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Tenet denies pressure to torque iraq intelligence Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&c=Article&cid=1076022610992&call_pageid=968332188854&col=968350060724http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&c=Article&cid=1076022610992&call_pageid=968332188854&col=968350060724
Feb. 6, 2004. 01:00 AM
CIA chief denies pressure to torque Iraq intelligence
`Imminent threat' never referred to, Tenet insists
Bush naming nine to commission to probe failures on WMD
TIM HARPER
WASHINGTON BUREAU
WASHINGTON—CIA director George Tenet took a bold leap from the shadows yesterday, answering the growing chorus in the United States which believes his agency's faulty intelligence sent U.S. troops to an unnecessary war in Iraq.
His analysts never referred to "an imminent threat" posed by Iraq's then-president Saddam Hussein, Tenet said in a morning speech at Washington's Georgetown University that amounted to a detailed defence of his spy agency.
Shortly thereafter, U.S. President George W. Bush landed in Charleston, S.C., to deliver a less detailed but more emphatic vow that he did the right thing in invading Iraq — regardless of intelligence.
"We know Saddam Hussein had the intent to arm his regime with weapons of mass destruction, because he hid all those activities from the world until the last day of his regime," Bush said.
"Knowing what I knew then, and knowing what I know today, America did the right thing in Iraq."
In a sign that Bush is now in campaign mode, it was his second visit in as many weeks to a state that had just hosted a Democratic presidential primary.
And Bush, who had resisted setting up a commission to investigate Iraq intelligence failures, will create a nine-member panel with an executive order today, an administration official said yesterday.
Arizona Republican Senator John McCain will be among those named to the bipartisan commission, which will be directed to deliver its findings next year, after the November presidential elections.
Bush will make his first appearance as president on a Sunday morning talk show, when he spends an hour on NBC's Meet the Press.
Tenet said yesterday his agency had never been pressured to tailor information regarding weapons of mass destruction, and said Bush gets his intelligence from him, not Pentagon hardliners.
He also flatly contradicted his former chief weapons inspector, David Kay, who said no weapons of mass destruction would be found and 85 per cent of the work of inspectors in Iraq had been completed.
Instead, Tenet said, he could provide only "provisional" information on the whereabouts of weapons because his team needs more time.
Tenet said he knew the 700 students in the audience at his alma mater had one question on their mind: Why haven't U.S. inspectors found weapons of mass destruction?
"Remember, finding things in Iraq is always very tough," he said. "After the first Gulf war, the U.S. army blew up chemical weapons without knowing it. They were mixed in with conventional weapons in Iraqi ammo dumps.
"When the truth emerges, we will report it to the American people, no matter what."
Tenet, who was scheduled to address the U.S. Congress later this month, decided to make the speech on his own, his officials said, although the White House was given a copy of his address.
"(Our analysts) painted an objective assessment for our policymakers of a brutal dictator who was continuing his efforts to deceive and build programs that might constantly surprise us and threaten our interests," he said.
Tenet, who has held his post for seven years, spoke on the anniversary of the extensive intelligence presentation made to the United Nations by U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell in last year's run-up to the invasion.
Senator John Kerry, the frontrunner for the Democratic presidential nomination, said Tenet may say his agency never spoke of an "imminent threat," but the White House used words that conveyed that meaning.
"The White House used the words to the American people and to the Congress `urgent threat' and `imminent threat' and a number of other words ... that would demand a sort of immediate and significant response," Kerry said in Portland, Me. "I think this underscores why it is really important to have an independent commission, not a commission appointed by the president."
Tenet's comments echoed some made in Congressional testimony a day earlier by U.S. Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.
"It took us 10 months to find Saddam Hussein," Rumsfeld told the Senate Armed Services Committee.
"The reality is that the hole he was found in was large enough to hold enough biological weapons to kill thousands of human beings. And unlike Saddam Hussein, such objects can stay buried."
Tenet was asked by a student about oft-reported claims that Pentagon hawks, usually involving deputy defence secretary Paul Wolfowitz, analyst Richard Perle and other neocons, were torquing their own intelligence under the watchful eye of U.S. Vice-President Dick Cheney.
"I can tell you with certainty that the president of the United States gets his intelligence from one person and one community — me," Tenet said.
"And he has told me firmly and directly that he's wanted it straight and he's wanted it honest, and he's never wanted the facts shaded. And that's what we do every day."
Tenet said in the intelligence business, one is rarely completely right or completely wrong. Kay, last week, said the intelligence was wrong.
The CIA director said his "provisional bottom line" was that Iraq intended to develop biological weapons and that Saddam had the intent and capability to quickly convert civilian industry to chemical weapons production.
"However, we have not found the weapons we expected," he said.
Tenet also delivered explanation of how his analysts came to some conclusions which now appear faulty.
He said the CIA had satellite photos which showed "a pattern of activity" designed to conceal the movement of material from places where chemical weapons had been used in the past.
The agency also had human sources telling them of efforts by Saddam to acquire and hide material for chemical weapons, he said, and the CIA has discovered discrepancies in those stories.
Additional articles by Tim Harper
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