The CIA's Biggest Intelligence Failure with Michael Morrell

Summary

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Podcast Summary: The Rest Is Classified

Episode: The CIA's Biggest Intelligence Failure with Michael Morell
Date: May 12, 2026
Hosts: David McCloskey & Gordon Corera
Guest: Michael Morell (Former acting and deputy CIA Director)

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Overview

In this bonus episode, hosts David McCloskey and Gordon Corera welcome Michael Morell, a 33-year CIA veteran and former acting director, to dissect what is widely regarded as the CIA’s biggest intelligence failure: the pre-Iraq War judgments about weapons of mass destruction (WMDs). Through personal reflections and rigorous analysis, the trio discusses the intelligence process, key misjudgments, analytic biases, and parallels to current tensions in the Middle East. The episode offers a candid insider’s perspective on how and why the CIA misread Saddam Hussein’s intentions—and the lessons learned.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Framing the Episode

• Setting: The conversation takes place alongside a new series on Iraq's missing WMDs.
• Context: The episode is timely, as the US is engaged in a new conflict with Iran, echoing decisions and debates from 23 years ago.

2. Introduction of Michael Morell

• Professional Background: Morell served as both acting and deputy director of the CIA, was President Bush’s daily intelligence briefer during 9/11, and was present with President Obama during the Bin Laden raid (01:36–02:23).
• Personal Connection: David shares old photos and notes from Morell, illustrating their professional history and camaraderie (03:23–04:58).

3. Drawing Parallels: Iraq (2003) & Iran (2026)

• Politicization of Intelligence:

  • Morell points out that policymakers often overstate intelligence judgments to suit policy aims, both with Iraq and now Iran (05:33–06:43).
  • Notable Quote:

    “I’m pretty confident that Iran is not weeks away from a nuclear weapon... They might be weeks away from enriching uranium to weapons grade... that is very different than actually having a weapon.”
    —Michael Morell (05:56)

• Parallel Dynamics:

  • In both cases, intelligence is interpreted or exaggerated by politicians to justify action.

4. Iraq, 9/11, and Al Qaeda (2001–02)

• Immediate Post-9/11 Focus

  • Morell describes President Bush’s pre-existing focus on Iraq, including no-fly zones and weakened sanctions (07:19–09:00).
  • Notable Moment: Despite intense speculation, Bush did not fixate on linking Iraq to 9/11 attacks; when the claim lacked evidence, he let it go (09:00–10:07).
  • Quote:

    “We pretty firmly shut that down... George [Tenet] going even further and saying, it just doesn’t make any sense. In fact, if anybody’s involved here... it’s more likely the Iranians than the Iraqis.”
    —Michael Morell (08:30)

• The Prague Meeting Myth

  • CIA quickly debunked claims of 9/11 hijacker Mohammed Atta meeting with Iraqi intelligence: “Once we got to the bottom of it... there’s nothing here. The President let it go.” (09:26)

5. CIA’s Focus on Iraq Pre-2003: Collection & Analysis

• Operational Context

  • Even before 9/11, Iraq was a primary analytic focus, overshadowing Al Qaeda in resources (10:31–11:55).
  • Lack of embassy in Baghdad challenged intelligence collection, but Iraq was a “cool account” within the agency.

• Analytic Foundations

  • Judgments were often based on prior Iraqi WMD activity: previous use of chemical weapons, nuclear ambitions, and defiance of sanctions.

6. Layers of Analytic Biases

• Anchoring Bias: Analysts assumed Saddam had WMDs because he once had them and it was hard to imagine he’d willingly give them up.

• Confirmation Bias: New or ambiguous evidence was interpreted as confirmation of WMD presence.

• Temporal Bias: Most intelligence was outdated (pre-1998), yet analysts assumed it remained accurate in 2002 (12:19–13:55).

• Source Bias: More recent intelligence largely came from actors (like Kurdish groups) with their own incentives to exaggerate Iraq’s threat.

• Quote:

  “I don’t remember a failure, an analytic failure in the history of CIA that was littered with so many analytic biases as a rock wmd.”
  —Michael Morell (12:19)

• Memorable Moment:

  • The struggle to interpret satellite and signals intelligence, and the hosts’ tongue-in-cheek reference to the fading relevance of faxes, set a self-aware, almost rueful tone about intelligence work (13:50).

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Notable Quotes & Timestamps

• On Policy and Intelligence:

  “The administration has repeatedly suggested that [Iran] is closer [to a nuclear weapon] than I think the intelligence community thinks they are. And I think that’s a parallel. Right back to Iraq to justify action.”
  —Michael Morell (06:30)

• On Bush and Alleged Iraq–Al Qaeda Ties:

  “There was not an obsession in the Oval Office...with Iraq in the immediate aftermath of 9/11.”
  —Michael Morell (09:50)

• On Analytic Bias:

  “This thing is just littered with biases.”
  —Michael Morell (13:50)

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Important Segments & Timestamps

• Introduction and context setting: 00:52–02:23
• Michael Morell’s background and personal anecdotes: 02:23–05:09
• Current Iran conflict parallels: 05:09–06:43
• Bush, 9/11, and Iraq on the agenda: 06:43–10:07
• CIA analytic focus on Iraq prewar: 10:07–11:55
• Intelligence failure and analytic biases: 11:55–13:50

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Tone & Atmosphere

The episode mixes candid reminiscence, dry humor, and a reflective, analytical tone—balancing war stories with sobering lessons. The hosts and Morell eschew blame games, instead aiming for clarity about how institutional and cognitive shortcomings led to one of the CIA’s most consequential errors.

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In Summary:
This episode is a must-listen for anyone interested in intelligence, history, or the anatomy of institutional mistakes. Michael Morell’s behind-the-scenes candor offers not only insight into the CIA’s errors around Iraq, but timeless lessons about analysis, politics, and the human factors that shape world-changing decisions.

Transcript

[David]

For exclusive interviews, bonus episodes, ad free listening, early access to series first look at live show tickets, a weekly newsletter and discounted books. Join the declassified [e-mail] Some follow the noise.

[Michael Morell]

Bloomberg follows the money. Because behind every headline is a bottom line. Whether it's the funds fueling AI or crypto's trillion dollar swings. There's money side to every story. And when you see the money side, you understand what others miss. Get the money side of the story. Subscribe [e-mail].

[Gordon]

Welcome everybody, club members, new and old, secret squirrels red and gray to this spot, special bonus episode of the Declassified Club. We hope you've had a chance to listen. You've been enjoying the series which is underway on Iraq and its missing weapons of mass destruction.

[David]

They're still missing.

[Gordon]

They're still missing.

[David]

Still out there.

[Gordon]

Spoiler alert. To go alongside that, we have got some great interviews with people who were in the room when it all happened and as well as some Brits. David, we did think it made sense to have an American along as well. Not to make out that this was all a British disaster.

[David]

Which it was.

[Gordon]

Which it was.

[David]

Which it may have been a very British disaster.

[Gordon]

I'm sure we'll come to that. And we have one, don't we, David, who is at the heart of the CIA at the time?

[David]

We do. We are very lucky to have with us today Michael Morell, who is the former acting director and Deputy Director of the Central Intelligence agency. Michael spent 33 years at the CIA and in addition to those roles, he spent two years as the Director of Intelligence, the agency's top analyst. Michael's the only person who was both with President Bush on September 11, when al Qaeda burst into the American consciousness, and with President Obama on May 1, when Osama bin Laden was brought to justice. Michael has also teaser agreed to return for an episode on 9 11, which we will release later this year. Today he's the co founder and managing partner of a private global intelligence advisory firm called Ardwolf Global Solutions. He's also the author of a fantastic book on the fight against Al Qaeda. It's also a memoir. It's called the Great War of Our Time, An Insider's account of the CIA's fight against terrorism. I also found while I was reading Michael's bio that he apparently also has an Emmy. He's won an Emmy.

[Gordon]

Wow.

[Michael Morell]

Isn't that cool?

[David]

That's cool.

[Gordon]

Yeah.

[Michael Morell]

That's better than the Director's Award at CIA.

[David]

It's way better. It's Way better.

[Gordon]

What for?

[David]

It was for writing Winds of Change. Right. The Scorpion Song. Clandestine.

[Michael Morell]

Absolutely, absolutely.

[David]

Michael also, I should say, had the great fortune to review and edit many McCloskey authored analytic products, all of which were exceptionally illuminating, insightful, and very well written.

[Michael Morell]

I saw your potential as a fiction writer very early, David.

[David]

Yes.

[Gordon]

Yeah, he was making it up even then.

[David]

That's right, he was making it up. Exactly.

[Gordon]

This is like when you go back and you can get school reports on someone when they were young. It's like, it shows great promise, but doesn't, you know, do his homework properly.

[Michael Morell]

Actually, David, you were a very good analyst.

[David]

Thank you. Thank God the check is in the mail. I. I also went deep into the archives for this episode because I found that I actually have a picture which I'll show here, of this is me and. And Michael in December of 2008, where Michael is presenting me with a certificate that acknowledges that I've graduated from the Career Analyst Program at CIA.

[Michael Morell]

So my question when I look at that, David, is who's younger in that picture?

[David]

It's unclear.

[Michael Morell]

I look like I'm 12.

[David]

I look a lot younger than 12. I also dug up this one, which is a note from Michael. This is a very nice note congratulating me for yet another promotion at the Central Intelligence Agency.

[Gordon]

You actually got promoted, David. That's the news flash.

[David]

Someone promoted. I actually got promoted. That's right. That's right.

[Michael Morell]

So the story here, right, is when I became the head of analysis at CIA, one of the decisions I made is I would write a personal note to every analyst when they were promoted after number 600 and my wrist was hurting.

[David]

I mean, this is handwritten.

[Michael Morell]

I know, I know, I know. You know, I was wondering maybe I shouldn't have done this, but then I couldn't stop.

[Gordon]

You can't not give some people a note.

[David]

I mean, part of the problem is we promoted people so quickly in the di. When I went through my box of stuff, I had like too many of these. I was like, how did I get promoted this many times? I should have. I guess I started as a GS6, to be fair. So there was, you know, there was a rapid rise early on for you.

[Michael Morell]

I just should have started xeroxing them.

[David]

Yeah, exactly. I will say that you didn't vary the prose too much and the message. They're quite, they're quite similar. All that to say, Michael, welcome to, to the show.

[Michael Morell]

Gordon, great to meet you. And David, always great to see you.

[David]

Michael. We're obviously going to talk about Iraq and the WMD judgments. But we're having this conversation as the US Is engaged in another war of choice in the Middle east, this time with Iran. And I just before we dive into Iraq, I wanted to ask, do you see any parallels or connections between these two conflicts that are 23 years apart?

[Michael Morell]

Sure. Maybe just mention the one. There's a lot. Right. But maybe mention the one that, that jumps out at me the most. We're going to talk about politicization later, but one of the common themes here is policymakers on Iraq overstating the intelligence judgments. Less so on wmd, which we can talk about, and more so on Iraq's relationship to Al Qaeda. But I think that has happened in this case as well. I don't read intelligence anymore. I don't get briefed on it. So I don't know exactly what the intelligence community is saying. But I'm pretty confident that Iran is not weeks away from a nuclear weapon. They might be weeks away from enriching uranium to weapons grade for two or three weapons, but that is very different than actually having a weapon and very different than actually having a deliverable weapon. So the administration has repeatedly suggested that they are closer than I think the intelligence community thinks they are. And I think that's a parallel. Right back to Iraq to justify action.

[Gordon]

Michael, let's go back. You mentioned Al Qaeda. We talked about your time there around 9 11. But back to that period right after 9 11, I just wonder how quickly you felt Iraq coming onto the agenda or being placed on the agenda. Because when you look back now at some of the memoirs, you do hear that Paul Wolfowitz and some of the others were immediately trying to draw a connection between Iraq and 9 11. Some people a direct connection with Al Qaeda and the attack, and some people just saying we should do this now and take out Saddam now. I mean, I just wonder how quickly you felt that happening and why did you think it was happening.

[Michael Morell]

In the immediate aftermath of 9 11, my job was President Bush's daily intelligence briefer. So that was my focus. I slept really odd hours, as David knows. Right. And I wasn't at, at headquarters when other people were there. Right. For many hours. So I was really focused on the Oval Office and in the Oval Office, I'll tell you that the President was focused on Iraq prior to 9 11. It was one of the things that he cared a great deal about. Remember, we had the no fly zones. Occasionally they would get violated. Occasionally US jets would get fired on and they would have to return fire. They were under sanctions, they. There was deep concern that those sanctions were eroding slowly and that would give Iraq more room to maneuver. So there was a fairly significant focus on Iraq prior to 9 11. In the immediate aftermath of 9 11, I am aware that people outside the Oval Office were looking for thinking about asking questions about a link to Iraq between Iraq and Al Qaeda, but I did not see that in the Oval Office. I remember the President asking us, us being George Tenet, who came with me to all these briefings, and me asking us about the possibility of Iraq at one point. But we pretty firmly shut that down. Me by explaining the absence of intelligence, and George going even further and saying, it just doesn't make any sense. In fact, if anybody's involved here in any way, it's more likely the Iranians than the Iraqis. And in fact, it turned out to be that way because we discovered that Al Qaeda was transiting Iran pretty frequently in both the period before 911 and the period after 9 11. So George turned out to be right. But the President did not keep on coming back to it and back to it and back to it. Post 9 11, there was an issue of whether Mohammed Atta, who was the lead hijacker among the 19, whether he had met with Iraqi intelligence in Prague. And of course, there was a great deal of interest around that question, and we were interested in getting to the bottom of it. This is something that Czech intelligence had told us. But once we got to the bottom of it, and our analytic conclusion was, there's nothing here, the President let it go. Now, others would come back to that over time, but there was not an obsession. Let me just sum up by saying there was not an obsession in the Oval Office on the part of the President of the United States with Iraq in the immediate aftermath of 911 going

[David]

out to the CIA at Langley in that period. What was the state of play on Iraq at that time? When I joined, we had hundreds of people working on Iraq, and it was one of the major analytic issues that we were working on in the DI in 2001, 2002. What was the state of play on the analytic and the collection side on Iraq?

[Michael Morell]

Your description, David, is exactly right. It was one of the main issues that we were looking at. This is a guy that invaded Kuwait. This is a guy that had chemical weapons. This is a guy that used chemical weapons against the Iranians and against his own people, against the Kurds. This is a guy who had a nuclear weapons program that was destroyed by the Israeli military, a nuclear weapons program by the way that we missed. Right. We didn't see it, which is going to be part of our story later. So there was great focus. And we believed at that time, even before 9, 11, we believed that he had a weapons of mass destruction program. You know, we told Bill Clinton that this is not something that started right in the Bush administration. So there was a tremendous amount of focus on Iraq, both on the collection side and on the analytics side. And it was a place people wanted to be. It was one of the cool accounts. On the collection side, we were significantly limited by not having an embassy in Baghdad. There's obviously other ways to collect intelligence, but, you know, that's a big loss, not having an embassy from which to operate out of. So it was taken seriously. There were resources applied to it. I bet you there were many, many more resources on Iraq than there were on Al Qaeda in that time period.

[Gordon]

But it was, you know, the idea he had the weapons of mass destruction at this point was based on a kind of analytic assumption of past behavior and past activity. I guess that that's what's so interesting is when you look at the British side as well, they didn't really have fresh sources or there were some, and I'm sure we'll come to maybe some of them. But a lot of it was layers of assumption which had been built up over time, weren't they?

[Michael Morell]

In the analytic business? We talk about biases, right? We talk about analytic biases. I don't remember a failure, an analytic failure in the history of CIA that was littered with so many analytic biases as a rock wmd. The first one, Gordon, is what you mentioned, and we would call that anchoring bias. And this judgment that he had weapons of mass destruction was anchored. And the fact that he had weapons of mass destruction. We talked about the chemical weapons. We know he investigated biological weapons. We know he had a nuclear weapons program. That anchored the analysts right in the view that he still did. It was very, very difficult to conceive that he would give them up once he had them. Why would he do that? Well, it turned out that he had a reason in his mind to do that. Analysts couldn't get themselves even around the question, I think. So they were anchored in this position. Another bias is what we call confirmation bias. So you're anchored in this view, right, that he has them and then everything that comes in, if there's the least bit lack of clarity, you interpret the lack of clarity as him having them. And that's what confirmation bias is. This happens a lot on what we Call signals intelligence. When you're intercepting phone calls and faxes and all, are there still faxes? I don't know.

[David]

At the time there were probably somewhere someone's faxing, we'll explain it to the kids.

[Michael Morell]

So you had that and you also had imagery, right? So satellites taking photographs of things on the earth. Those both can be really difficult to interpret. You know, in a phone call, people are talking about things and they're not particularly clear because the other person knows what they're talking about. It's not they're trying to hide something, it's just when we're having a convers conversation about something, I'm assuming you know something because I know you know it. And so any kind of question in terms of what you're hearing in a phone call or what you're looking at on the ground in a satellite photograph, you interpret as being related to weapons of mass destruction. So there's this confirmation bias. There's also, and this gets to your question too, there was a temporal bias. What do I mean by that? Most of the information that was available to the analysts. So this is 2002, the fall of 2002. We're looking at this again, right? Taking a fresh look at Iraq weapons of mass destruction. Most of the information the analysts had at that time was pre1998. So the UN weapons inspectors were kicked out of the country in 1998. And most of our information came before that period of time. Well, that's four years previous. Clearly things can change in four years. But that created this temporal bias. That information from four years ago would of course still be true. And then I think there's a bias in where the information came from. So a good bit of the more recent information came from the Kurds, who had their own bias against Saddam. Right. They wanted us to take action against Saddam. So this, this thing is just littered with biases.