NEW YORK, 7 July 2004 — The US Senate Intelligence Committee has concluded the Central Intelligence Agency’s bungled intelligence led to the perception that Iraq’s Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction before the war. These weapons were the main reason the Bush administration gave for invading Iraq last year.
The report, to be released tomorrow, is expected to contain a scathing indictment of the CIA and its leaders, and says that prior to the war in Iraq the CIA was told by relatives of Iraqi scientists that Baghdad was no longer working on banned weapons.
The report criticizes the CIA for apparently ignoring these statements by family members, and for not distributing these intelligence reports throughout the government.
One of the most sensitive components of the Senate investigation examines the CIA’s handling of intelligence regarding the shipment of aluminum tubes captured by the US in 2001.
CIA analysts argued the tubes were designed for use as “spinning rotors in a centrifuge that could be used to enrich uranium for bombs.”
Only later did the CIA disclose reports that showed the tubes failed when tested and were actually designed for use in conventional military rockets. The report says the CIA did not pass that information on to President Bush.
The CIA’s handling of intelligence on biological weapons has also drawn congressional criticism for relying too heavily on Iraqi defectors to conclude that Iraq had developed mobile biological weapons laboratories.
There is also intense speculation on Capitol Hill whether CIA Director George Tenet’s recent resignation is also linked to the bitter split in the Bush administration over Iraqi leader Ahmed Chalabi.
Chalabi’s Iraqi National Congress provided much of the faulty prewar intelligence on Iraq’s WMD to the Bush Administration through their supporters in the Pentagon. Chalabi remained on the Pentagon’s payroll until recently when Iraqi and US security forces raided his Baghdad headquarters.
Apart from the Senate intelligence report on Iraq, an independent panel investigating the Sept. 11 attacks, also due in July, is also expected to be highly critical of the CIA and the Bush administration.
Tenet was director of the CIA on Sept. 11 and evidence before the 9/11 commission of inquiry shows CIA failed to detect the presence of two of the Al-Qaeda hijackers who were in the US before the attacks.
Tenet’s sudden resignation was announced just before these two critical reports on intelligence failures in Iraq and the Sept. 11 attacks are to be made public.
Bob Woodward’s book, “Plan of Attack” — which focuses on the Bush administration’s preparation for the war in Iraq — says Tenet assured Bush about the evidence of the existence of Iraq’s illegal weapons.
Tenet strongly promoted these claims before the war, famously telling Bush, “It’s a slam dunk case,” says Woodward.
His words have long since haunted Tenet as weapons inspectors failed to turn up any evidence of WMD stockpiles.
For weeks, the committee and the CIA had been in conflict about how much of the material in the reports must remain classified. Those close to the committee say the CIA initially removed more than half of the information in the 410-page report.
Observers says the changes “eviscerated” the report, but say the committee hopes to make at least 80 percent of it public.
