Post by Hussar on Feb 16, 2004 23:29:47 GMT -5
From Newsweek:
By Mark Hosenball
NewsweekFeb. 23 issue - One problem the CIA had in gathering prewar intelligence about Iraq was a lack of inside sources. In a little-noticed passage in his Feb. 5 Georgetown University speech, CIA Director George Tenet said: "We did not have enough of our own human intelligence. We did not ourselves penetrate the inner sanctum." This means the CIA had none of its own agents informants controlled and paid directly by Washington in Saddam's inner circle before the war. Officials who deal with the CIA suggest that until the Bush administration began large-scale U.S. troop deployments in countries neighboring Iraq a few months before the war, the CIA had few if any of its own informants anywhere in Iraq. An intelligence official insists the CIA did have informants in Iraq, such as the agent who tipped off the United States to Saddam's alleged location the night President George W. Bush first ordered airstrikes against Baghdad leadership targets.
To make up for the CIA's lack of its own informants, Tenet acknowledged that the agency relied on "emigres and defectors with more direct access to WMD programs." But the CIA has conceded that the credibility of some of these sources, whose info was used by Colin Powell to claim to the United Nations that Saddam was building mobile germ-warfare labs and factories, is now deeply suspect. Tenet said other key sources were two purported Iraqi insiders whose information came to the CIA via friendly foreign intelligence agencies. One of these sources, described by Tenet as having " direct access to Saddam and his inner circle," said Iraq did not have nukes and was ineffectively " dabbling" in germ warfare, but was stockpiling chemical weapons and had mobile missiles armed with chemical warheads that could be fired at Israel. The second purported Iraqi insider, who Tenet said had "access to senior Iraqi officials," said flatly that chemical and biological weapons were being produced. David Kay, the former chief U.S. weapons inspector in postwar Iraq, has said evidence since the war suggests these stories probably were wrong. An intelligence official said that CIA personnel were in the room when the foreign intelligence service interrogated the first source, who said that Iraq didn't have nukes or germs. The CIA was not present during questioning of the source who testified that Saddam had biological and chemical weapons.
The CIA still believes the two insiders provided by its foreign partners were talking in good faith. But officials concede that given what is now known about corruption, double-dealing and decadence among Iraqi leaders in Saddam's last years in power, it's possible that the insiders didn't know the truth: that Iraq years ago most likely destroyed or buried all but a skeleton of its once formidable unconventional-weapons program. The CIA and congressional intelligence committees are reviewing the credibility of all the CIA's human sources in the wake of the WMD uproar.
So, if I understand this correctly, the reason America went to war was because two guys said that Hussein had WMD's. Nothing was independently verified.
By Mark Hosenball
NewsweekFeb. 23 issue - One problem the CIA had in gathering prewar intelligence about Iraq was a lack of inside sources. In a little-noticed passage in his Feb. 5 Georgetown University speech, CIA Director George Tenet said: "We did not have enough of our own human intelligence. We did not ourselves penetrate the inner sanctum." This means the CIA had none of its own agents informants controlled and paid directly by Washington in Saddam's inner circle before the war. Officials who deal with the CIA suggest that until the Bush administration began large-scale U.S. troop deployments in countries neighboring Iraq a few months before the war, the CIA had few if any of its own informants anywhere in Iraq. An intelligence official insists the CIA did have informants in Iraq, such as the agent who tipped off the United States to Saddam's alleged location the night President George W. Bush first ordered airstrikes against Baghdad leadership targets.
To make up for the CIA's lack of its own informants, Tenet acknowledged that the agency relied on "emigres and defectors with more direct access to WMD programs." But the CIA has conceded that the credibility of some of these sources, whose info was used by Colin Powell to claim to the United Nations that Saddam was building mobile germ-warfare labs and factories, is now deeply suspect. Tenet said other key sources were two purported Iraqi insiders whose information came to the CIA via friendly foreign intelligence agencies. One of these sources, described by Tenet as having " direct access to Saddam and his inner circle," said Iraq did not have nukes and was ineffectively " dabbling" in germ warfare, but was stockpiling chemical weapons and had mobile missiles armed with chemical warheads that could be fired at Israel. The second purported Iraqi insider, who Tenet said had "access to senior Iraqi officials," said flatly that chemical and biological weapons were being produced. David Kay, the former chief U.S. weapons inspector in postwar Iraq, has said evidence since the war suggests these stories probably were wrong. An intelligence official said that CIA personnel were in the room when the foreign intelligence service interrogated the first source, who said that Iraq didn't have nukes or germs. The CIA was not present during questioning of the source who testified that Saddam had biological and chemical weapons.
The CIA still believes the two insiders provided by its foreign partners were talking in good faith. But officials concede that given what is now known about corruption, double-dealing and decadence among Iraqi leaders in Saddam's last years in power, it's possible that the insiders didn't know the truth: that Iraq years ago most likely destroyed or buried all but a skeleton of its once formidable unconventional-weapons program. The CIA and congressional intelligence committees are reviewing the credibility of all the CIA's human sources in the wake of the WMD uproar.
So, if I understand this correctly, the reason America went to war was because two guys said that Hussein had WMD's. Nothing was independently verified.
