Pulling a Joe

Paul Pillar, former CIA official, was published yesterday making claims that the Bush Administration "disregarded the expertise of the intelligence community, politicized the intelligence process and used unrepresentative data in making the case for war."

Today brings some interesting news about Pillar in that apparently what he wrote for the Journal of Foreign Affairs isn't quite the same thing he said under oath. As reported at Powerline--home incidentally of former Pillar college-roommate Paul Mirengoff--there are reports that Pillar's testimony to the Robb-Silberman commission was a bit different:

Similarly, Paul Pillar, a senior intelligence officer at CIA who drafted part of the Iraq estimate, told the commission that a certain climate had become pervasive in the intelligence community with respect to permissible judgments about Iraqi weapons. To put it another way, self-censorship prevailed. The commission then concludes—and Charles Robb reiterated this at the press conference marking the release of its report—that no one had come forward to claim they had been forced to change a conclusion due to political pressure. Ergo, "The Commission has found no evidence of 'politicization' of the Intelligence Community's assessments."

Say what you will about John Prados' conclusions in that piece, it is obvious that Pillar has chosen to say one thing publicly and another under oath. Remind you of anyone we know?