From a BBC Panorama story:
But not all the intelligence was wrong. Information from two highly-placed sources close to Saddam Hussein was correct.
Both said Iraq did not have any active WMD.
[…]
Ex-CIA man Bill Murray was not happy with the way the intelligence from these two highly-placed sources had been used.
“I thought we’d produced probably the best intelligence that anybody produced in the pre-war period, all of which came out – in the long run – to be accurate. The information was discarded and not used.”
It wasn’t used because it wasn’t politically convenient to an administration hellbent on war.
Funny, the article says they honestly believed Saddam had WMDs, which contradicts your claim. If they’d rejected it merely because of political inconvenience, they wouldn’t have actually believed it.
That’s one interpretation, but I disagree with it. It’s not necessarily that there was a conscious decision to lie, but that there was a culture of thinking that there must be something there, and rewarding those who came up with any intelligence in that direction, however flimsy.
Most of Saddam’s top generals also thought he still had WMDs. They were very surprised when he told them he didn’t have any. Saddam bears the blame for fooling everyone into thinking he still had them. Of course, there’s also evidence that Saddam DID have them until he shipped them out of the country right before the US invasion, w/ Russia’s help…