The work of America’s spy agencies before the war with Iraq won’t look pretty when the U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee releases findings on failures that led to the shaky conclusion Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, according to the committee’s chairman.

“Our report does not paint a flattering picture of the performance of our intelligence community when it comes to developing prewar assessments,” U.S. Sen. Pat Roberts, R-Kan., said Thursday.

Roberts said the 315-page report would be released in late March or early April.

In an address to a Lawrence Chamber of Commerce luncheon at the Dole Institute of Politics, Roberts said intelligence developed by the United States and other international spy agencies was “a collective failure.”

“There was very little difference in what our intelligence had in regard to Iraq’s having WMDs and what Israeli, British, French, Russian or U.N. intelligence had,” Roberts said.

He dismissed reports that the Bush administration pressured intelligence officials into exaggerating Iraq’s prowess.

“We’ve found no evidence of that,” Roberts said, noting committee staff had interviewed 210 analysts.

“We’ve let it be known that if there’s anybody out there who felt coerced or pressured, we want them to please come forward,” he said, adding that committee staff even searched left-wing sites on the Internet for analysts with firsthand knowledge of intelligence tampering.

“We’ve not found any,” he said.

U.S. Sen. Pat Roberts

Roberts said he was especially troubled by the intelligence community’s off-the-mark predictions on postwar Iraq’s ability to govern itself.

“I thought there were WMDs in Iraq — so did every intelligence community in the world. And I was all for (invading Iraq),” he said. “But the question that bothered me was ‘OK, what if we win? How do we deal with that?'”

“Let’s just say it didn’t work like we thought — there, that’ll be my understatement of the day,” he said.

Responding to questions, Roberts:

• Defended the USA Patriot Act. “I understand the concerns over the perceived loss of civil liberties, and we don’t want to do that,” he said. “But I also know there are sleeper cells — some of which are no longer sleeping — in every state of the union. We have to be vigilant.”
• Supported lifting trade sanctions against Cuba. “I truly believe that would hasten the departure of Fidel (Castro),” he said.
• Said he doubted any military bases in Kansas were targeted for closure, though the mission of Forbes Air Force Base in Topeka might be redefined.