Serious doubts were raised by the four men's legal team today in opening statements about the credibility of the intelligence reports.
Among other reasons, according to a CIA Information Management Services statement: "To promote an understanding of the intelligence information that has helped shaped major US foreign policy decisions".
Mr. Kellems said Mr. Cheney's public statements had "reflected the evolving judgment of the intelligence community, as briefed to him by the Central Intelligence Agency".
In his letter Blix stressed that while the dossier took some of its data straight from UN reports, much of it consisted of statements such as "As a result of the intelligence, we judge that Iraq has weapons … deployable within 45 minutes".
But like many of his counterparts around the country, as well as in New York and Washington, Mr. Zipp said that a secondary factor had influenced his paper's coverage: the shifting statements from officials about the freshness of the intelligence on which the warnings were based.
As any responsible president would do, he made no saber rattling statements about the attack until all of the intelligence reports conclusively pointed to a systematic, planned attack, and identified who the likely attackers were.
Then, in a highly unusual move on Sunday, two Republican and two Democratic Senators released a joint statement calling for a full investigation of the intelligence reports that suggested Russia had interfered with this year's presidential election.
The statement said the intelligence had not given details about the method, place or timing of a possible attack.
The officials declined to discuss the key judgments -- concise, carefully written statements of intelligence analysts' conclusions -- included in the document.
All the heads of the intelligence agencies put out statements exonerating the government.
