Senator Carl Levin

"Not Just Sixteen Words"

Thu Jul 24 20:06:14 2003
208.152.73.215

"Not Just Sixteen Words"
http://truthout.org/docs_03/071803I.shtml#
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Senator Carl Levin | Ranking Member Senate Armed Services Committee

Congressional Record
108th Congress
First Session

Tuesday 15 July 2003

Iraq Intelligence

Last week, CIA Director George Tenet accepted responsibility for having
gone along with the African uranium statement in the President's State of
the Union address. His acknowledgment that it should not have been included
in the address and his acceptance of responsibility were appropriate. But
his explanation of the CIA's acquiescence in allowing the use of a clearly
misleading statement raises more questions than it answers, and statements
by other administration officials, particularly National Security Adviser
Condoleezza Rice, compound the problem.

Even more troubling, however, is the fact that the uranium statement
appears to be but one of a number of several questionable statements and
exaggerations by the Intelligence Community and Administration officials
that were issued in the buildup to the war. The importance of objective and
credible intelligence cannot be overstated. It is therefore essential that
we have a thorough, open and bipartisan inquiry into the objectivity,
credibility and use of U.S. intelligence before the Iraq war.

First, relative to the uranium issue: the President in his State of the
Union message said that the British government had learned that Iraq
recently sought to purchase significant quantities of uranium from Africa.
The sole purpose of that statement was to make the American people believe
that the American government believed the statement to be true and that it
was strong evidence of Iraq's attempt to obtain nuclear weapons. But the
truth was that, at the very time the words were spoken, our government did
not believe it was true. Condoleezza Rice's effort to justify the statement
on the grounds that it was "technically accurate" doesn't address the heart
of the matter, which is that the statement was calculated to create a false
impression. It is simply wrong to make a statement whose purpose is to make
people believe something when you do not believe it yourself.

It is all well and good that the CIA has acknowledged its role in caving
in to pressure from the National Security Council to concur in something
which it did not believe. But Director Tenet's acknowledgment raises further
questions of who was pushing the false impression at the National Security
Council. The NSC should not misuse intelligence that way.

The President's statement that Iraq was attempting to acquire African
uranium was not a "mistake." It was not inadvertent. It was not a slip. It
was negotiated between the CIA and the NSC. It was calculated. It was
misleading. And what compounds its misleading nature is that the CIA not
only "differed with the British dossier on the reliability of the uranium
reporting" to use Director Tenet's words, but the CIA had also "expressed
[its] reservations," again using Director Tenet's words, to the British in
September 2002, nearly five months before the State of Union address.
Furthermore, the CIA pressed the White House to remove a similar reference
from the President's speech on October 7, 2002, and the White House did so
- nearly four months before the State of the Union address.

The uranium issue is not just about sixteen words. It is about the
conscious decisions that were made, apparently by the NSC and concurred in
by the CIA, to create a false impression. And it is not an isolated example.
There is troubling evidence of other dubious statements and exaggerations by
the Intelligence Community and Administration officials.

Aluminum tubes: In a speech before the UN General Assembly on September
12th, 2002, President Bush said "Iraq has made several attempts to buy
high-strength aluminum tubes used to enrich uranium for a nuclear weapon."
In fact, an unclassified intelligence assessment in October acknowledged
that some intelligence specialists "believe that these tubes are probably
intended for conventional weapons programs," and on February 5th, 2003,
Secretary of State Colin Powell told the UN Security Council that "we all
know there are differences of opinion," and that "there is controversy about
what these tubes are for." The International Atomic Energy Agency, after
conducting an inquiry into the aluminum tubes issue concluded they were not
for uranium enrichment.

Iraq-al Qaeda connection: On September 27 of last year, Secretary of
Defense Donald Rumsfeld described the Administration's search for hard
evidence for a connection between Iraq and al Qaeda. He said "we ended up
with five or six sentences that were bullet-proof. We could say them, they
are factual, they are exactly accurate. They demonstrate that there are in
fact al Qaeda in Iraq." While Secretary Rumsfeld later went on to say "they
are not beyond a reasonable doubt," he did not say there was considerable
uncertainty in the Intelligence Community about the nature and extent of
ties, if any, between Iraq and al Qaeda. It was certainly never a "bullet-
proof" case.

Nuclear reconstitution: Last Sunday, Ms. Rice said "we have never said
that we thought he [Saddam] had nuclear weapons." But Vice President Cheney
said on March 16 "we believe he [Saddam] has, in fact, reconstituted nuclear
weapons."

Certainty that Iraq possesses chemical and biological weapons: On August
26, 2002, Vice President Cheney said: "Simply stated, there is no doubt that
Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction. There is no doubt he is
amassing them to use against our friends, against our allies, and against
us." On September 26, 2002, President Bush said "The Iraqi regime possesses
biological and chemical weapons." On March 17, 2003, President Bush told the
nation that "intelligence gathered by this and other governments leaves no
doubt that the Iraq regime continues to possess and conceal some of the most
lethal weapons ever devised." And on March 30, 2003, Secretary of Defense
Donald Rumsfeld said "We know where they [weapons of mass destruction] are.
They're in the area around Tikrit and Baghdad and east, west, south and
north somewhat." The fruitless search to date for Saddam Hussein's weapons
of mass destruction during and after our entry into Iraq suggests that our
intelligence was either way off the mark or seriously stretched.

Mobile biological warfare labs: On May 28, 2003, the CIA posted on its
website a document it prepared with the Defense Intelligence Agency entitled
"Iraqi Mobile Biological Warfare Agent Production Plants." This report
concluded that the two trailers found in Iraq were for biological warfare
agent production, even though other experts and intelligence community
members do not agree with that conclusion, or believe there is not enough
evidence to reach such a conclusion. None of these alternative views were
posted on the CIA's web page.

White House Web Site Photos: On October 8, 2002, the White House placed
three sets of satellite photos on its web site, with the headline
"Construction at three Iraqi nuclear weapons-related facilities". Although
one of the facilities was not nuclear-related, the captions of the photos
gave the impression that Iraq was proceeding with work on weapons of mass
destruction at these facilities, although UNMOVIC and IAEA inspections at
these facilities found no prohibited activities or weapons. For the Al Furat
Manufacturing Facility, the caption notes that "the building was originally
intended to house a centrifuge enrichment cascade operation supporting
Iraq's uranium enrichment efforts," and that after construction resumed in
2001, "the building appears operational."

So the misleading statement about African uranium is not an isolated
issue. There is a significant amount of troubling evidence that it was part
of a pattern of exaggeration and misleading statements. That is what a
thorough, open and bipartisan investigation should examine.

Finally, Mr. President, again relative to the uranium statement, I am
deeply troubled by Ms. Rice's continuing justification of the use of the
statement in the President's State of the Union address. She repeatedly says
it was "accurate," despite the fact that its clear aim was to create a false
impression. Her statement and Director Tenet's statement raise more
questions than they answer. Here are some of those questions:

1. Who in the Administration was pressing the CIA to concur in a
statement that the CIA did not believe was true, and why did they do so even
after the CIA objected to the text?

2. Who at the CIA was involved in pressing the White House to remove the
similar reference from the October 7th speech, and what reasons did they
give for removing it?

3. Who in the White House was involved in removing a similar reference
from the President's speech on October 7th, nearly four months before the
State of the Union speech?

4. Who at the CIA knew about the decision to tell the British
intelligence service in September, 2002 of CIA's "reservations" about the
inclusion of references to Iraqi efforts to obtain uranium from Africa in
the British intelligence service's September 24 dossier?

5. Given the doubts of the U.S. Intelligence Community, why didn't the
President say in his State of the Union speech not only that "The British
government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant
quantities of uranium from Africa," but that "our U.S. Intelligence
Community has serious doubts about such reporting"?

6. How and when did the US government receive the forged documents on
Niger, and when did it become aware that they might be bogus?

7. What role did the Office of the Vice President have in bringing about
an inquiry into Iraq's purported efforts to obtain uranium from Africa? Was
the Vice President's staff briefed on the results of Ambassador Wilson's
trip to Africa?

These and many other questions underscore the critical importance of a
thorough, open and bipartisan inquiry into the objectivity and credibility
of intelligence concerning the presence of weapons of mass destruction in
Iraq immediately before the war and the alleged Iraq-al Qaeda connection,
and the use of such intelligence by the Department of Defense in policy
decisions, military planning and the conduct of operations in Iraq.