Report finds US intelligence on Iraq was ‘dead wrong’

US intelligence on Iraq was ‘‘dead wrong’’ in almost all cases before the Iraq war and flaws are still all too common throughout the US spy community that requires a major overhaul, a presidential Commission reported today.

The Commission’s 600-page report, ordered by President George W. Bush after he launched the Iraq war based on intelligence about its weapons programmes that proved to be false, said the harm done to American credibility ‘‘will take years to undo’’. ‘‘We conclude the intelligence community was dead wrong in almost all of its pre-war judgments about Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction,’’ the commissioners wrote.

And at a time when the US is accusing Iran of nuclear ambitions and pressuring North Korea, the report said: ‘‘The intelligence community knows disturbingly little about the nuclear programmes of many of the world’s most dangerous actors’’.