Some Iraqi analysis 'wildly inconsistent,' Tenet admits
WASHINGTON George Tenet, the CIA director, on Tuesday faced some of his sharpest questioning yet over flawed prewar intelligence on Iraq, and conceded that analysis on whether Iraq had sought African uranium was "wildly inconsistent."
.
He also acknowledged that he learned only last week that in the run-up to the war a secretive new intelligence office in the Pentagon was providing direct briefings to the office of the vice president and the National Security Council.
.
Tenet's appearance before the Senate Armed Services Committee came a day after Secretary of State Colin Powell suggested that the failure to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq was an inappropriate subject for election-year debate.
.
"We shouldn't be having a political debate over issues like that," he said on Fox News.
.
The hostile questioning Tenet faced Tuesday from Democrats - in contrast to supportive Republican words, such as Senator John Warner's comment that Tenet's Iraq judgment had been based on "years of irrefutable facts" - seemed to show that the Bush administration can expect no such pass on that sensitive subject.
.
Another Republican, Senator Pat Roberts of Kansas, suggested that U.S. intelligence agencies were being overly investigated, with 14 "inquiries or probes or investigations" into the Iraq war and the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
.
But Senator Carl Levin of Michigan, the ranking Democrat on the panel, spoke of a U.S. "intelligence fiasco" over Iraq; prewar assessments on Iraqi weapons had proved "wildly off the mark," he said.
.
Levin seemed particularly interested in the work of the Pentagon Office of Special Plans, created the year before the Iraq war, and how it had interacted - or bypassed - the CIA.
.
Some Democratic critics have suggested that that office served as a sort of parallel intelligence bureau meant to marshal data to support an administration already determined to launch war. Douglas Feith, head of that Pentagon office, was a chief proponent of the war.
.
Analysts in Feith's office reviewed existing intelligence for possible links between Iraq and terrorists and concluded that such connections existed. The CIA, which had developed some of the intelligence Feith's office used, had found insufficient evidence to assert such a link, The New York Times has reported.
.
Levin, referring to at least one prewar briefing by Feith's team to the National Security Council and the vice president's office, asked Tenet whether he had known about it.
.
Tenet said that last week was the first time he had learned that Feith's office had provided direct briefings to those entities.
.
Levin asked if it was standard procedure for an intelligence analysis to be presented to the National Security Council and the vice president's office without Tenet's knowledge.
.
"Was the administration listening to the Office of Special Plans rather than the intelligence community?" he asked.
.
"I'm the president's chief intelligence officer," Tenet said plainly. "From my perspective, it is my view that prevails." Since the Sept. 11 attacks, Tenet has provided daily briefings to President George W. Bush.
.
Levin also sought to explore differences between intelligence the CIA and other agencies provided privately, and the arguments the administration made publicly for war.
.
Asked to reconcile varying classified and public pronouncements from the administration about alleged Iraqi attempts to obtain uranium from Africa - culminating in Bush's State of the Union reference to such attempts, which the White House later was forced to withdraw as unsubstantiated - Tenet conceded that "we were wildly inconsistent."
.
Tenet declined to say exactly what efforts he had made to dissuade the administration from making assertions he found unjustified.
.
Senator Edward Kennedy, Democrat of Massachusetts, asked Tenet whether he did not have a responsibility to counter what he called "superheated" and "warmonger" talk coming from the administration.
.
"You have to have confidence to know that when I believed that somebody was misconstruing intelligence," Tenet replied, "I said something about it."
.
Senators also pressed Tenet on the threat of civil war in Iraq if the interim government formed ahead of the scheduled June 30 handover of sovereignty is seen to lack legitimacy.
.
He declined to speculate on that matter, but warned that former Saddam Hussein loyalists and foreign terrorists "continue to pose a serious threat," as illustrated by the devastating bombings last week in Baghdad and Karbala.
.
"They hope for a Taliban-like enclave in Iraq's Sunni heartland that would be a jihadist safe haven," he said, with the ultimate goal of creating "an Islamic state."
.
International Herald Tribune WASHINGTON George Tenet, the CIA director, on Tuesday faced some of his sharpest questioning yet over flawed prewar intelligence on Iraq, and conceded that analysis on whether Iraq had sought African uranium was "wildly inconsistent."
.
He also acknowledged that he learned only last week that in the run-up to the war a secretive new intelligence office in the Pentagon was providing direct briefings to the office of the vice president and the National Security Council.
.
Tenet's appearance before the Senate Armed Services Committee came a day after Secretary of State Colin Powell suggested that the failure to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq was an inappropriate subject for election-year debate.
.
"We shouldn't be having a political debate over issues like that," he said on Fox News.
.
The hostile questioning Tenet faced Tuesday from Democrats - in contrast to supportive Republican words, such as Senator John Warner's comment that Tenet's Iraq judgment had been based on "years of irrefutable facts" - seemed to show that the Bush administration can expect no such pass on that sensitive subject.
.
Another Republican, Senator Pat Roberts of Kansas, suggested that U.S. intelligence agencies were being overly investigated, with 14 "inquiries or probes or investigations" into the Iraq war and the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
.
But Senator Carl Levin of Michigan, the ranking Democrat on the panel, spoke of a U.S. "intelligence fiasco" over Iraq; prewar assessments on Iraqi weapons had proved "wildly off the mark," he said.
.
Levin seemed particularly interested in the work of the Pentagon Office of Special Plans, created the year before the Iraq war, and how it had interacted - or bypassed - the CIA.
.
Some Democratic critics have suggested that that office served as a sort of parallel intelligence bureau meant to marshal data to support an administration already determined to launch war. Douglas Feith, head of that Pentagon office, was a chief proponent of the war.
.
Analysts in Feith's office reviewed existing intelligence for possible links between Iraq and terrorists and concluded that such connections existed. The CIA, which had developed some of the intelligence Feith's office used, had found insufficient evidence to assert such a link, The New York Times has reported.
.
Levin, referring to at least one prewar briefing by Feith's team to the National Security Council and the vice president's office, asked Tenet whether he had known about it.
.
Tenet said that last week was the first time he had learned that Feith's office had provided direct briefings to those entities.
.
Levin asked if it was standard procedure for an intelligence analysis to be presented to the National Security Council and the vice president's office without Tenet's knowledge.
.
"Was the administration listening to the Office of Special Plans rather than the intelligence community?" he asked.
.
"I'm the president's chief intelligence officer," Tenet said plainly. "From my perspective, it is my view that prevails." Since the Sept. 11 attacks, Tenet has provided daily briefings to President George W. Bush.
.
Levin also sought to explore differences between intelligence the CIA and other agencies provided privately, and the arguments the administration made publicly for war.
.
Asked to reconcile varying classified and public pronouncements from the administration about alleged Iraqi attempts to obtain uranium from Africa - culminating in Bush's State of the Union reference to such attempts, which the White House later was forced to withdraw as unsubstantiated - Tenet conceded that "we were wildly inconsistent."
.
Tenet declined to say exactly what efforts he had made to dissuade the administration from making assertions he found unjustified.
.
Senator Edward Kennedy, Democrat of Massachusetts, asked Tenet whether he did not have a responsibility to counter what he called "superheated" and "warmonger" talk coming from the administration.
.
"You have to have confidence to know that when I believed that somebody was misconstruing intelligence," Tenet replied, "I said something about it."
.
Senators also pressed Tenet on the threat of civil war in Iraq if the interim government formed ahead of the scheduled June 30 handover of sovereignty is seen to lack legitimacy.
.
He declined to speculate on that matter, but warned that former Saddam Hussein loyalists and foreign terrorists "continue to pose a serious threat," as illustrated by the devastating bombings last week in Baghdad and Karbala.
.
"They hope for a Taliban-like enclave in Iraq's Sunni heartland that would be a jihadist safe haven," he said, with the ultimate goal of creating "an Islamic state."
.
International Herald Tribune WASHINGTON George Tenet, the CIA director, on Tuesday faced some of his sharpest questioning yet over flawed prewar intelligence on Iraq, and conceded that analysis on whether Iraq had sought African uranium was "wildly inconsistent."
.
He also acknowledged that he learned only last week that in the run-up to the war a secretive new intelligence office in the Pentagon was providing direct briefings to the office of the vice president and the National Security Council.
.
Tenet's appearance before the Senate Armed Services Committee came a day after Secretary of State Colin Powell suggested that the failure to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq was an inappropriate subject for election-year debate.
.
"We shouldn't be having a political debate over issues like that," he said on Fox News.
.
The hostile questioning Tenet faced Tuesday from Democrats - in contrast to supportive Republican words, such as Senator John Warner's comment that Tenet's Iraq judgment had been based on "years of irrefutable facts" - seemed to show that the Bush administration can expect no such pass on that sensitive subject.
.
Another Republican, Senator Pat Roberts of Kansas, suggested that U.S. intelligence agencies were being overly investigated, with 14 "inquiries or probes or investigations" into the Iraq war and the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
.
But Senator Carl Levin of Michigan, the ranking Democrat on the panel, spoke of a U.S. "intelligence fiasco" over Iraq; prewar assessments on Iraqi weapons had proved "wildly off the mark," he said.
.
Levin seemed particularly interested in the work of the Pentagon Office of Special Plans, created the year before the Iraq war, and how it had interacted - or bypassed - the CIA.
.
Some Democratic critics have suggested that that office served as a sort of parallel intelligence bureau meant to marshal data to support an administration already determined to launch war. Douglas Feith, head of that Pentagon office, was a chief proponent of the war.
.
Analysts in Feith's office reviewed existing intelligence for possible links between Iraq and terrorists and concluded that such connections existed. The CIA, which had developed some of the intelligence Feith's office used, had found insufficient evidence to assert such a link, The New York Times has reported.
.
Levin, referring to at least one prewar briefing by Feith's team to the National Security Council and the vice president's office, asked Tenet whether he had known about it.
.
Tenet said that last week was the first time he had learned that Feith's office had provided direct briefings to those entities.
.
Levin asked if it was standard procedure for an intelligence analysis to be presented to the National Security Council and the vice president's office without Tenet's knowledge.
.
"Was the administration listening to the Office of Special Plans rather than the intelligence community?" he asked.
.
"I'm the president's chief intelligence officer," Tenet said plainly. "From my perspective, it is my view that prevails." Since the Sept. 11 attacks, Tenet has provided daily briefings to President George W. Bush.
.
Levin also sought to explore differences between intelligence the CIA and other agencies provided privately, and the arguments the administration made publicly for war.
.
Asked to reconcile varying classified and public pronouncements from the administration about alleged Iraqi attempts to obtain uranium from Africa - culminating in Bush's State of the Union reference to such attempts, which the White House later was forced to withdraw as unsubstantiated - Tenet conceded that "we were wildly inconsistent."
.
Tenet declined to say exactly what efforts he had made to dissuade the administration from making assertions he found unjustified.
.
Senator Edward Kennedy, Democrat of Massachusetts, asked Tenet whether he did not have a responsibility to counter what he called "superheated" and "warmonger" talk coming from the administration.
.
"You have to have confidence to know that when I believed that somebody was misconstruing intelligence," Tenet replied, "I said something about it."
.
Senators also pressed Tenet on the threat of civil war in Iraq if the interim government formed ahead of the scheduled June 30 handover of sovereignty is seen to lack legitimacy.
.
He declined to speculate on that matter, but warned that former Saddam Hussein loyalists and foreign terrorists "continue to pose a serious threat," as illustrated by the devastating bombings last week in Baghdad and Karbala.
.
"They hope for a Taliban-like enclave in Iraq's Sunni heartland that would be a jihadist safe haven," he said, with the ultimate goal of creating "an Islamic state."
.
International Herald Tribune |
