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...previous

[Juan Williams gives a truly hideous performance as a newsman by failing to press Cheney on obvious falsehoods. Follow the link to listen to the audio.]

Cheney: U.S. to Continue Search for Iraqi WMD
Vice President Also Cites Al Qaeda-Saddam Connection

NPR's Morning Edition -- January 22, 2004

Jan. 22, 2004 -- Vice President Dick Cheney says the hunt in Iraq for weapons of mass destruction will go on and he insists that there were ties between al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein. In an interview with NPR's Juan Williams, Cheney also says the United Nations has a potential role to play in Iraq's political transition.

Cheney says the United States hasn't given up on finding weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, which was one of the major arguments President Bush made in going to war to topple Saddam. Cheney cites an interim report by David Kay, who led the WMD search, as saying that the Iraqi government had programs designed to produce such weapons. "I think the jury is still out...," Cheney says.

"It's going to take some additional considerable period of time in order to look in all of the cubby holes and ammo dumps in Iraq where you might expect to find something like that," Cheney says

- mark 4-04-2004 3:52 pm [link]

Powell: It's 'Open Question' Whether Iraq Had WMD
Reuters via Wired News -- January 22, 2004

TBILISI (Reuters) - Secretary of State Colin Powell said on Saturday it was an "open question" whether stocks of weapons of mass destruction would be found in Iraq and conceded it was possible Saddam Hussein had none.

Powell made the comments one day after David Kay, the leader of the U.S. hunt for banned weapons in Iraq, stepped down and said he did not believe there were any large stockpiles of chemical or biological weapons in the country.

"The open question is how many stocks they had, if any, and if they had any, where did they go. And if they didn't have any, then why wasn't that known beforehand?" Powell said to reporters as he flew to Tbilisi to attend Sunday's inauguration of Georgian President-elect Mikhail Saakashvili.

The Bush administration's central argument for going to war against Iraq last year was that Baghdad had weapons of mass destruction that could threaten the United States and its allies.

No banned arms have been found in Iraq since the United States invaded and toppled Saddam.

Kay told Reuters on Friday he did not believe the country had any large stockpiles of chemical or biological weapons produced after the 1991 Gulf War. Its nuclear activities had not resumed in any significant way, he said.

The comments dented the credibility of the administration's case for the war, which was presented most extensively by Powell at the U.N. Security Council on February 5, 2003.

Asked which was right -- Kay's statements or Powell's argument then that Iraq had failed to account for vast quantities of chemical weapons -- Powell replied: "I think the answer to the question is, I don't know yet.

"Last year when I made my presentation it was based on the best intelligence that we had at the time," Powell added.

"It was consistent with the views of other intelligence agencies and other governments and it was consistent with a body of reporting over the years... that there were large, unanswered questions about what they had or did not have."

- mark 2-08-2004 5:16 am [link]

Tests show no agent in Iraq mortar shells
AP via Salon -- January 14, 2004

CAMP EDEN, Iraq (AP) -- Tests by Danish and American experts indicate there is no chemical warfare agent in mortar shells unearthed last week in southern Iraq, but more testing is needed to confirm the findings, the Danish military reported Wednesday.

link to photos

- mark 2-08-2004 5:44 am [link]

Blair: I don't know if we'll find WMD
The Independent -- 12 January 2004

By Marie Woolf
Tony Blair admitted yesterday that he did not know whether weapons of mass destruction would be found in Iraq.

Asked on BBC's Breakfast With Frost whether he thought they would be discovered, Mr Blair replied: "I do not know is the answer." The Prime Minister said that on the issue of WMD: "You can't be definitive at the moment about what has happened."

His words mark a stark contrast with his assertion before the war that Saddam Hussein was capable of launching a WMD attack within 45 minutes. He later said claims that Iraq had destroyed all its weapons were "palpably absurd".

- mark 2-10-2004 10:19 am [link]

Blister Agent Found in Buried Iraq Mortar Shells
Associated Press via Fox News Channel -- January 11, 2004

BAGHDAD, Iraq — Danish and Icelandic troops have uncovered a cache of 36 shells buried in the Iraqi desert, and preliminary tests showed they contained a liquid blister agent, the Danish military said.

- mark 2-10-2004 10:22 am [link]

Blister agents in Iraq
Daily Kos -- January 10, 2004


- mark 2-10-2004 10:25 am [link]

Powell defends case for war on Iraq
Associated Press via Atlanta Journal-Constitution -- January 9, 2004

By BARRY SCHWEID
Secretary of State Colin Powell acknowledged Thursday that he had seen no "smoking gun, concrete evidence" of ties between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaida's terror network, but he insisted that Iraq had had dangerous weapons and needed to be disarmed by force.

- mark 2-10-2004 10:33 am [link]

Bush war advisors: unfound Iraqi weapons matter little
AFP via Yahoo! News -- January 9, 2004

WASHINGTON - Two of President George W. Bush's military advisors said that the US inability to find illegal weapons in Iraq means little.

"I don't think that you can draw any conclusion from the fact that the stockpiles were not found," Pentagon advisor Richard Perle said at the American Enterprise Institute
Perle said he did not fear that the United States would lose credibility after Bush used Iraq's supposed weapons of mass destruction as his principal justification for going to war.

"If others are going to take the view that, because these weapons weren't found, nothing that the United States says can be trusted -- there's not much we can do about that," he said. "It would be a foolish conclusion to draw."

On Thursday, another Washington think-tank, the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said in a report that the US "administration officials systematically misrepresented the threat from Iraq's WMD and ballistic missile programs."

However, Perle said the war was justified: "I think that what was done was right and prudent."

Perle appeared with Robert Frum, the former Bush speech writer who coined "Axis of Evil." They were two of the hardline members of the administration who argued the need to topple Saddam Hussein.

Perle and Frum's book, "An End to Evil," promotes the so-called neo-conservative use of military force to pacify the world.

They take aim at Saudi Arabia, US politicians, journalists and France -- all of whom they said stand in the way of Bush's "War on Terror."

"What troubles us is a pretty persistent French policy of trying to weaken and marginalize the United States within Europe," Perle said.

"All we ask from France is that, in the construction of Europe, Europe think of itself as a partner with the United States in the protection of Western civilization. That's not a lot to ask."

"I think France runs the very great risk of becoming isolated."

Frum, who left the White House in 2003, was as unswerving as Bush himself.

"Sometimes the right answer, when a person has a grievance against you, is to say: 'You're completely mistaken; that grievance comes out of a completely wrong way of looking at the world and you're just going to have to get over it'," Frum said.

"We're not going to change."

- mark 2-10-2004 10:30 am [link]

WMD in IRAQ: Evidence and Implications
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace -- January 8, 2004

SUMMARY OF KEY FINDINGS
--Iraq WMD Was Not An Immediate Threat
--Inspections Were Working
--Intelligence Failed and Was Misrepresented
--Terrorist Connection Missing
--Post-War WMD Search Ignored Key Resources
--War Was Not the Best-Or Only-Option

PDF of full report

- mark 2-10-2004 11:00 am [link]

U.S. Withdraws a Team of Weapons Hunters From Iraq
New York Times -- January 8, 2004

By DOUGLAS JEHL
The Bush administration has quietly withdrawn from Iraq a 400-member military team whose job was to scour the country for military equipment, according to senior government officials.

The step was described by some military officials as a sign that the administration might have lowered its sights and no longer expected to uncover the caches of chemical and biological weapons that the White House cited as a principal reason for going to war last March.

A separate military team that specializes in disposing of chemical and biological weapons remains part of the 1,400-member Iraq Survey Group, which has been searching Iraq for more that seven months at a cost of hundreds of millions of dollars. But that team is "still waiting for something to dispose of," said a survey group member.

Full Text.

- mark 2-10-2004 10:53 am [link]

Secretary Powell's Press Conference
U.S. Department of State -- January 8, 2004

QUESTION: Mr. Secretary, can I try you on something a little less rosy than some of the things you cited? Iraq U.S. inspectors are pulling out. Carnegie, in a report today, says the threat was vastly exaggerated, Iraq posed no immediate danger to the U.S. They have some recommendations that the CIA Director's job be made a career job instead of a political appointee. A lot of probables, a lot of maybes were left out by senior officials in describing what intelligence had uncovered.

Looking ahead, but also looking back, would you -- would you have rephrased your speech to the UN, in light of all of this, if you had another chance?

- mark 2-10-2004 10:51 am [link]

Iraq's Arsenal Was Only on Paper
Since Gulf War, Nonconventional Weapons Never Got Past the Planning Stage
Washington Post -- January 7, 2004

By Barton Gellman
Full Text.

- mark 2-10-2004 11:06 am [link]

For Vietnam Vet Anthony Zinni, Another War on Shaky Territory
Washington Post -- December 23, 2003

seen at slacktivist

- mark 2-10-2004 11:09 am [link]

[Justification of the October 2002 NIE.]

Iraq's WMD Programs: Culling Hard Facts from Soft Myths
The Central Intelligence Agency -- 28 November 2003


- mark 2-10-2004 8:13 am [link]

STATEMENT BY DAVID KAY ON THE INTERIM PROGRESS REPORT ON THE ACTIVITIES OF THE IRAQ SURVEY GROUP (ISG)
Central Intelligence Agency -- October 2, 2003

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I welcome this opportunity to discuss with the Committee the progress that the Iraq Survey Group has made in its initial three months of its investigation into Iraq's Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) programs.

I cannot emphasize too strongly that the Interim Progress Report, which has been made available to you, is a snapshot, in the context of an on-going investigation, of where we are after our first three months of work. The report does not represent a final reckoning of Iraq's WMD programs, nor are we at the point where we are prepared to close the file on any of these programs. While solid progress - I would say even remarkable progress considering the conditions that the ISG has had to work under - has been made in this initial period of operations, much remains to be done. We are still very much in the collection and analysis mode, still seeking the information and evidence that will allow us to confidently draw comprehensive conclusions to the actual objectives, scope, and dimensions of Iraq's WMD activities at the time of Operation Iraqi Freedom. Iraq's WMD programs spanned more than two decades, involved thousands of people, billions of dollars, and were elaborately shielded by security and deception operations that continued even beyond the end of Operation Iraqi Freedom. The very scale of this program when coupled with the conditions in Iraq that have prevailed since the end of Operation Iraqi Freedom dictate the speed at which we can move to a comprehensive understanding of Iraq's WMD activities.

We need to recall that in the 1991-2003 period the intelligence community and the UN/IAEA inspectors had to draw conclusions as to the status of Iraq's WMD program in the face of incomplete, and often false, data supplied by Iraq or data collected either by UN/IAEA inspectors operating within the severe constraints that Iraqi security and deception actions imposed or by national intelligence collection systems with their own inherent limitations. The result was that our understanding of the status of Iraq's WMD program was always bounded by large uncertainties and had to be heavily caveated. With the regime of Saddam Husayn at an end, ISG has the opportunity for the first time of drawing together all the evidence that can still be found in Iraq - much evidence is irretrievably lost - to reach definitive conclusions concerning the true state of Iraq's WMD program. It is far too early to reach any definitive conclusions and, in some areas, we may never reach that goal. The unique nature of this opportunity, however, requires that we take great care to ensure that the conclusions we draw reflect the truth to the maximum extent possible given the conditions in post-conflict Iraq.

We have not yet found stocks of weapons, but we are not yet at the point where we can say definitively either that such weapon stocks do not exist or that they existed before the war and our only task is to find where they have gone. We are actively engaged in searching for such weapons based on information being supplied to us by Iraqis.

Why are we having such difficulty in finding weapons or in reaching a confident conclusion that they do not exist or that they once existed but have been removed? Our search efforts are being hindered by six principal factors:

  1. From birth all of Iraq's WMD activities were highly compartmentalized within a regime that ruled and kept its secrets through fear and terror and with deception and denial built into each program;

  2. Deliberate dispersal and destruction of material and documentation related to weapons programs began pre-conflict and ran trans-to-post conflict;

  3. Post-OIF looting destroyed or dispersed important and easily collectable material and forensic evidence concerning Iraq's WMD program. As the report covers in detail, significant elements of this looting were carried out in a systematic and deliberate manner, with the clear aim of concealing pre-OIF activities of Saddam's regime;

  4. Some WMD personnel crossed borders in the pre/trans conflict period and may have taken evidence and even weapons-related materials with them;

  5. Any actual WMD weapons or material is likely to be small in relation to the total conventional armaments footprint and difficult to near impossible to identify with normal search procedures. It is important to keep in mind that even the bulkiest materials we are searching for, in the quantities we would expect to find, can be concealed in spaces not much larger than a two car garage;

  6. The environment in Iraq remains far from permissive for our activities, with many Iraqis that we talk to reporting threats and overt acts of intimidation and our own personnel being the subject of threats and attacks. In September alone we have had three attacks on ISG facilities or teams: The ISG base in Irbil was bombed and four staff injured, two very seriously; a two person team had their vehicle blocked by gunmen and only escaped by firing back through their own windshield; and on Wednesday, 24 September, the ISG Headquarters in Baghdad again was subject to mortar attack.

Supporting Images

Photo: Container with vials.
Click Image to Enlarge

Vials: A total of 97 vials-including those with labels consistent with the al Hakam cover stories of single-cell protein and biopesticides, as well as strains that could be used to produce BW agents-were recovered from a scientist's residence.

Photo: Lab equipment from a Mosque.
Click Image to Enlarge

Lab Equipment From Mosque.

Photo: Burned Documents Found at SAAD Center
Click Image to Enlarge

Burned Documents Found at SAAD Center: An exploitation team on a recent mission to the SAAD Center, part of the Baghdad New Nuclear Design Center, found massive looting and the remnants of deliberately destroyed documents. Other documents were left untouched, however, and recovered by the team

Photo: Storage room in basement of Revolutionary Command Council Headquarters. Burned frames of PC workstations visible on shelves.
Click Image to Enlarge

Storage room in basement of Revolutionary Command Council Headquarters. Burned frames of PC workstations visible on shelves. All rooms sharing walls with this storage room were untouched from fire or battle damage.

Photo: Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The basement historical files were systematically selected and destroyed.
Click Image to Enlarge

Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The basement historical files were systematically selected and destroyed.

What have we found and what have we not found in the first 3 months of our work?

We have discovered dozens of WMD-related program activities and significant amounts of equipment that Iraq concealed from the United Nations during the inspections that began in late 2002. The discovery of these deliberate concealment efforts have come about both through the admissions of Iraqi scientists and officials concerning information they deliberately withheld and through physical evidence of equipment and activities that ISG has discovered that should have been declared to the UN. Let me just give you a few examples of these concealment efforts, some of which I will elaborate on later:

  • A clandestine network of laboratories and safehouses within the Iraqi Intelligence Service that contained equipment subject to UN monitoring and suitable for continuing CBW research.

  • A prison laboratory complex, possibly used in human testing of BW agents, that Iraqi officials working to prepare for UN inspections were explicitly ordered not to declare to the UN.

  • Reference strains of biological organisms concealed in a scientist's home, one of which can be used to produce biological weapons.

  • New research on BW-applicable agents, Brucella and Congo Crimean Hemorrhagic Fever (CCHF), and continuing work on ricin and aflatoxin were not declared to the UN.

  • Documents and equipment, hidden in scientists' homes, that would have been useful in resuming uranium enrichment by centrifuge and electromagnetic isotope separation (EMIS).

  • A line of UAVs not fully declared at an undeclared production facility and an admission that they had tested one of their declared UAVs out to a range of  500 km, 350 km beyond the permissible limit.

  • Continuing covert capability to manufacture fuel propellant useful only for prohibited SCUD variant missiles, a capability that was maintained at least until the end of 2001 and that cooperating Iraqi scientists have said they were told to conceal from the UN.

  • Plans and advanced design work for new long-range missiles with ranges up to at least 1000 km - well beyond the 150 km range limit imposed by the UN. Missiles of a 1000 km range would have allowed Iraq to threaten targets through out the Middle East, including Ankara, Cairo, and Abu Dhabi.

  • Clandestine attempts between late-1999 and 2002 to obtain from North Korea technology related to 1,300 km range ballistic missiles --probably the No Dong -- 300 km range anti-ship cruise missiles, and other prohibited military equipment.

In addition to the discovery of extensive concealment efforts, we have been faced with a systematic sanitization of documentary and computer evidence in a wide range of offices, laboratories, and companies suspected of WMD work. The pattern of these efforts to erase evidence - hard drives destroyed, specific files burned, equipment cleaned of all traces of use - are ones of deliberate, rather than random, acts. For example,

  • On 10 July 2003 an ISG team exploited the Revolutionary Command Council (RCC) Headquarters in Baghdad. The basement of the main building contained an archive of documents situated on well-organized rows of metal shelving. The basement suffered no fire damage despite the total destruction of the upper floors from coalition air strikes. Upon arrival the exploitation team encountered small piles of ash where individual documents or binders of documents were intentionally destroyed. Computer hard drives had been deliberately destroyed. Computers would have had financial value to a random looter; their destruction, rather than removal for resale or reuse, indicates a targeted effort to prevent Coalition forces from gaining access to their contents.

  • All IIS laboratories visited by IIS exploitation teams have been clearly sanitized, including removal of much equipment, shredding and burning of documents, and even the removal of nameplates from office doors.

  • Although much of the deliberate destruction and sanitization of documents and records probably occurred during the height of OIF combat operations, indications of significant continuing destruction efforts have been found after the end of major combat operations, including entry in May 2003 of the locked gated vaults of the Ba'ath party intelligence building in Baghdad and highly selective destruction of computer hard drives and data storage equipment along with the burning of a small number of specific binders that appear to have contained financial and intelligence records, and in July 2003 a site exploitation team at the Abu Ghurayb Prison found one pile of the smoldering ashes from documents that was still warm to the touch.

I would now like to review our efforts in each of the major lines of enquiry that ISG has pursued during this initial phase of its work.

With regard to biological warfare activities, which has been one of our two initial areas of focus, ISG teams are uncovering significant information - including research and development of BW-applicable organisms, the involvement of Iraqi Intelligence Service (IIS) in possible BW activities, and deliberate concealment activities. All of this suggests Iraq after 1996 further compartmentalized its program and focused on maintaining smaller, covert capabilities that could be activated quickly to surge the production of BW agents.

Debriefings of IIS officials and site visits have begun to unravel a clandestine network of laboratories and facilities within the security service apparatus. This network was never declared to the UN and was previously unknown. We are still working on determining the extent to which this network was tied to large-scale military efforts or BW terror weapons, but this clandestine capability was suitable for preserving BW expertise, BW capable facilities and continuing R&D - all key elements for maintaining a capability for resuming BW production. The IIS also played a prominent role in sponsoring students for overseas graduate studies in the biological sciences, according to Iraqi scientists and IIS sources, providing an important avenue for furthering BW-applicable research. This was the only area of graduate work that the IIS appeared to sponsor.

Discussions with Iraqi scientists uncovered agent R&D work that paired overt work with nonpathogenic organisms serving as surrogates for prohibited investigation with pathogenic agents. Examples include: B. Thurengiensis (Bt) with B. anthracis (anthrax), and medicinal plants with ricin. In a similar vein, two key former BW scientists, confirmed that Iraq under the guise of legitimate activity developed refinements of processes and products relevant to BW agents. The scientists discussed the development of improved, simplified fermentation and spray drying capabilities for the simulant Bt that would have been directly applicable to anthrax, and one scientist confirmed that the production line for Bt could be switched to produce anthrax in one week if the seed stock were available.

A very large body of information has been developed through debriefings, site visits, and exploitation of captured Iraqi documents that confirms that Iraq concealed equipment and materials from UN inspectors when they returned in 2002. One noteworthy example is a collection of reference strains that ought to have been declared to the UN. Among them was a vial of live C. botulinum Okra B. from which a biological agent can be produced. This discovery - hidden in the home of a BW scientist - illustrates the point I made earlier about the difficulty of locating small stocks of material that can be used to covertly surge production of deadly weapons. The scientist who concealed the vials containing this agent  has identified a large cache of agents that he was asked, but refused, to conceal. ISG is actively searching for this second cache.

Additional information is beginning to corroborate reporting since 1996 about human testing activities using chemical and biological substances, but progress in this area is slow given the concern of knowledgeable Iraqi personnel about their being prosecuted for crimes against humanity.

We have not yet been able to corroborate the existence of a mobile BW production effort. Investigation into the origin of and intended use for the two trailers found in northern Iraq in April has yielded a number of explanations, including hydrogen, missile propellant, and BW production, but technical limitations would prevent any of these processes from being ideally suited to these trailers. That said, nothing we have discovered rules out their potential use in BW production.

We have made significant progress in identifying and locating individuals who were reportedly involved in a mobile program, and we are confident that we will be able to get an answer to the questions as to whether there was a mobile program and whether the trailers that have been discovered so far were part of such a program.

Let me turn now to chemical weapons (CW). In searching for retained stocks of chemical munitions, ISG has had to contend with the almost unbelievable scale of Iraq's conventional weapons armory, which dwarfs by orders of magnitude the physical size of any conceivable stock of chemical weapons. For example, there are approximately 130 known Iraqi Ammunition Storage Points (ASP), many of which exceed 50 square miles in size and hold an estimated 600,000 tons of artillery shells, rockets, aviation bombs and other ordinance. Of these 130 ASPs, approximately 120 still remain unexamined. As Iraqi practice was not to mark much of their chemical ordinance and to store it at the same ASPs that held conventional rounds, the size of the required search effort is enormous.

While searching for retained weapons, ISG teams have developed multiple sources that indicate that Iraq explored the possibility of CW production in recent years, possibly as late as 2003. When Saddam had asked a senior military official in either 2001 or 2002 how long it would take to produce new chemical agent and weapons, he told ISG that after he consulted with CW experts in OMI he responded it would take six months for mustard. Another senior Iraqi chemical weapons expert in responding to a request in mid-2002 from Uday Husayn for CW for the Fedayeen Saddam estimated that it would take two months to produce mustard and two years for Sarin.

We are starting to survey parts of Iraq's chemical industry to determine if suitable equipment and bulk chemicals were available for chemical weapons production. We have been struck that two senior Iraqi officials volunteered that if they had been ordered to resume CW production Iraq would have been willing to use stainless steel systems that would be disposed of after a few production runs, in place of corrosive-resistant equipment which they did not have.

We continue to follow leads on Iraq's acquisition of equipment and bulk precursors suitable for a CW program. Several possibilities have emerged and are now being exploited. One example involves a foreign company with offices in Baghdad, that imported in the past into Iraq dual-use equipment and maintained active contracts through 2002. Its Baghdad office was found looted in August 2003, but we are pursuing other locations and associates of the company.

Information obtained since OIF has identified several key areas in which Iraq may have engaged in proscribed or undeclared activity since 1991, including research on a possible VX stabilizer, research and development for CW-capable munitions, and procurement/concealment of dual-use materials and equipment.

Multiple sources with varied access and reliability have told ISG that Iraq did not have a large, ongoing, centrally controlled CW program after 1991. Information found to date suggests that Iraq's large-scale capability to develop, produce, and fill new CW munitions was reduced - if not entirely destroyed - during Operations Desert Storm and Desert Fox, 13 years of UN sanctions and UN inspections. We are carefully examining dual-use, commercial chemical facilities to determine whether these were used or planned as alternative production sites.

We have also acquired information related to Iraq's CW doctrine and Iraq's war plans for OIF, but we have not yet found evidence to confirm pre-war reporting that Iraqi military units were prepared to use CW against Coalition forces. Our efforts to collect and exploit intelligence on Iraq's chemical weapons program have thus far yielded little reliable information on post-1991 CW stocks and CW agent production, although we continue to receive and follow leads related to such stocks. We have multiple reports that Iraq retained CW munitions made prior to 1991, possibly including mustard - a long-lasting chemical agent - but we have to date been unable to locate any such munitions.

With regard to Iraq's nuclear program, the testimony we have obtained from Iraqi scientists and senior government officials should clear up any doubts about whether Saddam still wanted to obtain nuclear weapons. They have told ISG that Saddam Husayn remained firmly committed to acquiring nuclear weapons. These officials assert that Saddam would have resumed nuclear weapons development at some future point. Some indicated a resumption after Iraq was free of sanctions. At least one senior Iraqi official believed that by 2000 Saddam had run out of patience with waiting for sanctions to end and wanted to restart the nuclear program. The Iraqi Atomic Energy Commission (IAEC) beginning around 1999 expanded its laboratories and research activities and increased its overall funding levels. This expansion may have been in initial preparation for renewed nuclear weapons research, although documentary evidence of this has not been found, and this is the subject of continuing investigation by ISG.

Starting around 2000, the senior Iraqi Atomic Energy Commission (IAEC) and high-level Ba'ath Party official Dr. Khalid Ibrahim Sa'id began several small and relatively unsophisticated research initiatives that could be applied to nuclear weapons development. These initiatives did not in-and-of themselves constitute a resumption of the nuclear weapons program, but could have been useful in developing a weapons-relevant science base for the long-term. We do not yet have information indicating whether a higher government authority directed Sa'id to initiate this research and, regretfully, Dr. Said was killed on April 8th during the fall of Baghdad when the car he was riding in attempted to run a Coalition roadblock.

Despite evidence of Saddam's continued ambition to acquire nuclear weapons, to date we have not uncovered evidence that Iraq undertook significant post-1998 steps to actually build nuclear weapons or produce fissile material. However, Iraq did take steps to preserve some technological capability from the pre-1991 nuclear weapons program.

  • According to documents and testimony of Iraqi scientists, some of the key technical groups from the pre-1991 nuclear weapons program remained largely intact, performing work on nuclear-relevant dual-use technologies within the Military Industrial Commission (MIC). Some scientists from the pre-1991 nuclear weapons program have told ISG that they believed that these working groups were preserved in order to allow a reconstitution of the nuclear weapons program, but none of the scientists could produce official orders or plans to support their belief.

  • In some cases, these groups performed work which could help preserve the science base and core skills that would be needed for any future fissile material production or nuclear weapons development.

  • Several scientists - at the direction of senior Iraqi government officials - preserved documents and equipment from their pre-1991 nuclear weapon-related research and did not reveal this to the UN/IAEA. One Iraqi scientist recently stated in an interview with ISG that it was a "common understanding" among the scientists that material was being preserved for reconstitution of nuclear weapons-related work.

The ISG nuclear team has found indications that there was interest, beginning in 2002, in reconstituting a centrifuge enrichment program. Most of this activity centered on activities of Dr. Sa'id that caused some of his former colleagues in the pre-1991 nuclear program to suspect that Dr. Sa'id, at least, was considering a restart of the centrifuge program. We do not yet fully understand Iraqi intentions, and the evidence does not tie any activity directly to centrifuge research or development.

Exploitation of additional documents may shed light on the projects and program plans of Dr. Khalid Ibrahim Sa'id. There may be more projects to be discovered in research placed at universities and private companies. Iraqi interest in reconstitution of a uranium enrichment program needs to be better understood through the analysis of procurement records and additional interviews.

With regard to delivery systems, the ISG team has discovered sufficient evidence to date to conclude that the Iraqi regime was committed to delivery system improvements that would have, if OIF had not occurred, dramatically breached UN restrictions placed on Iraq after the 1991 Gulf War.

Detainees and co-operative sources indicate that beginning in 2000 Saddam ordered the development of ballistic missiles with ranges of at least 400km and up to 1000km and that measures to conceal these projects from UNMOVIC were initiated in late-2002, ahead of the arrival of inspectors. Work was also underway for a clustered engine liquid propellant missile, and it appears the work had progressed to a point to support initial prototype production of some parts and assemblies. According to a cooperating senior detainee, Saddam concluded that the proposals from both the liquid-propellant and solid-propellant missile design centers would take too long. For instance, the liquid-propellant missile project team forecast first delivery in six years. Saddam countered in 2000 that he wanted the missile designed and built inside of six months. On the other hand several sources contend that Saddam's range requirements for the missiles grew from 400-500km in 2000 to 600-1000km in 2002.

ISG has gathered testimony from missile designers at Al Kindi State Company that Iraq has reinitiated work on converting SA-2 Surface-to-Air Missiles into ballistic missiles with a range goal of about 250km. Engineering work was reportedly underway in early 2003, despite the presence of UNMOVIC. This program was not declared to the UN. ISG is presently seeking additional confirmation and details on this project. A second cooperative source has stated that the program actually began in 2001, but that it received added impetus in the run-up to OIF, and that missiles from this project were transferred to a facility north of Baghdad. This source also provided documentary evidence of instructions to convert SA-2s into surface-to-surface missiles.

ISG has obtained testimony from both detainees and cooperative sources that indicate that proscribed-range solid-propellant missile design studies were initiated, or already underway, at the time when work on the clustered liquid-propellant missile designs began.  The motor diameter was to be 800 to 1000mm, i.e. much greater than the 500-mm Ababil-100. The range goals cited for this system vary from over 400km up to 1000km, depending on the source and the payload mass.

A cooperative source, involved in the 2001-2002 deliberations on the long-range solid propellant project, provided ISG with a set of concept designs for a launcher designed to accommodate a 1m diameter by 9m length missile. The limited detail in the drawings suggest there was some way to go before launcher fabrication. The source believes that these drawings would not have been requested until the missile progress was relatively advanced, normally beyond the design state. The drawing are in CAD format, with files dated 09/01/02.

While we have obtained enough information to make us confident that this design effort was underway, we are not yet confident which accounts of the timeline and project progress are accurate and are now seeking to better understand this program and its actual progress at the time of OIF.

One cooperative source has said that he suspected that the new large-diameter solid-propellant missile was intended to have a CW-filled warhead, but no detainee has admitted any actual knowledge of plans for unconventional warheads for any current or planned ballistic missile. The suspicion expressed by the one source about a CW warhead was based on his assessment of the unavailability of nuclear warheads and potential survivability problems of biological warfare agent in ballistic missile warheads. This is an area of great interest and we are seeking additional information on warhead designs.

While I have spoken so far of planned missile systems, one high-level detainee has recently claimed that Iraq retained a small quantity of Scud-variant missiles until at least 2001, although he subsequently recanted these claims, work continues to determine the truth.  Two other sources contend that Iraq continued to produce until 2001 liquid fuel and oxidizer specific to Scud-type systems. The cooperating source claims that the al Tariq Factory was used to manufacture Scud oxidizer (IRFNA) from 1996 to 2001, and that nitrogen tetroxide, a chief ingredient of IRFNA was collected from a bleed port on the production equipment, was reserved, and then mixed with highly concentrated nitric acid plus an inhibitor to produce Scud oxidizer.  Iraq never declared its pre-Gulf War capability to manufacture Scud IRFNA out of fear, multiple sources have stated, that the al Tariq Factory would be destroyed, leaving Baghdad without the ability to produce highly concentrated nitric acid, explosives and munitions. To date we have not discovered documentary or material evidence to corroborate these claims, but continued efforts are underway to clarify and confirm this information with additional Iraqi sources and to locate corroborating physical evidence. If we can confirm that the fuel was produced as late as 2001, and given that Scud fuel can only be used in Scud-variant missiles, we will have strong evidence that the missiles must have been retained until that date. This would, of course, be yet another example of a failure to declare prohibited activities to the UN.

Iraq was continuing to develop a variety of UAV platforms and maintained two UAV programs that were working in parallel, one at Ibn Fernas and one at al-Rashid Air Force Base. Ibn Fernas worked on the development of smaller, more traditional types of UAVs in addition to the conversion of manned aircraft into UAVs. This program was not declared to the UN until the 2002 CAFCD in which Iraq declared the RPV-20, RPV-30 and Pigeon RPV systems to the UN. All these systems had declared ranges of less than 150km. Several Iraqi officials stated that the RPV-20 flew over 500km on autopilot in 2002, contradicting Iraq's declaration on the system's range. The al-Rashid group was developing a competing line of UAVs. This program was never fully declared to the UN and is the subject of on-going work by ISG. Additional work is also focusing on the payloads and intended use for these UAVs. Surveillance and use as decoys are uses mentioned by some of those interviewed. Given Iraq's interest before the Gulf War in attempting to convert a MIG-21 into an unmanned aerial vehicle to carry spray tanks capable of dispensing chemical or biological agents, attention is being paid to whether any of the newer generation of UAVs were intended to have a similar purpose. This remains an open question.

ISG has discovered evidence of two primary cruise missile programs. The first appears to have been successfully implemented, whereas the second had not yet reached maturity at the time of OIF.

The first involved upgrades to the HY-2 coastal-defense cruise missile. ISG has developed multiple sources of testimony, which is corroborated in part by a captured document, that Iraq undertook a program aimed at increasing the HY-2's range and permitting its use as a land-attack missile. These efforts extended the HY-2's range from its original 100km to 150-180km. Ten modified missiles were delivered to the military prior to OIF and two of these were fired from Umm Qasr during OIF - one was shot down and one hit Kuwait.

The second program, called the Jenin, was a much more ambitious effort to convert the HY-2 into a 1000km range land-attack cruise missile. The Jenin concept was presented to Saddam on 23 November 2001 and received what cooperative sources called an "unusually quick response" in little more than a week. The essence of the concept was to take an HY-2, strip it of its liquid rocket engine, and put in its place a turbine engine from a Russian helicopter - the TV-2-117 or TV3-117 from a Mi-8 or Mi-17helicopter. To prevent discovery by the UN, Iraq halted engine development and testing and disassembled the test stand in late 2002 before the design criteria had been met.

In addition to the activities detailed here on Iraq's attempts to develop delivery systems beyond the permitted UN 150km, ISG has also developed information on Iraqi attempts to purchase proscribed missiles and missile technology. Documents found by ISG describe a high level dialogue between Iraq and North Korea that began in December 1999 and included an October 2000 meeting in Baghdad. These documents indicate Iraqi interest in the transfer of technology for surface-to-surface missiles with a range of 1300km (probably No Dong) and land-to-sea missiles with a range of 300km. The document quotes the North Koreans as understanding the limitations imposed by the UN, but being prepared "to cooperate with Iraq on the items it specified". At the time of OIF, these discussions had not led to any missiles being transferred to Iraq. A high level cooperating source has reported that in late 2002 at Saddam's behest a delegation of Iraqi officials was sent to meet with foreign export companies, including one that dealt with missiles. Iraq was interested in buying an advanced ballistic missile with 270km and 500km ranges.

The ISG has also identified a large volume of material and testimony by cooperating Iraq officials on Iraq's effort to illicitly procure parts and foreign assistance for its missile program. These include:

  • Significant level of assistance from a foreign company and its network of affiliates in supplying and supporting the development of production capabilities for solid rocket propellant and dual-use chemicals.

  • Entities from another foreign country were involved in supplying guidance and control systems for use in the Al-Fat'h (Ababil-100). The contract was incomplete by the time of OIF due to technical problems with the few systems delivered and a financial dispute.

  • A group of foreign experts operating in a private capacity were helping to develop Iraq's liquid propellant ballistic missile RDT&E and production infrastructure. They worked in Baghdad for about three months in late 1998 and subsequently continued work on the project from abroad. An actual contract valued at $10 million for machinery and equipment was signed in June 2001, initially for 18 months, but later extended. This cooperation continued right up until the war.

  • A different group of foreign experts traveled to Iraq in 1999 to conduct a technical review that resulted in what became the Al Samoud 2 design, and a contract was signed in 2001 for the provision of rigs, fixtures and control equipment for the redesigned missile.

  • Detainees and cooperative sources have described the role of a foreign expert in negotiations on the development of Iraq's liquid and solid propellant production infrastructure. This could have had applications in existing and planned longer range systems, although it is reported that nothing had actually been implemented before OIF.

Uncertainty remains about the full extent of foreign assistance to Iraq's planned expansion of its missile systems and work is continuing to gain a full resolution of this issue. However, there is little doubt from the evidence already gathered that there was  substantial illegal procurement for all aspects of the missile programs.

I have covered a lot of ground today, much of it highly technical. Although we are resisting drawing conclusions in this first interim report, a number of things have become clearer already as a result of our investigation, among them:

  1. Saddam, at least as judged by those scientists and other insiders who worked in his military-industrial programs, had not given up his aspirations and intentions to continue to acquire weapons of mass destruction. Even those senior officials we have interviewed who claim no direct knowledge of any on-going prohibited activities readily acknowledge that Saddam intended to resume these programs whenever the external restrictions were removed. Several of these officials acknowledge receiving inquiries since 2000 from Saddam or his sons about how long it would take to either restart CW production or make available chemical weapons.

  2. In the delivery systems area there were already well advanced, but undeclared, on-going activities that, if OIF had not intervened, would have resulted in the production of missiles with ranges at least up to 1000 km, well in excess of the UN permitted range of 150 km. These missile activities were supported by a serious clandestine procurement program about which we have much still to learn.

  3. In the chemical and biological weapons area we have confidence that there were at a minimum clandestine on-going research and development activities that were embedded in the Iraqi Intelligence Service. While we have much yet to learn about the exact work programs and capabilities of these activities, it is already apparent that these undeclared activities would have at a minimum facilitated chemical and biological weapons activities and provided a technically trained cadre.

Let me conclude by returning to something I began with today. We face a unique but challenging opportunity in our efforts to unravel the exact status of Iraq's WMD program. The good news is that we do not have to rely for the first time in over a decade on

  • the incomplete, and often false, data that Iraq supplied the UN/IAEA;

  • data collected by UN inspectors operating with the severe constraints that Iraqi security and deception actions imposed;

  • information supplied by defectors, some of whom certainly fabricated much that they supplied and perhaps were under the direct control of the IIS;

  • data collected by national technical collections systems with their own limitations.

The bad news is that we have to do this under conditions that ensure that our work will take time and impose serious physical dangers on those who are asked to carry it out.

Why should we take the time and run the risk to ensure that our conclusions reflect the truth to the maximum extent that is possible given the conditions in post-conflict Iraq? For those of us that are carrying out this search, there are two reasons that drive us to want to complete this effort.

First, whatever we find will probably differ from pre-war intelligence. Empirical reality on the ground is, and has always been, different from intelligence judgments that must be made under serious constraints of time, distance and information. It is, however, only by understanding precisely what those difference are that the quality of future intelligence and investment decisions concerning future intelligence systems can be improved. Proliferation of weapons of mass destruction is such a continuing threat to global society that learning those lessons has a high imperative.

Second, we have found people, technical information and illicit procurement networks that if allowed to flow to other countries and regions could accelerate global proliferation. Even in the area of actual weapons there is no doubt that Iraq had at one time chemical and biological weapons. Even if there were only a remote possibility that these pre-1991 weapons still exist, we have an obligation to American troops who are now there and the Iraqi population to ensure that none of these remain to be used against them in the ongoing insurgency activity.

Mr. Chairman and Members I appreciate this opportunity to share with you the initial results of the first 3 months of the activities of the Iraqi Survey Group. I am certain that I speak for Major General Keith Dayton, who commands the Iraqi Survey Group, when I say how proud we are of the men and women from across the Government and from our Coalition partners, Australia and the United Kingdom, who have gone to Iraq and are carrying out this important mission.

Thank you.


- mark 4-04-2004 3:34 pm [link]

What Happens When You Remain Silent?
Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity -- August 22, 2003

August 22, 2003

MEMORANDUM FOR: Colleagues in Intelligence

FROM: Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity

SUBJECT: Now It’s Your Turn

Sixty-four summers ago, when Hitler fabricated Polish provocations in his attempt to justify Germany’s invasion of Poland, there was not a peep out of senior German officials. Happily, in today’s Germany the imperative of truth telling no longer takes a back seat to ingrained docility and knee-jerk deference to the perceived dictates of “homeland security.” The most telling recent sign of this comes in today’s edition of Die Zeit, Germany’s highly respected weekly. The story, by Jochen Bittner holds lessons for us all.

Die Zeit’s report leaves in tatters the “evidence” cited by Secretary of State Colin Powell and other administration spokesmen as the strongest proof that Iraq was using mobile trailers as laboratories to produce material for biological weapons.
German Intelligence on Powell’s “Solid” Sources

Bittner notes that, like their American counterparts, German intelligence officials had to hold their noses as Powell on February 5 at the UN played fast and loose with intelligence he insisted came from “solid sources.” Powell’s specific claims concerning the mobile laboratories, it turns out, depended heavily—perhaps entirely—on a source of the Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND), Germany’s equivalent to the CIA. But the BND, it turns out, considered the source in no way “solid.” A “senior German security official” told Die Zeit that, in passing the report to US officials, the Germans made a point of noting “various problems with the source.” In more diplomatic language, Die Zeit’s informant indicated that the BND’s “evaluation of the source was not altogether positive.”

German officials remain in some confusion regarding the “four different sources” cited by Powell in presenting his case regarding the “biological laboratories.” Berlin has not been told who the other three sources are. In this context, a German intelligence officer mentioned that there is always the danger of false confirmation, suggesting it is possible that the various reports can be traced back to the same original source, theirs—that is, the one with which the Germans had “various problems.”

Even if there are in fact multiple sources, the Germans wonder what reason there is to believe that the others are more “solid” than their own. Powell indicated that some of the sources he cited were Iraqi émigrés. While the BND would not give Die Zeit an official comment, Bittner notes pointedly that German intelligence “proceeds on the assumption that émigrés do not always tell the truth and that the picture they draw can be colored by political motives.”

Plausible?

Despite all that, in an apparent bid to avoid taking the heat for appearing the constant naysayer on an issue of such neuralgic import in Washington, German intelligence officials say that, the dubious sourcing notwithstanding, they considered the information on the mobile biological laboratories “plausible.”

In recent weeks, any “plausibility” has all but evaporated. Many biological warfare specialists in the US and elsewhere were skeptical from the start. Now Defense Intelligence Agency specialists have joined their counterparts at the State Department and elsewhere in concluding that the two trailer/laboratories discovered in Iraq in early May are hydrogen-producing facilities for weather balloons to calibrate Iraqi artillery, as the Iraqis have said.

Perhaps it was this DIA report that emboldened the BND official to go public about the misgivings the BND had about the source.

Insult to Intelligence

What do intelligence analysts do when their professional ethic—to tell the truth without fear or favor—is prostituted for political expedience? Usually, they hold their peace, as we’ve already noted was the case in Germany in 1939 before the invasion of Poland. The good news is that some intelligence officials are now able to recognize a higher duty—particularly when the issue involves war and peace. Clearly, some BND officials are fed up with the abuse of intelligence they have witnessed—and especially the trifling with the intelligence that they have shared with the US from their own sources. At least one such official appears to have seen it as a patriotic duty to expose what appears to be a deliberate distortion.

This is a hopeful sign. There are indications that British intelligence officials, too, are beginning to see more distinctly their obligation to speak truth to power, especially in light of the treatment their government accorded Ministry of Defense biologist Dr. David Kelly, who became despondent to the point of suicide.

Even more commendable was the courageous move by senior Australian intelligence analyst Andrew Wilkie when it became clear to him that the government he was serving had decided to take part in launching an unprovoked war based on “intelligence” information he knew to be specious. Wilkie resigned and promptly spoke his piece—not only to his fellow citizens but, after the war, at Parliament in London and Congress in Washington. Andrew Wilkie was not naïve enough to believe he could stop the war when he resigned in early March. What was clear to him, however, was that he had a moral duty to expose the deliberate deception in which his government, in cooperation with the US and UK, had become engaged. And he knew instinctively that, in so doing, he could with much clearer conscience look at himself in the mirror each morning.

What About Us?

Do you not find it ironic that State Department foreign service officers, whom we intelligence professionals have (quite unfairly) tended to write off as highly articulate but unthinking apologists for whatever administration happens to be in power, are the only ones so far to resign on principle over the war on Iraq? Three of them have—all three with very moving explanations that their consciences would no longer allow them to promote “intelligence” and policies tinged with deceit.

What about you? It is clear that you have been battered, buffeted, besmirched. And you are painfully aware that you can expect no help at this point from Director George Tenet. Recall the painful morning when you watched him at the UN sitting squarely behind Powell, as if to say the Intelligence Community endorses the deceitful tapestry he wove. No need to remind you that his speech boasted not only the bogus biological trailers but also assertions of a “sinister nexus” between Iraq and al-Qaeda, despite the fact that your intense, year-and-a-half analytical effort had turned up no credible evidence to support that claim. To make matters worse, Tenet is himself under fire for acquiescing in a key National Intelligence Estimate on “weapons of mass destruction” in Iraq that included several paragraphs based on a known forgery. That is the same estimate from which the infamous 16 words were drawn for the president’s state-of-the-union address on January 28.

And not only that. In a dramatic departure from customary practice, Tenet has let the moneychangers into the temple—welcoming the most senior policymakers into the inner sanctum where all-source analysis is performed at CIA headquarters, wining and dining Vice President Dick Cheney, Secretary of State Colin Powell, National Security Assistant Condoleezza Rice, and even former House Speaker Newt Gingrich (now representing the Pentagon) on their various visits to make sure you didn’t miss anything! You have every right to expect to be protected from that kind of indignity. Small wonder that Gingrich, in a recent unguarded moment on TV, conceded that Tenet “is so grateful to President Bush that he will do anything for him.” CIA directors have no business being so integral a “part of the team.”

Powell, who points proudly to his four day-and-night cram course at the CIA in the days immediately prior to his February 5 UN speech, seems oblivious to the fact that personal visitations of that frequency and duration—and for that purpose—are unprecedented in the history of the CIA. Equally unprecedented are Cheney’s “multiple visits.” When George H. W. Bush was vice president, not once did he go out to CIA headquarters for a working visit. We brought our analysis to him. As you are well aware, once the subjects uppermost in policymakers’ minds are clear to analysts, the analysis itself must be conducted in an unfettered, sequestered way—and certainly without the direct involvement of officials with policy axes to grind. Until now, that is the way it has been done; the analysis and estimates were brought downtown to the policymakers—not the other way around.

What Happens When You Remain Silent?

There is no more telling example than Vietnam. CIA analysts were prohibited from reporting accurately on the non-incident in the Tonkin Gulf on August 4, 1964 until the White House had time to use the “furious fire-fight” to win the Tonkin Gulf resolution from Congress—and eleven more years of war for the rest of us.

And we kept quiet.

In November 1967 as the war gathered steam, CIA management gave President Lyndon Johnson a very important National Intelligence Estimate known to be fraudulent. Painstaking research by a CIA analyst, the late Sam Adams, had revealed that the Vietnamese Communists under arms numbered 500,000. But Gen. William Westmoreland in Saigon, eager to project an image of progress in the US “war of attrition,” had imposed a very low artificial ceiling on estimates of enemy strength.

Analysts were aghast when management caved in and signed an NIE enshrining Westmoreland’s count of between 188,000 and 208,000. The Tet offensive just two months later exploded that myth—at great human cost. And the war dragged on for seven more years.

Then, as now, morale among analysts plummeted. A senior CIA official made the mistake of jocularly asking Adams if he thought the Agency had “gone beyond the bounds of reasonable dishonesty.” Sam, who had not only a keen sense of integrity but first-hand experience of what our troops were experiencing in the jungles of Vietnam, had to be restrained. He would be equally outraged at the casualties being taken now by US forces fighting another unnecessary war, this time in the desert. Kipling’s verse applies equally well to jungle or desert:

If they question why we died, tell them because our fathers lied.

Adams himself became, in a very real sense, a casualty of Vietnam. He died of a heart attack at 55, with remorse he was unable to shake. You see, he decided to “go through channels,” pursuing redress by seeking help from imbedded CIA and the Defense Department Inspectors General. Thus, he allowed himself to be diddled for so many years that by the time he went public the war was mostly over—and the damage done.

Sam had lived painfully with the thought that, had he gone public when the CIA’s leaders caved in to the military in 1967, the entire left half of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial would not have had to be built. There would have been 25-30,000 fewer names for the granite to accommodate.

So too with Daniel Ellsberg, who made the courageous decision to give the Pentagon Papers on Vietnam to the New York Times and Washington Post for publication in 1971. Dan has been asked whether he has any regrets. Yes, one big one, he says. If he had made the papers available in 1964 or 65, this tragically unnecessary war might have been stopped in its tracks. Why did he not? Dan’s response is quite telling; he says the thought never occurred to him at the time.

Let the thought occur to you, now.

But Isn’t It Too Late?

No. While it is too late to prevent the misadventure in Iraq, the war is hardly over, and analogous “evidence” is being assembled against Iran, Syria, and North Korea. Yes, US forces will have their hands full for a long time in Iraq, but this hardly rules out further adventures based on “intelligence” as spurious as that used to argue the case for attacking Iraq.

The best deterrent is the truth. Telling the truth about the abuse of intelligence on Iraq could conceivably give pause to those about to do a reprise. It is, in any case, essential that the American people acquire a more accurate understanding of the use and abuse of intelligence. Only then can there be any hope that they can experience enough healing from the trauma of 9/11 to be able to make informed judgments regarding the policies pursued by this administration—thus far with the timid acquiescence of their elected representatives.

History is littered with the guilty consciences of those who chose to remain silent. It is time to speak out.

/s/

Gene Betit, Arlington, VA
Pat Lang, Alexandria, VA
David MacMichael, Linden, VA
Ray McGovern, Arlington, VA

Steering Group
Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity

- mark 4-05-2004 4:51 am [link]

New Doubts On Iraq Nuke Claims
CBSnews.com -- August 11, 2003

(CBS/AP) The Bush administration continued to make claims concerning Iraq's alleged pursuit of nuclear weapons even as the evidence behind those charges grew thinner, a newspaper [The Washington Post] reports.

- mark 3-07-2004 6:48 am [link]

Depiction of Threat Outgrew Supporting Evidence
Washington Post via Truthout -- Sunday, August 10, 2003

Page A01
By Barton Gellman and Walter Pincus
His name was Joe, from the U.S. government. He carried 40 classified slides and a message from the Bush administration.

An engineer-turned-CIA analyst, Joe had helped build the U.S. government case that Iraq posed a nuclear threat. He landed in Vienna on Jan. 22 and drove to the U.S. diplomatic mission downtown. In a conference room 32 floors above the Danube River, he told United Nations nuclear inspectors they were making a serious mistake.

At issue was Iraq's efforts to buy high-strength aluminum tubes. The U.S. government said those tubes were for centrifuges to enrich uranium for a nuclear bomb. But the IAEA, the world's nuclear watchdog, had uncovered strong evidence that Iraq was using them for conventional rockets.

- mark 3-07-2004 6:51 am [link]

[Seen at Where-Are-They(tm)]

Iraqi Trailers Said to Make Hydrogen, Not Biological Arms
New York Times -- August 8, 2003

By DOUGLAS JEHL
WASHINGTON — Engineering experts from the Defense Intelligence Agency have come to believe that the most likely use for two mysterious trailers found in Iraq was to produce hydrogen for weather balloons rather than to make biological weapons, government officials say.

The classified findings by a majority of the engineering experts differ from the view put forward in a white paper made public on May 28 by the C.I.A. and the Defense Intelligence Agency, which said that the trailers were for making biological weapons.
Article reprinted by San Jose Mercury News.

- mark 3-07-2004 6:54 am [link]

[Article discusses public disclosures from classified October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) related to Nigerian yellowcake.]

White House reveals report to bolster uranium claim
CNN -- July 19, 2003

[The date on the CNN website indicates December 25, 2003. But this story broke on July 19, 2003. The URL on this story implies 2003/07/19, so I'm going with the July date.]

- mark 2-10-2004 7:15 am [link]






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