Powell's doubts over CIA intelligence on Iraq prompted him to set up secret review Specialists removed questionable evidence about weapons from draft of secretary of state's speech to UN Suzanne Goldenberg in Washington and Richard Norton-Taylor Monday June 2, 2003 The Guardian Fresh evidence emerged last night that Colin Powell, the US secretary of state, was so disturbed about questionable American intelligence on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction that he assembled a secret team to review the information he was given before he made a crucial speech to the UN security council on February 5. Mr Powell conducted a full-dress rehearsal of the speech on the eve of the session at his suite in the Waldorf Astoria, his New York base when he is on UN business, according to the authoritative US News and World Report. Much of the initial information for Mr Powell's speech to the UN was provided by the Pentagon, where Paul Wolfowitz, the US deputy defence secretary, set up a special unit, the Office of Special Plans, to counter the uncertainty of the CIA's intelligence on Iraq. Mr Powell's team removed dozens of pages of alleged evidence about Iraq's banned weapons and ties to terrorists from a draft of his speech, US News and World Report says today. At one point, he became so angry at the lack of adequate sourcing to intelligence claims that he declared: "I'm not reading this. This is bull****," according to the magazine. Presented with a script for his speech, Mr Powell suspected that Washington hawks were "cherry picking", the US magazine Newsweek also reports today. Greg Theilmann, a recently retired state department intelligence analyst directly involved in assessing the Iraqi threat, says that inside the Bush administration "there is a lot of sorrow and anger at the way intelligence was misused". The Bush administration, under increased scrutiny for failing to find Saddam Hussein's arsenals eight weeks after occupying Baghdad, yesterday confronted the damaging new allegations on the misuse of intelligence to bolster the case for war. The gaps in the case against Saddam have become a matter for public debate only within the last few days. They have also become an issue of credibility for the CIA and the Bush administration as it begins to assemble a case against Iran and its nuclear programme. Yesterday, a senior Bush administration official told reporters travelling with the president to the Evian summit that Washington was not alone in its pursuit of Saddam's arsenal. "We have to remember that there's a long history of accusation of the weapons of mass destruction programmes in Iraq. A lot of what is unresolved about the Iraqi weapons of mass destruction programme comes from the United Nations, from Unscom, from Unmovic [teams of weapons inspectors] and, of course, from US and other intelligence," the official said. The official also said that US forces in Iraq had not yet had the time to process the hundreds of documents captured since Saddam's fall, or track down the people with information on his weapons programmes. On Friday, the CIA director, George Tenet, was forced to issue a statement denying the agency doctored intelligence reports. "Our role is to call it like we see it, to tell policymakers what we know, what we don't know, what we think, and what we base it on. That's the code we live by," the statement said. During a series of meetings at CIA headquarters last February, initiated by Mr Powell, the secretary of state was reported to have reviewed the intelligence reports on Saddam, his arsenal of chemical and nuclear weapons, and his possible links with al-Qaida. The ostensible purpose of the exercise, carried out over four days, was to decide which should be included in his address. However, a common theme of the meetings was the failure of the CIA and other intelligence agencies to produce a convincing case against Saddam. Despite the increasingly belligerent statements from the administration's hawks, the CIA had disturbingly little proof. Even more damaging, many of the assertions bandied about were based on reports that were speculative or impossible to corroborate - but seized on because they suited the agenda of the hawks in the administration. Ambiguities and nuance were left aside. One claim from the original dossier that could not be proved involved the supply of sensitive software from Australia that would have allowed Baghdad to gather sensitive information about the topography of the US. However, the CIA could not establish for Mr Powell whether the software had been delivered to Iraq. Although the issue of flawed CIA intelligence has caused concern about the agency's ability to gather evidence on potential threats to the US, it did not appear to have shaken the widespread belief that the war on Iraq was a just war. "The day that I saw those nine and 10- year-old boys released from a prison, the day I saw the mass graves uncovered, it was ample testimony of the brutality and repressiveness of this regime," the Republican senator John McCain told ABC television yesterday. "It was the day that I believe our liberation of Iraq was fully vindicated."
Powell Defends Iraq Weapons Intelligence By NICOLE WINFIELD The Associated Press Monday, June 2, 2003; 12:06 PM ROME - Secretary of State Colin Powell defended U.S. intelligence about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction Monday, saying he was convinced by "overwhelming" evidence that they existed, even though none have yet been found. In some of his most extensive comments on the issue, Powell tried to dismiss reports suggesting U.S. intelligence was flawed or overstated to justify the war. He insisted there was no point in getting "trapped in the long-winded debate about what was known and not known" about Iraq's weapons programs before the war. "There were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. It wasn't a figment of anyone's imagination," Powell said, citing Baghdad's use of the weapons in the war against Iran and against Iraqi Kurds in the 1980s, and the discovery of such weapons after the 1991 Gulf War. "So there is no question, there is no debate that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction," he told a press conference after meeting with his Italian counterpart, Franco Frattini. He said the United States was putting in place the "most extensive regime imaginable" of weapons experts to locate them. The Bush administration justified the war in part by insisting that Saddam Hussein's regime continued to possess and develop weapons of mass destruction in violation of U.N. resolutions that ended the Gulf War. Iraq insisted it had eliminated its weapons programs. No weapons have yet been found, and recent news reports questioned the sources of some of the intelligence Powell cited in his Feb. 5 presentation to the U.N. Security Council justifying Washington's hard line against Baghdad. British Prime Minister Tony Blair, America's staunchest ally in the war, has similarly been attacked by critics who claim he duped the public about the threat of Iraqi weapons with flawed intelligence to win support for the war. At the G-8 summit in France on Monday, Blair rejected charges that his government doctored weapons evidence. Powell said the Security Council had implicitly agreed that Iraq possessed banned weapons when it approved Resolution 1441 last year - "a resolution that started out with the proposition that Iraq was in material breach of its obligations, that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction." "There was no doubt in my mind as I went through the intelligence, and as I prepared myself for the briefing that I gave to the Security Council on the 5th of February, that the evidence was overwhelming, that they had continued to develop" weapons programs, Powell said. He said that the war was "perfectly appropriate" because Iraq had continued to violate the will of the international community by thwarting U.N. weapons inspections and failing to fully account for its weapons. He said the recent discovery of what U.S. officials say are mobile biological weapons labs was evidence that the intelligence was correct. "There is no question in our minds that that's what their purpose was," Powell said. "Nobody has come up with an alternate purpose that makes sense." © 2003 The Associated Press
I thought he was either talking about his memoirs or his statement about American atrocities in Vietnam when he *investigated* My Lai - "relations between American soldiers and the Vietnamese are excellent." Four Hours in My Lai - Michael Bilton and Kevin Sims.
This is what also bothers me about the Chemical Weapons argument. When was the last time he used chemicals weapons? He certainly didn't use them against us. This whole issue is becoming absurd. I mean, to quote the fact that he used them in the 80's to justify war now is laughable. Let me see, we don't try to stop him in the 80's when we know he's using them, but the fact that we know he has them because he used them in the 80's is a reason to go to war in 2003. Unbelievable logic.
OK, he also could have been talking about the fake documents he showed at the Security Council meeting.
You are aware that our justification was Weapons of Mass Destruction right? You are aware that the President said intelligence knew where it was and it hasn't been found right? You are aware that if it isn't found, it will weaken the creditability of future actions right? You are aware that this is an important debat right?
i'm aware it's important to you...but the debate is done...we debated for like 6 months over this...we're tired of it...the american public backed the war...they ultimately saw the liberation of the iraqis...they saw the celebration in the streets..yes, democrats will continue to focus on WMD's, lies and videotape...but that won't be the focus of this country...i'm willing to bet ya...and i'm willing to bet ya no democratic candidate for president will even ATTEMPT to argue against Bush's stance against Iraq...it would be a political nightmare, and they know it. it's over..it's done...we argued about it here for about 6 months. it's so old...we've been over it time and time again. it's just so played out.
It may be over in this country, but that was our justification to the world. There are weapons of mass destruction that can be sold to terrorist as well as used by Saddam on the U.S. Your old realiable "he was a mean man argument" is weak. That's what's played out, and I always thought you were above the we won so its over argument. I have an idea, lets attack Mexico, claim they have WMD. When we don't find them, we'll say that the country was so poor they needed economic liberation.
Max, this is the last thing I will say, because I have been seriously trying to avoid, these weapons of mass destruction debates because it just seems to go on and on, but if the debate is over, why was it the focus of Meet the Press yesterday morning, as well as Face the Nation, being discussed with Senator Biden, Senator Mitchell, as well as top columnists such as Alan Hunt, and William Saphire.
i don't know..honestly, at this point i just barely care. the whole debate is just so tiresome. maybe if we didn't talk about it here so much, i'd have more energy for it. but i really don't. i'm sure that sounds like a cop out...i don't intend for it to be that.
I understand why you are tired of this topic, but in reality its just beginning. I'm tired of it myself, but I was much more tired of the whole Clinton White Water ordeal which never went away and was less important than invading another nation under (possibly) false pretenses. We'll just have to see what happens...
Some posters bring up Clinton as the cause of the problem no matter what the topic is, they can't let go! Heck, it is partially Clinton's fault for leaving Powell in a position to make the decision to not let them use AC-130's in Somalia...
What the American public didnt see is the other side of the tale. Just because there is video of some of the Iraqis celebrating doesnt mean the whole country feels that way.
That is becoming painfully obvious, rezdawg. The admin relied on bad intel from Iraqi opposition on this too and, again, ignored good intel from the CIA on same. Max, I feel for you buddy. But if you're tired of it now, you'd better sell your TV, stop reading the paper and stick to the GARM when on the internet. This stuff is just beginning.
