Saturday, March 6, 2004
U.S. reportedly ignored information that Iraq had no
WMDs
By DOUGLAS JEHL
THE NEW YORK TIMES
WASHINGTON -- In the two years before the war in Iraq, U.S. intelligence agencies reviewed but
dismissed reports from Iraqi scientists, defectors and other informants who said Saddam Hussein's
government did not possess illicit weapons, according to government officials.
The reports, which ran contrary to the conclusions of the intelligence agencies and the Bush
administration, were not acknowledged publicly by top government officials before the invasion last
March. In public statements, the agencies and the administration cited only reports from informants
who supported the view that Iraq possessed so-called weapons of mass destruction, which the
administration cited as a main justification for going to war.
The first public hint of those reports came in a speech yesterday by Jane Harman, the top Democrat
on the House intelligence committee. Speaking at the American Enterprise Institute, she said
"indications" were emerging from the panel's inquiry into prewar intelligence that "potential sources
may have been dismissed because they were telling us something we didn't want to believe: that
Iraq had no active WMD programs."
Other government officials said they knew of several occasions from 2001 to 2003 when Iraqi
scientists, defectors and others had told U.S. intelligence officers, their foreign partners or other
intelligence agents that Iraq did not possess illicit weapons.
The officials said they believed that intelligence agencies had dismissed the reports because they did
not conform to a view that Iraq was hiding an illicit arsenal.
The CIA declined to comment directly on Harman's remarks. But an intelligence official said:
"Human intelligence offering different views was by no means discounted or ignored. It was
considered and weighed against all the other information available, and analysts made their best
judgments."
The government officials who described the contradictory reports have detailed knowledge of
prewar intelligence on Iraq and were critical of the CIA's handling of the information.
Because the information remains classified, the officials declined to discuss the identity of the
sources in any detail, but said they believed that the informants' views had been dismissed because
they challenged the widely held consensus on Iraq's weapons.
"It appears that the human intelligence wasn't deemed interesting or useful if it was exculpatory of
Iraq," said one senior government official.
A second senior government official, who confirmed that account, said the view that Iraq possessed
illicit weapons had been "treated like a religion" within American intelligence agencies, with
alternative views never given serious attention. The officials said they could not quantify the
reports.
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