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Distortions of intelligence on iraq { August 1 2003 } Subject: Fwd: Fw: [CMEP] Distortions of intelligence on Iraq
>Subject: [CMEP] Distortions of intelligence on Iraq
>
>August 1, 2003
>
>TO: Churches for Middle East Peace's Email Network
>FROM: Corinne Whitlatch, Executive Director
>RE: Distortions of intelligence on Iraq
>
>This analysis, "Iraq: 16 Distortions, not 16 Words," from the Council for
>a Livable World is excellent and highly readable. The Council for a
>Livable World is one of Washington's foremost arms-control
>organizations. If you want to sign onto the Council's petition urging the
>chairmen of the Senate and House Intelligence, Armed Services and Foreign
>Relations Committees to hold prompt, open and thorough hearings on
>intelligence on Iraq, here is the link www.clw.org/iraqpetition/index.html
>
>Iraq: 16 Distortions, not 16 Words - Council for a Livable World -- July
>31, 2003
>
>"Intelligence doesn't necessarily mean something is true."
>Gen. Richard B. Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
>
>Before American and British troops invaded Iraq, Bush Administration
>officials made a series of speeches and statements in order to persuade
>the American people and Congress to go to war. Many of the arguments and
>facts presented to build the case have proved wrong -- either
>misstatements, exaggerations or outright lies. These distortions have
>continued since major combat operations were concluded. While
>Administration officials have tried to narrow the dispute to a mere 16
>words in the President's State of the Union address, there has been a
>widespread and consistent pattern of selectively choosing evidence in
>order to inflate the threat posed by Saddam Hussein.
>
>As Senator Carl Levin (D-MI) told the Senate on July 15: "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."
>
>A partial list of those statements follows.
>
>1. Iraq had direct ties to al Qaeda.
>On September 27, 2002, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld described the
>administration's search for hard evidence for a connection between Iraq
>and al Qaeda: "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." On February
>21, 2001, Deputy Defense Secretary, Paul Wolfowitz, claimed, "Senior
>members of Iraqi intelligence and al Qaeda have met at least eight times
>since the early 1990s. Iraq has sent bomb-making and document forgery
>experts to work with al Qaeda. Iraq has also provided al Qaeda with
>chemical and biological weapons training. And an al Qaeda operative was
>sent to Iraq several times in the late 1990s for help in acquiring poisons
>and gases." There has been no proof to support any of these specific
>claims and counter-evidence to suggest that al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein
>did not trust each other. Nonetheless, over 70% of Americans believe the
>charge.
>
>2. Iraq had reconstituted its nuclear weapons programs.
>Vice President Dick Cheney told NBC's meet the Press on March 16, 2003:
>"And we believe he [Saddam Hussein] has, in fact, reconstituted nuclear
>weapons." President Bush was only slightly less categorical when he
>declared in an October 7, 2002 speech: "The evidence indicates that Iraq
>is reconstituting its nuclear weapons program." The International Atomic
>Energy Agency found no evidence of a reconstituted nuclear program, let
>alone actual weapons. The IAEA's presentation to the UN Security Council
>on January 27, 2003 concluded, "We have to date found no evidence that
>Iraq has revived its nuclear weapons program since the elimination of the
>program in the 1990s." Nor has the U.S. found any evidence to support
>these claims since invading Iraq.
>
>3. The Administration never said that Iraq had reconstituted its nuclear
>weapons program.
>On July 13, 2003, National Security Adviser Condelezza Rice claimed: "We
>have never said that we thought he [Saddam] had nuclear weapons.'' As
>noted above, the Vice President made precisely that claim.
>
>4. Iraq tried to purchase aluminum tubes to make nuclear weapons.
>In a speech before the U.N. General Assembly on September 12, 2002,
>President Bush said, "Iraq has made several attempts to buy high strength
>aluminum tubes used to enrich uranium for a nuclear weapon." At his
>February 5, 2003 speech to the U.N., Colin Powell claimed that "Most U.S
>experts think they [aluminum tubes] . . . are used to enrich
>uranium." The International Atomic Energy Agency, after conducting an
>inquiry into the aluminum tubes issue, concluded they were not capable of
>uranium enrichment.
>
>5. Iraq tried to purchase uranium from Niger.
>Much controversy has focused on the President's statement in his January
>28, 2003 State of the Union address that Iraq was attempting to acquire
>African uranium: "The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein
>recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa." This
>allegation has been repeatedly proven false, and based on forged
>documents. The fact that this allegation was untrue was well known in the
>intelligence community before the State of the Union address. CIA
>Director George Tenet admitted on July 11, 2003: "These 16 words should
>never have been included in the text written for the President." However,
>finger pointing among Administration officials has continued over who is
>responsible for this portion of the speech.
>
>6. The White House did not know that intelligence was disputed.
>National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice said on the June 8, 2003 Meet
>the Press, "We did not know at the time -- no one knew at the time, in our
>circles -- maybe someone knew down in the bowels of the agency, but no one
>in our circles knew that there were doubts and suspicions that this might
>be a forgery." However, according to a July 23, 2003 Washington Post
>article, "The CIA sent two memos to the White House in October voicing
>strong doubts about a claim President Bush made three months later in the
>State of the Union address that Iraq was trying to buy nuclear material in
>Africa." Moreover, Stephen Hadley, an N.S.C. analyst who reports directly
>to Rice, has stated that he knew that about these doubts.
>
>7. Iraq maintained stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons
>In an August 26, 2002 speech to the VFW National Convention, 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.'' In a March 17, 2003, address to the nation, President Bush argued:
>"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." Three months after the end of major combat
>operations, there has been no evidence found of weapons of mass destruction.
>
>8. The U.S. knew the quantities of Iraqi chemical weapons.
>In his State of the Union address on January 28, 2003, President Bush
>stated: "Our intelligence officials estimate that Saddam Hussein had the
>materials to produce as much as 500 tons of sarin, mustard and VX nerve
>agent." Secretary of State Colin Powell declared in his February 5, 2003
>speech before the UN that Iraq had "550 artillery shells with mustard,
>30,000 empty munitions and enough precursors to increase his stockpile to
>as much as 500 tons of chemical agents." These weapons have not been
>found, nor has any evidence which would support these charges.
>
>9. Saddam Hussein issued orders to use chemical weapons.
>In a February 8, 2003 Weekly Radio Address, President Bush stated: "We
>have sources that tell us that Saddam Hussein recently authorized Iraqi
>field commanders to use chemical weapons -- the very weapons the dictator
>tell us he does not have." Powell repeated the charge in his February 4,
>2003 speech to the U.N. However, no chemical weapons were used, nor found
>on the battlefields under the control of defeated Iraqi units.
>
>10. The U.S. knew where Iraq had stored weapons of mass destruction.
>In a March 30, 2003, interview on "ABC This Week with George
>Stephanopoulous", 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.'' On February
>5, 2003, Secretary of State Colin Powell told the United Nations Security
>Council: "We know from sources that a missile brigade outside Baghdad was
>disbursing rocket launchers and warheads containing biological warfare
>agents to various locations, distributing them to various locations in
>western Iraq. Most of the launchers and warheads have been hidden in large
>groves of palm trees and were to be moved every one to four weeks to
>escape detection." After months of futile searches, the U.S. has still
>found none of Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction.
>
>11. Since the war, the U.S. has found evidence of weapons of mass
>destruction.
>In a May 29, 2003 interview on Polish television, President Bush
>triumphantly declared, "We found the weapons of mass destruction. You
>know, we found biological laboratories. You remember when Colin Powell
>stood up in front of the world and he said Iraq has got laboratories,
>mobile labs to build biological weapons. They're illegal. They're
>against the United Nations resolutions and we've so far discovered
>two. And we'll find more weapons as time goes on." Scientists and
>observers who examined these trailers concluded that they could not be
>used to make biological weapons.
>
>12. Iraq had drone planes capable of unleashing biological and chemical
>attacks.
>In his January 28, 2003 State of the Union address, President Bush stated:
>"We have also discovered through intelligence that Iraq has a growing
>fleet of manned and unmanned aerial vehicles that could be used to
>disperse chemical or biological weapons across broad areas." No such
>aircraft has been found in Iraq.
>
>13. Iraq had mobile biological warfare labs
>On May 28, 2003, the CIA posted on its Web site 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. As
>stated above, scientists who examined the trailers concluded that they
>could not be used for biological weapons production.
>
>14. Iraq has long-range ballistic missiles.
>On February 9, 2003, President Bush said, "Let there be no doubt about it,
>[Saddam's] regime has dozens of ballistic missiles and is working to
>extend their range in violation of UN restrictions." However, no long
>range missiles were used against allied troops, and they have not been
>discovered since the war ended.
>
>15. The U.S. began the war because Saddam Hussein would not allow U.N.
>inspectors in.
>Speaking to reporters at the Oval Office on July 14, 2003, President Bush
>said: "We gave him [Saddam Hussein] a chance to allow the inspectors in
>and he wouldn't let them in" In fact, Hussein had let the inspectors in,
>and Bush demanded that the inspectors leave.
>
>16. U.N. inspections failed.
>Vice President Dick Cheney, quoted in the July 20, 2003 New York Times,
>stated: "Even as they were conducting the most intrusive system of arms
>control in history, the inspectors missed a great deal." In his July 24,
>2003 speech to the American Enterprise Institute, Cheney argued: "Twelve
>years of diplomacy, more than a dozen Security Council resolutions,
>hundreds of UN weapons inspectors, and even strikes against military
>targets in Iraq - all of these measures were tried to compel Saddam
>Hussein's compliance with the terms of the 1991 Gulf War cease-fire. All
>of these measures failed." However, the inspectors were very effective in
>eliminating Iraq's weapons of mass destruction. From 1991 to 1998,
>UNSCOM, the U.N. inspection agency, destroyed 38,537 chemical munitions,
>690 tons of chemical warfare agents, 3,275 tons of precursor chemicals,
>biological growth media, the Al Hakam biological warfare facility, 48
>missiles, 50 warheads, 20 tons of missile fuel, 5 combat mobile launchers,
>56 fixed launch sites and 75 components for 350mm and 1000mm
>guns. (Appendix I, 13th Quarterly Report of UNMOVIC, May 30, 2003)
>
>--------------------------------------
>Formed in 1984, Churches for Middle East Peace is a Washington-based
>program of the Alliance of Baptists, American Friends Service Committee,
>Catholic Conference of Major Superiors of Men's Institutes, Christian
>Church (Disciples of Christ), Church of the Brethren, Church World
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>Methodist Church (GBCS & GBGM) . For further information, see www.cmep.org.
>*****************************************************************************************************
>
>If you would like to be removed from this list, please send me a note at
>am5665@fuller.edu.
>Amgad Beblawi
>Regional Coordinator
>(626) 584-7818
>Churches for Middle East Peace
>110 Maryland Ave NE, #311
>Washington, DC 20002
>(202) 543-1222
>www.cmep.org
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