.

Republicans said the report exaggerated the prescience of the intelligence agencies.
Read entire article at NYT