Isenberg explains that it is critical that lessons from the WMD intelligence failures over Iraq be reviewed and understood if we are to avoid similar mistakes in the future. But the Commission's recommendations were not particularly impressive. Most involved initiatives that were already in the works before the Commission released its report, and doubts remain about how effective they will be. Had all the proposed reorganizations been in place four years ago, Isenberg explains, there is nothing to suggest that the intelligence agencies or the Bush administration would have reached more accurate conclusions.

The BASIC report finds that the Commission avoided dealing with the 'politics of intelligence': a problem that is likely to continue to fester.

The full report is available at http://www.basicint.org/pubs/Research/05WMD.pdf.

David Isenberg is a senior analyst at BASIC and a member of the Coalition for a Realistic Foreign Policy. His research interests include combating and controlling the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, especially biological weapons, the role of the U.S. intelligence community in contemporary security, and the conventional arms trade.