Who at the CIA knew what, and when did they know it?

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Secretary of State Colin Powell appeared before the U.N. Security Council on Feb. 5 and, with the help of reconnaissance photos and audiotapes, made a powerful case that Saddam Hussein's Iraq possessed hundreds of tons of chemical weapons and other unconventional arms. Seated behind Powell during that dramatic presentation was the man who supplied the photos and tapes, CIA Director George Tenet.
Today, more than two months after Operation Iraqi Freedom began and four weeks after President Bush stood on the deck of the Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier and announced the end of major combat operations in Iraq, not a single ounce of these weapons has been found. Only the most tentative evidence of their manufacture has been discovered. What gives?
The CIA recently began an internal examination to answer that key question. Specifically, a team of four retired CIA officers will scrutinize reports prepared by the intelligence community -- evidence that constituted the chief justification for the war -- and compare them with what has been found. So important is this investigation that its results should be shared with the House and Senate intelligence committees and, insofar as possible, with the American people. (Protection of intelligence sources and methods may require that some information be kept secret.)
Things might change
The disconnect between the prewar allegations and the postwar discoveries may be only temporary. U.S. forces have found tractor trailers with laboratory equipment in them -- possibly used in the past to make biological arms -- and administration officials continue to say weapons arsenals eventually will be found. Some may have been spirited out of Iraq or hastily destroyed in the first hours of the war. Still, captured Iraqi scientists and others in a position to know the weapons' whereabouts continue to insist they never existed.
There have been disturbing reports that CIA analysts were pressured by senior Defense Department officials and others to produce reports justifying the administration's stance on Iraq. Is this true? Was the intelligence community politicized? More bluntly: Was Powell fed doctored information? And did he unknowingly feed it to the United Nations, the United States and the world?
Obviously, answering in the affirmative at this point would be wildly premature and irresponsible. Even if nothing is found, the intelligence community, unprodded by outsiders, may have been guilty of making bad judgments and reaching faulty conclusions. But the questions need to be asked, and the CIA deserves to know the answers. So does Congress. And so do the American people.