I’m beginning to feel like Thomas Rider, as acting director of Energy’s intelligence office, overruled senior intelligence His officers argued at a pre-briefing at Energy headquarters that there was no hard evidence Rider ordered them to “shut up and sit down,” according to sources familiar with the meeting. As a result, State was the intelligence community’s lone dissenter in the key National The secret 90-page report, prepared Oct. 1 [and used to justify preemptive war in Iraq], was Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham gave Rider a $13,000 performance bonus after the NIE “That’s a hell of a lot of money for an intelligence director who had no experience or Rider declined to talk about the payments.<\/P><\/BLOCKQUOTE> <\/P> A report by Paul Sperry<\/FONT><\/B><\/A>, also for “Energy officials say Rider rubber-stamped the administration’s conclusion that Baghdad was
\ndefinitive WMD report by the CIA’s Iraq Survey Group. It sketches how technical experts who
\ndoubted that Saddam Hussein had nuclear weapons were silenced by the Bush gang. Although it
\nappeared in August 2003 at WorldNetDaily<\/FONT><\/B><\/A>, it came to a
\nStraight Up reader’s attention only yesterday. “I understand its substance to be correct,” he
\nadds.<\/P>
\nWASHINGTON — A former Energy Department intelligence chief who
\nagreed with the White House claim that Iraq had reconstituted its defunct nuclear-arms program
\nwas awarded a total of $20,500 in bonuses during the build-up to the war, WorldNetDaily has
\nlearned.
\n
\nofficers on his staff in voting for the position at a National Foreign Intelligence Board meeting at
\nCIA headquarters last September. <\/P>
\n
\nto support the alarming Iraq nuclear charge, and asked to join State Department’s dissenting
\nopinion, Energy officials say. <\/P>
\n
\n<\/P>
\n
\nIntelligence Estimate on Iraq’s alleged weapons of mass destruction, something the Bush
\nadministration is quick to remind critics of its prewar intelligence. So far no banned weapons have
\nbeen found in Iraq to confirm its charges. <\/P>
\n
\nrushed to sway members of Congress ahead of a key vote on granting the White House
\nwar-making authority. It also formed the underlying evidence for the White House’s decision to
\ngo to war. <\/P>
\n
\nreport was released and just before the war, department sources say. He had received an
\nadditional $7,500 before the report. <\/P>
\n
\nbackground in intelligence, and who’d only been running the office for nine months,” said one
\nsource who requested anonymity. “Something’s fishy.” <\/P>
\n
\n
\n
\nWorldNetDaily.com, notes: “Rider, a long-time human resources bureaucrat, served nine months
\nas acting director of [the Department of] Energy’s intelligence office. He stepped down in
\nFebruary, the month before the war. <\/P>
\n
\nreactivating a nuclear weapons program over the objections of Energy’s nuclear weapons research
\nlabs and senior members of his own staff.”<\/P>
\n