Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : GOPwinger Lies/Distortions/Omissions/Perversions of Truth -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: John Sladek who wrote (3275)	2/19/2004 6:23:34 AM
From: John Sladek	Respond to of 173976

18 Feb 2004 01:24 - Iraqi 'fabricator' told U.S. about bioweapons labs By Tabassum Zakaria WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A major in the Iraqi intelligence service who was a source for a prewar U.S. intelligence claim that Iraq had mobile biological weapons labs was introduced to the Defense Intelligence Agency by the Iraqi National Congress exile group, U.S. officials said on Tuesday. The connection in 2002 was made at the request of a civilian Pentagon official in what is called an "executive referral." But government sources would not identify the defense official other than to say he was neither Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld nor his deputy Paul Wolfowitz. Pentagon civilian officials were far more welcoming to the INC and its leader Ahmed Chalabi who were pushing for an end to Saddam Hussein's regime in Iraq, than the CIA or State Department, intelligence experts say. The Iraqi major told the Defense Intelligence Agency in 2002 that Baghdad had mobile laboratories for conducting research on biological weapons, a claim that ended up in intelligence assessments of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction capabilities. Since the war, the Bush administration has been criticized for exaggerating the threat from Iraq before the war because no biological or chemical weapons have been found. Investigations on the accuracy of prewar intelligence are being conducted by congressional intelligence committees, the CIA, and a commission newly appointed by the White House. The Defense Intelligence Agency, which interviewed the Iraqi major outside the United States and Iraq, at first found his information to be credible and the major passed an initial polygraph. But in further discussions it became apparent that he was stretching some of the information so the Defense Intelligence Agency gave the Iraqi major another lie detector test, which he failed. "He oversold himself in who he knew and what he knew on a variety of things," a U.S. official said on condition of anonymity. So the Defense Intelligence Agency put out a "fabrication notice" in May 2002 to warn intelligence agencies to consider any information from that source as suspect. But intelligence analysts missed the notice and the information from the Iraqi major on the existence of biological weapons labs was included in the October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate, a key prewar report that assessed Iraq's banned weapons capabilities. U.S. intelligence agencies are reviewing a wide range of information, including other material and sources provided by the Iraqi National Congress before the war, and more discrepancies are likely to turn up. "I must tell you that we are finding discrepancies in some claims made by human sources about mobile biological weapons production before the war," CIA Director George Tenet said in a Feb. 5 speech. "Because we lack direct access to the most important sources on this question, we have as yet been unable to resolve the differences," he said. Tenet was referring to sources other than the Iraqi major in that comment, a U.S. official said. The new CIA-appointed chief weapons hunter, Charles Duelfer, left for Iraq last week and the team searching for banned arms continues to look for answers to why the arms have not been found. reuters.com