Updated December 2008

How do states develop foreign policy to reduce the risk of WMD use? First, states try to gather as much information as they can about states or non-state actors suspected of involvement in WMD-related activities. Nearly every state in the world has some form of intelligence-gathering capabilities, otherwise known as national assets, ranging anywhere from human sources to advanced satellite technology. In the United States, for example, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) is responsible for the recruitment of foreign agents to spy on behalf of the U.S. government.  This form of intelligence gathering is called human intelligence (HUMINT).  Other national agencies, like the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA), and the National Security Agency (NSA) are responsible for imagery (IMINT) and signals (SIGINT) intelligence, respectively.  SIGINT consists of information gathered from communications, like computers and cell phones. The satellites used to collect the information used by these and other agencies are produced and maintained by the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO). The various agencies and offices that are involved in the intelligence process comprise what is called the Intelligence Community (IC). Each member of the IC (presently there are 15 member organizations in the U.S. Intelligence Community) is tasked with individual responsibilities, but also work together to provide a comprehensive picture so analysts can make accurate assessments of another state's or non-state actor's intentions and capabilities with respect to WMD.      

Other states, like Great Britain, France, and Russia also have extensive intelligence-gathering capabilities, but each vary in terms of organizational structure and access to advanced satellite technology. Nevertheless, the intelligence-gathering capabilities of states concerned with WMD proliferation engage in similar processes of intelligence collection and analysis. In general, a state's national assets are used to collect information deemed by policy-makers to be critical to national security. That information is then processed and analyzed to determine if a state is in fact engaging in illicit WMD activities. Finished assessments of the analyses are then passed along to policy-makers in government, who may in turn pass the information on to international organizations like the International Atomic Energy Agency or Organization for the Prevention of Chemical Weapons. Leaders can then make informed policy decisions based on the information they receive from the intelligence community. 

Some of the questions that state leaders may task their intelligence services to find answers to include: Which countries or groups are trying to get WMD? How much progress are they making? Which countries may be helping them? If they already have WMD, how fast are their arsenals growing? Do they seek to  threaten their immediate neighbors or the international community at large?

The intelligence services of most states are precluded from making or otherwise unduly influencing the processes of policy formulation and implementation. This way, heads of states can be assured to the greatest extent possible that the intelligence they are receiving is objective and thorough. The separation of intelligence gathering and policymaking helps prevent the assumptions that leaders have about the intentions and capabilities of other states from guiding the work of the intelligence community and perhaps slanting final assessments.

Inherent Fallibility of Intelligence. While no intelligence in the world is infallible, intelligence services attempt to collect information from a variety of reliable sources to ensure that finished intelligence products are as accurate as possible. By corroborating data from different sources, reasonable assumptions can be made regarding the credibility of the intelligence received. Despite the best efforts to gather comprehensive, timely, and credible intelligence, however, sometimes mistakes are made and intelligence services get it wrong. For example, intelligence once thought to be from a trustworthy source could later be found unreliable. In other cases, intelligence may not be properly corroborated against the backdrop of contrasting information, or may be taken out of context. Conclusions may be reached out of human error or misapplied.

Overall, analysts and policy-makers alike assign value to data they receive based on preconceived interpretations of how particular states operate within the international system. Often times, analysts are required to draw conclusions based on incomplete information, and even the validity of the limited information available may be questionable. As a result, analysts sometimes engage in "mirror-imaging," which means that information is perceived and processed through the filter of one's own experiences. If these perceptions are misinformed, or misguided, it will inevitably result in faulty conclusions, which means that leaders presented with these conclusions may unknowingly make poor decisions. Conversely, even the most accurate intelligence in the world will not do any good if it is ignored or misapplied by the leaders and international organizations that receive it. Both policy-makers and analysts alike are subject to the same limitations of human cognition and interpretation.

In December 2007, the U.S. government issued an intelligence report on Iran that significantly deviated from earlier reports finding that Iran was pursuing a nuclear weapon. The 2007 U.S. National Intelligence Report on Iran concluded that Iran's military nuclear program was no longer active and likely had been suspended since 2003. In an unclassified summary of the report, the National Intelligence Council found that the program was suspended in the fall of 2003 as a result of international scrutiny. However, the report also noted Iran's continued uranium enrichment program and estimated that Iran could produce a nuclear weapon between 2010 and 2015 if it were to choose to do so. Based on earlier assessments that Iran was actively seeking nuclear weapons, the United States has applied both unilateral and United Nations sanctions on Iran.

Debate over Iraq Intelligence. A debate has erupted over the alleged misuse of intelligence by British and U.S. sources to justify the U.S. invasion of Iraq.  A 2002 U.S. National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) claimed that Iraq was rebuilding its nuclear weapon program, actively pursuing chemical and biological weapons, and had developed missiles with ranges that violated United Nations restrictions. However, thorough inspections and investigations by the 1,200 member Iraq Survey Group (ISG) after the 2003 U.S.-led invasion, turned up no evidence that Iraq had active weapons of mass destruction programs. In October 2004, the United States released a 918-page report (called the "Duelfer Report" after its author) with the ISG's findings. The report concludes that the 1991 Gulf War and subsequent UN sanctions and inspections destroyed Iraq's ability to build a nuclear weapon program and eliminated its long-range missile inventory and production capability. The report also states that Iraq abandoned its interest in biological weapons in the mid-1990s, and Iraq has no production facilities for chemical weapons or the key precursors to such weapons. Given the Duelfer Report's findings, the 2002 NIE, which was pivotal in President Bush's decision to invade Iraq, was incorrect in its primary conclusions.  A March 2005 report to the U.S. President that assesses the intelligence failure in Iraq states:

The failure was in large part the result of analytical shortcomings; intelligence analysts were too wedded to their assumptions about Saddam's intentions. But it was also a failure on the part of those who collect intelligence--CIA's and Defense Intelligence Agency's (DIA) spies, the National Security Agency's (NSA) eavesdroppers, and the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency's (NGA) imagery experts. In the end, those agencies collected precious little intelligence for the analysts to analyze, and much of what they did collect was either worthless or misleading. Finally, it was a failure to communicate effectively with policymakers; the Intelligence Community didn't adequately explain just how little good intelligence it had--or how much its assessments were driven by assumptions and inferences rather than concrete evidence. (Overview, p. 3)

The report then offers recommendations for reforming the Intelligence Community based on the lessons learned from the Iraq mistakes. A similar report (The Butler Report) by a British commission charged with investigating WMD intelligence criticizes British intelligence with respect to Iraq, and particularly the government's failure to point out the limitations of the information it relied on when joining the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq.

In June 2008, after a five-year investigation, the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence released the final phases of a report finding that the Bush administration deliberately used faulty intelligence about Iraq’s alleged WMD programs to justify the U.S. invasion of that country in March 2003.