Since the real reasons for the war concerned Israel and oil, Cheney‘s neoconservatives needed a pretext. As Paul Wolfowitz explained in a phone interview with Vanity Fair:
“The truth is that for reasons that have a lot to do with the U.S. government bureaucracy we settled on the one issue that everyone could agree on which was weapons of mass destruction as the core reason, but — hold on one second… [Interupted by DOD attorney].” (05/09/2003)
The neocons (Richard Perle in particular) backed Chalabi who provided informants (e.g “curve ball”) and “information” to the CIA. Since the CIA tended to be skeptical, Feithand Wolfowitz created the “Office of Special Plans” in the Pentagon to “stovepipe” the “information” they liked up into the White House and Departments of Defense and State.
The final report on WMD requested by the President concluded (as described by its letter of transmittal) “the Intelligence Community was dead wrong in almost all of its pre-war judgments about Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction.“
