(Jan 7th, 2004)
<font size=4>SECRETARY POWELL:<font size=3>
....The fact of the matter is, Iraq did have weapons of
mass destruction, and programs for weapons of mass
destruction...... That's a fact.....
....I am confident of what I presented last year. The
intelligence community is confident of the material they
gave me; I was representing them. It was information they
presented to the Congress. It was information they had
presented publicly, and they stand behind it. And this
game is still unfolding.....
.....I knew exactly the circumstances under which I was
presenting that speech to the UN on the 5th of February:
the whole world would be watching, and there would be
those who would applaud every word, and there would be
those who were going to be skeptical of every word.
That's why I took the time --- -- I took the time to go
out to the agency and sit down with the experts. And
anything that we did not feel was solid and multi-sourced,
we did not use in that speech......
state.gov
<font size=4>
The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace<font size=3> opposed the
war & has maintained that a policy of continued diplomacy
& appeasement remains the correct policy, despite the
history of increasing numbers of & the growing viciousness
of terrorist acts, including 9/11 (and in complete
disregard for OBL's declared global war against "the
infidels").
<font size=4>
And the most frequently made claim, "No WMD's have been
found!"<font size=3>...... What most of these folks all fail to
acknowledge is that Saddam did continue to improve his WMD
program capabilities in order to be able to quickly
produce mass quantities of WMD's the minute that
international scrutiny was gone (all in egregious
violation of the Gulf War Cease Fire Agreement & all 17 UN
Resolutions).
<font size=4>
They also fail to mention.....
<font size=3>
....as to the weapons themselves, the amounts of CW we estimated Iraq to have had would fit in a backyard swimming pool or, at the upper limit of our estimate, in a small warehouse. A tremendously lethal arsenal of BW could of course be much smaller. And this in a country the size of California.....
odci.gov
""It is very likely that intelligence officials were pressured by senior administration officials to conform their threat assessments to pre-existing policies."
<font size=4>
US official stands by Iraq weapons report
07 January 2004 <font size=3>
....Critics have said the National Intelligence Estimate report was produced under pressure for a Bush administration that had made it clear it wanted to go to war against Iraq.
Cohen dismissed such criticism.
"Assertions, particularly that we had shaded our judgments to support an administration policy, were just nonsense," Cohen told ABC's Nightline.....
...."We did not, in any area, hype our judgments," Cohen said.
The intelligence estimates "never use the word imminent" and the judgments carried varying degrees of confidence, he said.....
stuff.co.nz
<font size=4>
False myths surround Iraq document<font size=3>
BY STUART A. COHEN
....<font size=4>Myth: Analysts were pressured to change judgments to meet the needs of the Bush administration.<font size=3> The judgments presented in the October 2002 NIE were based on data acquired and analyzed over 15 years. Our judgments were presented to three different administrations and routinely to six congressional committees. And the principal participants in the production of the NIE from across the entire U.S. intelligence community have sworn to Congress, under oath, that they were not pressured to change their views or to conform to administration positions.
<font size=4>
Myth: We buried divergent views and concealed uncertainties.<font size=3> Alternative views presented by intelligence officials at the Department of State, the Department of Energy and the U.S. Air Force were showcased in the NIE and were acknowledged in unclassified papers on the subject. Uncertainties were highlighted in the key judgments and throughout the text.....
miami.com
<font size=4>
Iraq’s Continuing Programs for Weapons of Mass Destruction
Statement by Director of Central Intelligence George J. Tenet on the 2002 National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on Iraq’s Continuing Programs for Weapons of Mass Destruction
<font size=3>
A great deal has been said and written about the 2002 National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on Iraq’s Continuing Programs for Weapons of Mass Destruction. Much of this commentary has been misinformed, misleading, and just plain wrong. It is important to set the record straight. Let me make three points.
We stand by the judgments in the NIE.....
....We encourage dissent and reflect it in alternative views.
We stand behind the judgments of the NIE as well as our analyses on Iraq’s programs over the past decade.....
....The history of our judgments on Iraq’s weapons programs is clear and consistent.....
....Building upon ten years of analysis, intelligence
reporting, and inspections that had to fight through
Iraq’s aggressive denial and deception efforts, including
phony and incomplete data declarations to the UN and
programs explicitly designed with built-in cover stories,
the Intelligence Community prepared the NIE on Iraq’s
weapons of mass destruction. In it we judged that the
entire body of information over that ten years made clear
that Saddam had never abandoned his pursuit of weapons of
mass destruction.....
....We note yet again that uranium acquisition was not
part of this judgment. Despite all the focus in the media,
it was not one of the six elements upon which the judgment
was based. Why not? Because Iraq already had significant
quantities of uranium.....
<font size=4>
.....Biological Weapons
<font size=3>
All agencies of the Intelligence Community since 1995 have judged that Iraq retained biological weapons and that the BW program continued. In 1999 we assessed Iraq had revitalized its program. New intelligence acquired in 2000 provided compelling information about Iraq’s ongoing offensive BW activities, describing construction of mobile BW agent production plants—reportedly designed to evade detection—with the potential to turn out several hundred tons of unconcentrated BW agent per year. Thus, it was not a new story in 2002 when all agencies judged in the NIE that Iraq had biological weapons—that it had some lethal and incapacitating BW agents—and was capable of quickly producing and weaponizing a variety of such agents, including anthrax. We judged that most of the key aspects of Iraq’s offensive BW program were more advanced than before the Gulf war.
<font size=4>
Chemical Weapons
<font size=3>
As early as 1994, all agencies assessed that Iraq could begin limited production of chemical agents almost immediately after UN sanctions, inspections and monitoring efforts were ended. By 1997, the Intelligence Community judged that Iraq was protecting a breakout capability to produce more weapons and agent quickly. We further assessed in 1997, that within months Iraq could restart full-scale production of sarin and that pre-Desert Storm agent production levels—including production of VX—could be achieved in two to three years. And so it was not a surprising story when all agencies judged in the NIE in 2002 that Baghdad possessed chemical weapons, had begun renewed production of mustard, sarin, cyclosarin, and VX and probably had at least 100 metric tons (MT) and possibly as much as 500 MT of CW agents, much of it added in the last year.
<font size=4>
Delivery Systems.......
<font size=3>
Also by 1999 we had noted that according to multiple sources, Iraq was conducting a high-priority program to convert jet trainer aircraft to lethal UAVs, likely intended for delivering biological agents. Again, not a new story for the NIE to judge that Iraq maintained a small missile force and several development programs, including an UAV that could deliver a biological warfare agent.
<font size=4>
In sum, the NIE on Iraqi weapons of mass destruction was the product of years of reporting and intelligence collection, analyzed by numerous experts in several different agencies. Our judgments have been consistent on this subject because the evidence has repeatedly pointed to continued Iraqi pursuit of WMD and efforts to conceal that pursuit from international scrutiny. Modifications of our judgments have reflected new evidence, much of which was acquired because of our intensified collection efforts. Thus, noting that Saddam had continued to pursue weapons of mass destruction was not startling. That he probably was hiding weapons was not new. That he would seek means to improve his capabilities using alternative-use cover stories would have been expected. That we would have alternative views is respected as part of the process.
We stand by the soundness and integrity of our process,
and no one outside the Intelligence Community told us what
to say or not to say in this Estimate.....
<font size=3>
odci.gov
<font size=4>
Strategic Choices, Intelligence Challenges
Denial and Deception
<font size=3>
....Every Iraqi program had “dual-use” built in that provided a plausible cover story: this was the game of hide-and-seek that Iraq had been playing with UN inspectors since 1991.....
....Those putting together the Iraqi WMD estimate never conceived of their task as one of making a case for intervention. Intelligence is policy neutral. We do not propose, we do not oppose any particular course of action.....
....Intelligence judgments about them will be just that – judgments, based on evidence that will rarely be conclusive or incontrovertible.
<font size=4>
Public Scrutiny: The Iraqi WMD Estimate
<font size=3>
That brings me to the Iraqi WMD estimate and the extraordinary public scrutiny it has engendered.....
....But let me offer a few additional points about that NIE, which has spawned a cottage industry of misinformation:
First, the judgments of that estimate were honestly arrived at. The estimate was published before I arrived, but I know the four National Intelligence Officers who put it together.....
....Three of them were appointed NIOs during the Clinton administration. The fourth goes back long before – all the way back to Carter, I believe. They are not “political,” and they are absolutely incorruptible. If anyone ever told them to alter their judgments for political reasons, their response would be to dig in their heels even harder.
Second, the debate a year ago was never about intelligence..... There was broad agreement, within governments and outside, about Iraq’s WMD programs – based on UNSCOM and UNMOVIC, foreign intelligence, and US Government assessments made over three administrations.
I was just in Europe a few weeks ago and reconfirmed that the British, French, and Germans all held the same basic judgments that we did.
Third, there was a powerful body of evidence on programs and a compelling basis for judging that they had weapons. The fixation is now on the weapons, but the programs – the capacity of a regime that had actually used CW on ten separate occasions to weaponize large quantities on short notice – were arguably just as worrying.
Fourth, as to the weapons themselves, the amounts of CW we estimated Iraq to have had would fit in a backyard swimming pool or, at the upper limit of our estimate, in a small warehouse. A tremendously lethal arsenal of BW could of course be much smaller. And this in a country the size of California.
Fifth, as David Kay, head of the Iraqi Survey Group, has pointed out, there were ample opportunities before, during and after the war to hide or destroy evidence as well as weapons. We may never know definitively what Iraq had at the time the war began.
.......................
odci.gov
STATEMENT BY DAVID KAY ON THE INTERIM PROGRESS REPORT ON THE ACTIVITIES OF THE IRAQ SURVEY GROUP
fas.org
Iraqi Mobile Biological Warfare Agent Production Plants
odci.gov
CIA Statement on Recently Acquired Iraqi Centrifuge Equipment
fas.org
Arms transfers to Iraq, 1973-2002
projects.sipri.se |
