U.S. Justice Department Opens Investigation Into Leak of CIA Official’s Identity

By Mike Nartker
Global Security Newswire

WASHINGTON — As White House officials denied involvement with exposing the identity of a CIA agent, the U.S. Justice Department indicated last night that it will investigate the case.  The agent is married to former U.S. Ambassador Joseph Wilson, who traveled to Niger last year to investigate reports that Iraq had sought to purchase uranium there (see GSN, Sept. 29).

Justice’s decision to begin an investigation into the leak was reported in a memo sent to all White House employees from the White House Counsel’s Office.  Justice is expected to send the White House today a letter instructing White House staff to preserve all materials that may be relevant to the investigation, according to the memo, signed by Alberto Gonzales, counsel to President George W. Bush. 

“In the meantime, you must preserve all materials that might in any way be related to the department’s investigation,” the memo says.

The Washington Post reported Sunday that CIA Director George Tenet had requested that Justice investigate the leak allegations.  Tenet’s request was prompted by a July 14 column in the Chicago Sun-Times, in which Robert Novak identified Wilson’s wife by name and said she was a CIA “operative on weapons of mass destruction,” citing “two senior administration officials” as his sources.  Prior to Novak’s column, Wilson had published a column in the New York Times that described his trip to Niger, during which he determined it was unlikely that Iraq had sought to purchase uranium there.  Wilson’s column helped discredit a key piece of evidence offered by the Bush administration that former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein was seeking to develop nuclear weapons.

Novak denied yesterday on CNN’s Crossfire program that he had been contacted by the Bush administration about Wilson’s wife.

“Nobody in the Bush administration called me to leak this,” CNN.com quoted Novak as saying.  “There is no great crime here,” he said.

Top Democrats in the U.S. Senate yesterday wrote to both Bush and Attorney General John Ashcroft calling for Justice to appoint a special counsel to oversee an investigation into the leak allegations to avoid “serious conflicts of interest.”  Under Justice regulations, a special counsel would be able to operate independently, would only be able to be removed for cause and the attorney general would have to report such an action to Congress if it were to occur.  

The letters were signed by Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle (D-S.D.); Senator Joseph Biden (D-Del.), the top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee; Senator Carl Levin (D-Mich.), the top Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee; and Senator Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.), the top Democrat on the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.

“We believe it is imperative that this matter be investigated as quickly and thoroughly as possible,” the senators said in their letters.  “If, as has been reported, senior administration officials deliberately disclosed this confidential information, they should be prosecuted and, if found guilty, dismissed from their positions of public trust,” they said.

During a press conference yesterday, Senator Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.), who first called for an FBI investigation into the leak allegations in July, put forward several possible names for a special counsel, including former Senators John Danforth (R-Mo.) and Sam Nunn (D-Ga.).

“It would seem to me that if we had a special counsel … the public could have confidence that this dastardly crime would be completely and thoroughly investigated,” Schumer said.

In addition, Senator Joseph Lieberman (D-Conn.), the top Democrat on the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee, announced yesterday the he planned to reintroduce the Independent Counsel Reform Act “to reassure a skeptical public that criminal investigations of those at the highest levels of power will be insulated from the political influence of the very people under suspicion.” 

White House spokesman Scott McClellan yesterday, however, rejected calls for the appointment of a special counsel, saying Justice was the appropriate agency to conduct an investigation into the leak allegations.

“There are a lot of career professionals at the Department of Justice that address matters like this.  I have made it clear that they’re the ones, that if something like this happened, should look into it,” McClellan said during a White House press briefing.

In the House of Representatives, Representative Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) yesterday called on House Government Reform Committee Chairman Representative Tom Davis (R-Va.) to conduct hearings on the leak allegations.

“Congressional oversight of the Wilson case is imperative,” Waxman, the senior committee Democrat, wrote in his letter.  “As the primary investigative committee in the House of Representatives, it is the committee’s responsibility to ensure that the public receives a full accounting of what happened in the Wilson matter,” he wrote.

Davis’ office did not return calls by Global Security Newswire for comment on whether the committee would approve Waxman’s request.

Schumer yesterday aggressively criticized the White House over its handling of the leak allegations, calling the release of Wilson’s wife’s identity “one of the worst things that has been done in Washington in a very, very long time.”

While saying that he believed Bush was not involved in the leak, Schumer criticized the president for so far failing to order an internal White House investigation into the matter.  McClellan indicated yesterday that the White House has not yet considered such action, reiterating the administration’s position that Justice was the appropriate agency to investigate the leak.

“This sort of ‘noblesse oblige’ attitude, ‘business-as-usual,’ ‘we don’t really think this is a big deal’ is almost as infuriating as what happened, because it means it can happen again and again and again,” Schumer told reporters yesterday.  “And, in fact, the fact that the White House seems to put such little importance in this can only lead to one conclusion, and that is that they’re worried that there may have been high-up people in the White House involved,” he said.

[EDITOR'S NOTE:  Sam Nunn is co-chairman and chief executive officer of the Nuclear Threat Initiative, the sole sponsor of Global Security Newswire, which is published independently by National Journal Group.]

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U.S., British Intelligence Agencies Offered Different Assessments Prior to War with Iraq

As the United States and United Kingdom prepared to go to war with Iraq earlier this year, the two countries’ intelligence services differed on several claims offered by each country as justifications for war, the Washington Post reported today (see GSN, Sept. 29).

According to documents published by British investigators, in September 2002 British intelligence services said there was inconclusive evidence that Iraq’s attempts to purchase high-strength aluminum tubes were an indication of efforts to relaunch a nuclear weapons program, according to the Post.  The CIA, however, said in an October National Intelligence Estimate that the tube purchases did reflect intent to relaunch a nuclear weapons program.

Also in September 2002, as the United Kingdom was preparing a dossier on Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, U.S. intelligence officials questioned intelligence used to claim that Iraq had sought to obtain uranium in Africa and that Iraq could conduct biological and chemical weapons attacks within 45 minutes, the Post reported.

The CIA never made a similar 45-minute claim in its own assessments of Iraq’s WMD capabilities because it had “no separate reporting,” a senior Bush administration official said, adding that the agency found the claim “interesting and plausible.”

The British documents, which have come out of three British government inquiries into prewar intelligence on Iraq, also indicate that Washington and London agreed that there was no evidence prior to the war that former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein would provide biological and chemical weapons to terrorists, the Post reported.  The two countries also agreed, according to documents, that Hussein would only attempt such a transfer if his regime was about to collapse (Walter Pincus, Washington Post, Sept. 30).

House Intelligence Panel Democrat Challenges “New Information” Claim

Meanwhile, Representative Jane Harman (D-Calif.), the top Democrat on the House intelligence committee, yesterday challenged recent claims made by national security adviser Condoleezza Rice that the United States had new information to support claims that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction.

“We don’t see the support for that,” Harman said.

“As we moved to war, did the claims the policy-makers made, were those claims supported by the intelligence?” Harman said.  “My conclusion is no,” she said.

In a letter sent last week to CIA Director George Tenet, Harman and committee Chairman Porter Goss (R-Fla.) outlined their assessment of the intelligence used to prepare the October 2002 NIE on Iraq, according to the Post.  In their letter, Harman and Goss charged that most of the intelligence used was outdated, according to the Post. 

The letter to Tenet was intended to draw a response as to why the NIE made assertions that were apparently not supported by available evidence, Harman said.

“We want an explanation from him,” she said (Dana Priest, Washington Post, Sept. 30).

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U.S. Lawakers Criticize Prewar Intelligence on Iraq

The leaders of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence have criticized U.S. intelligence agencies for using outdated information to determine that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction and that it had links to al-Qaeda, the Washington Post reported yesterday (see GSN, Sept. 26).

In a letter sent last week to CIA Director George Tenet, committee Chairman Porter Goss (R-Fla.) and top Democrat Jane Harman (D-Calif.) said a committee inquiry into numerous volumes of classified information found “significant deficiencies” in the ability of U.S. intelligence agencies to gather fresh information on Iraq.  The letter also charged that intelligence agencies used “past assessments” dating back to 1998 and “some new ‘piecemeal’ intelligence,” neither of which had been challenged, to make assessments.

“The absence of proof that chemical and biological weapons and their related development programs had been destroyed was considered proof that they continued to exist,” Goss and Harman said in their letter.

The committee also found “substantial gaps” in information from human sources that would have allowed intelligence agencies to provide lawmakers with “a clear understanding of the nature of the relationship” between Iraq and al-Qaeda, the letter said.  Intelligence agencies instead used a “low threshold” or “no threshold” on using information purporting to demonstrate ties between Iraq and al-Qaeda, it said.

The full House intelligence committee has not voted on the letter’s findings, the Post reported.

CIA chief spokesman Bill Harlow said he disagreed with the conclusions made in the letter and said the intelligence committee had not conducted “a detailed inquiry on this study.”

“To attempt to make such a determination so quickly and without all the facts is premature and wrong,” Harlow said.  “Iraq was an intractable and difficult subject.  The tradecraft of intelligence rarely has the luxury of having black-and-white facts.  The judgments reached, and the tradecraft used, were honest and professional — based on many years of effort and experience,” he said (Dana Priest, Washington Post, Sept. 28).

National security adviser Condoleezza Rice yesterday challenged Goss and Harman’s assessment that outdated intelligence on Iraq was used to evaluate Iraqi WMD efforts.  During an appearance on FOX News Sunday, Rice said that U.S. intelligence on Iraq had also included new information on procurement efforts and attempts to reconstitute groups of scientists.

“Yes, I think I would call it new information, and it was certainly enriching the case in the same direction that this is somebody who had had weapons of mass destruction, had used them, and was continuing to pursue them,” Rice said.  “There were many, many dots about what was going on in the Iraqi programs after 1998,” she said (Kessler/Priest, Washington Post, Sept. 29).

Rice yesterday also defended the quality of U.S. prewar intelligence on Iraq.

“The president believes that he had very good intelligence going into the war, and stands behind what the director of central intelligence told him going into the war,” Rice said.  “Obviously, this was the accumulation of evidence about [former Iraqi President] Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction over a 12-year period, information that was relied on by three administrations, several different intelligence services, and indeed the United Nations itself,” she said.

The absence of U.N. weapons inspectors in Iraq after 1998 also made it difficult for U.S. intelligence agencies to obtain information, Secretary of State Colin Powell said yesterday.

“From 1998 until we went in earlier this year, there was a period where we didn’t have benefit of U.N. inspectors actually on the ground, and our intelligence community had to do the best they could,” Powell ABC’s This Week.  “And I think they did a pretty good job,” he said (Hulse/Sanger, New York Times, Sept. 28).

DIA Criticizes Information From Defectors

In addition to the House intelligence committee’s criticism, a Defense Intelligence Agency assessment has found that information provided by Iraqi defectors made available by the Iraqi National Congress opposition group was of little value, according to the New York Times (see GSN, June 12).

The DIA assessment found that only one-third of the information provided by defectors had any use and that efforts to follow up on such information had little result, said U.S. officials.  The information provided by defectors that could not be substantiated included information on Iraqi WMD programs, they said.  Several of the defectors made available by the INC had either invented or exaggerated their ties to the Hussein regime and Iraqi WMD programs, the officials said.

Two U.S. Defense Department officials, however, defended the efforts to debrief Iraqi defectors provided by the INC, saying that while the credibility of the defectors was low, it was about the same as most human intelligence on Iraq.

One Pentagon official said that even the best information provided by defectors included “a lot of stuff that we already knew or thought we knew.”  That information, however, had “improved our situational awareness” by “making us more confident about our assessments,” the official said (Douglas Jehl, New York Times, Sept. 29).

Senior British Official Acknowledges Problems with WMD Dossier

Meanwhile, British Home Secretary David Blunkett has said that a September 2002 dossier on Iraqi WMD programs should have better clarified that an included claim that Iraq could launch biological and chemical weapons attacks within 45 minutes applied to battlefield weapons, and not long-range systems (see GSN, Sept. 23).

The British Parliament intelligence and security committee this month criticized the failure to better explain the 45-minute claim, which it said “allowed speculation (which) was unhelpful,” according to the Financial Times.

“We accept the reprimand from the ISC,” Blunkett said (Jean Eaglesham, Financial Times, Sept. 29).

Iraqi Scientists May Have Conned Hussein Over Weapons

In Iraq, former officials and scientists have said that Iraq’s WMD programs were dismantled during the 1990s and that Hussein may have been fooled into believing he possessed weapons of mass destruction that did not exist, according to Time.

In an interview with Time, Iraqi engineering professor Nabil al-Rawi said Iraq’s nuclear weapons program was not relaunched after its facilities were destroyed during the 1991 Gulf War.  Al-Rawi said Iraqi biological and chemical weapons programs were also shut down during the 1990s, with the scientists transferred to conventional military or civilian projects.  He said he was asked last year by Abd al-Tawab Mullah Huweish, head of the Iraqi Industry and Military Industrialization Ministry, to give a seminar to scientists at the Military Industrialization Commission  “on ways to attract funding for and shape new research projects because there was no weapons work for them.”

Some former scientists and officials also said Hussein destroyed on his own much of Iraq’s WMD stockpiles without keeping proper records, according to Time.  For example, a captain in the Mukhabarat intelligence service said that in July 1991, he watched the destruction of 25 missiles armed with biological agents.  No documentation of the destruction was kept, the captain said.

The men used to conduct such destruction missions were junior level military officers, al-Rawi said. 

“They are not educated men,” he said.  “You order them to do something, they do it.  When we had to try to account for this, we tried to recall them in 1997, but many had of course left the army and were hard to find.  And the ones we did find certainly couldn’t remember exactly how many missiles were buried, nor what was in each of them,” al-Rawi said.

In addition, Iraqi officials appeared to have also invented WMD projects and experiments to continue to receive funding, according to Time.  The Mukhabarat captain said that even Huweish would create false progress reports for Hussein while embezzling research funding.

“He would tell the president he had invented a new missile for stealth bombers but hadn’t.  So Saddam would say, ‘Make 20 missiles.’  He would make one and put the rest in his pocket,” the captain said (Gibbs/Ware, Time, Sept. 28).

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CIA Requests Investigation into Leak of Operative’s Identity

By Mike Nartker
Global Security Newswire

WASHINGTON — CIA Director George Tenet has request a U.S. Justice Department investigation into charges that the White House leaked the name of the wife of former U.S. Ambassador Joseph Wilson, who traveled to Niger last year to investigate claims that Iraq had attempted to purchase uranium there, according to reports (see GSN, July 25).

In a July 14 column for the Chicago Sun-Times, Robert Novak identified Wilson’s wife by name and said she was a CIA “operative on weapons of mass destruction,” citing “two senior administration officials” as his sources.  In a column published about a week earlier in the New York Times, Wilson described his visit to Niger as a CIA envoy, during which he determined that it was unlikely that Iraq had attempted to purchase uranium there.  Wilson’s trip helped to discredit one of the key pieces of evidence offered by the Bush administration that Iraq was attempting to develop nuclear weapons.

The Washington Post reported yesterday that, shortly before Novak’s column was published, two senior White House officials called at least six reporters based in Washington and told them the name and occupation of Wilson’s wife.  The Post quoted a senior Bush administration official as saying that the leak “was meant purely and simply for revenge.”

According to the Post, Tenet has sent a memo to Justice with a set of questions as to whether the leak of Wilson’s wife’s identity violated U.S law.  Experts have said the leak could be a violation of the Intelligence Identity Protection Act of 1982, which carries a penalty of up to 10 years in prison for the disclosure of names and identities of intelligence agents by those who have access to classified information that identifies covert agents; and up to five years in prison for the disclosure of information by those who learn the identities of covert agents through access to classified information.

Neither the CIA nor Justice would confirm to Global Security Newswire that an investigation into the leak of Wilson’s wife’s identity is being considered.  A statement released yesterday by Senator Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.), who requested in July that the FBI investigate the leak, said Justice is now considering whether to begin a formal investigation.

White House press secretary Scott McClellan said today that “nothing has been brought to our attention” that any White House official was involved in the leak.

“We have nothing beyond … media reports to suggest White House involvement,” McClellan said.

Wilson himself has previously named White House top political adviser Karl Rove as being behind the leak.  During an appearance today on ABC’s Good Morning America, however, Wilson backed away from such an assertion, saying instead that he believed Rove had “condoned” the leak.

“In one speech I gave out in Seattle not too long ago, I mentioned the name Karl Rove.  I think I was probably carried away by the spirit of the moment.  I don’t have any knowledge that Karl Rove himself was either the leaker or the authorizer of the leak.  But I have great confidence that, at a minimum, he condoned it and certainly did nothing to shut it down,” CNN.com quoted Wilson as saying.

McClellan today said that it is “simply not true” that Rove had any involvement in the leak.

Yesterday, national security adviser Condoleezza Rice also refuted the leak allegations.

“I know nothing about any such calls, and I do know that the president of the United States would not expect his White House to behave in that way,” Rice said during an appearance on NBC’s Meet the Press.  “It’s my understanding that when a question like this is raised before the agency, that they refer it as a matter of course, a matter of routine, to the Justice Department.  The Justice Department will now take appropriate action, whatever that is, and that will be up to the Justice Department to determine what that action is,” she said.

While denying any knowledge of the possible leak, Secretary of State Colin Powell said yesterday that the CIA had “an obligation” to investigate the claim.

“I think that the CIA has an obligation, when they believe somebody who was undercover was outed, so to speak, has an obligation to ask the Justice Department to look into it.  But other than that, I don’t know anything about the matter,” Powell said during an appearance on ABC’s This Week.

In his statement yesterday, Schumer called on Justice to appoint a special counsel to investigate the link, saying Attorney General John Ashcroft faced a “conflict of interest” in investigating senior White House officials.

“I don’t see how it would be possible for the Justice Department to investigate whether a top administration official broke the law and endangered the life of this agent,” Schumer said.  “Even if the department were to do a thorough and comprehensive investigation, the appearance of a conflict could well mar its conclusions.  I hope the Attorney General will do the right thing and appoint a special counsel,” he said.

The White House believes, however, that Justice is the proper agency to investigate the leak allegation, McClellan said today during a White House press conference, defending the department’s ability to independently investigate the issue.  He said the Bush administration would cooperate with a Justice investigation, adding that the department has not yet made such a request. 

Anyone in the White House with information relating to the leak should come forward, McClellan said.  He also said that if anyone in the media has any information about the leak, they too should provide it to Justice.

While official investigations of information leaks are notoriously hard to prove, the recent media coverage of the leak of Wilson’s wife’s name is likely to pressure Justice to act, according to Steven Aftergood, director of the Federation of American Scientists’ Project on Government Secrecy.

If Justice were to do nothing, “it would lead to endless questioning,” Aftergood told GSN today.  “The only way out at this point is to go through it,” he said.

Yesterday’s Post story suggested that Tenet’s request for an investigation into the leak was part of a split that has developed between the CIA and the White House after Tenet was made first in line for blame over the inclusion of the disputed claim that Iraq sought uranium from Africa into President George W. Bush’s State of the Union address. 

Aftergood, however, said he did not think Tenet was “looking for a fight with the White House.  Instead, Tenet would risk looking inconsistent in challenging these kinds of leaks if he had not requested the investigation, Aftergood said, adding that Tenet “probably wishes that none of this had happen.”

A likely byproduct of the CIA’s request, however, is “significant embarrassment” for the White House, Aftergood said, adding that the request is “not going to win Tenet any friends over there.”

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U.S. Officials Voice Concern Over Security at 2004 Olympics

U.S. intelligence reports and Bush administration officials have indicated that security preparations for the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens are still ineffective and serious problems remain, the Washington Post reported Saturday (see GSN, Sept. 25).

Intelligence reports describe a number of Greek security lapses, such as a test agent disguised as a pregnant woman being allowed to smuggle mock explosives through a security checkpoint and another test agent being allowed to place a mock explosive device on a ferry, the Post reported.  The reports also describe disorganized Greek law enforcement, poor maritime patrolling and concerns over delays in counterterrorism planning.

“If the Olympics were held today, the security would be worse than Munich,” a U.S. security planning official said, referring to the 1972 games where 11 Israeli athletes and trainers were killed by pro-Palestinian terrorists.

A security test conducted last month in Athens found serious concerns that were correctable, according to international security personnel.

“All the big stuff got through,” the U.S. security planning official said, referring to guns and mock explosives used in the test.  “If you can get the big stuff through, getting chemical and biological stuff through is no problem,” the official said.

Greece is likely to spend almost $1 billion for the Athens games — about twice as much as was spent on security for the Olympics held in Sydney and in Salt Lake City, said Greek Foreign Minister George Papandreou.

“Security is on track,” Papandreou said.

The recent intelligence reports about security for the Olympics, coming about a year before the games are to be held, are intended to highlight security flaws that officials are used to resolving, some officials said.

“They have come a long way.  Is there room for improvement?  Absolutely,” a Bush administration official said.  The White House is “actively engaged with the Greeks because we’ve known it was going to be a problem,” the official said (Gregory Vistica, Washington Post, Sept. 27).

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U.S. Homeland Security Department Announces First Research Funding Project

The U.S. Homeland Security Department last week announced the first research project solicitation issued by the Homeland Security Advanced Research Projects Agency (see GSN, Aug. 4).

The solicitation outlines the agency’s requirements for research into new biological and chemical weapons detectors, according to a department press release.  A bidders conference on the solicitation is scheduled to be held today in Washington.

“Our goal for this first solicitation is to develop and transition to the field the next generation of biological and chemical detectors,” said Homeland Security Undersecretary for Science and Technology Charles McQueary.  “These detectors will significantly advance the capabilities of our first responders and federal programs to counter terrorism,” he said (U.S. Homeland Security Department release, Sept. 25).

The purpose of HSARPA is to award procurement contracts and funding to public and private entities to aid research into new homeland security technologies, according to a department fact sheet.  David Bolka was appointed last month as the first director of the agency (U.S. Homeland Security Department release, Sept. 26).

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Coalition Forces Focus Search on Iraqi Chemical Weapons

Three U.S. intelligence officials have said that U.S. forces searching for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq are now only searching for a small stockpile of chemical weapons, USA Today reported today (see GSN, Sept. 25).

The Iraq Survey Group, which is conducting the search, has concluded that prewar Iraq did not possess nuclear weapons and only possessed minimal elements of a nuclear weapons program, according to the officials.  They also said Iraq’s alleged stockpiles of biological weapons would be now useless because of the agents’ short shelf life.  The unit, headed by CIA envoy David Kay, has also found no evidence that Iraq attempted to smuggle weapons of mass destruction out of the country to avoid detection by U.N. weapons inspectors, the officials said.

The unit now believes that Iraq hid small quantities of long-lasting chemical weapons agents at sites that have not yet been discovered, according to USA Today.  The amount of unaccounted for Iraqi chemical weapons at the time the war began in March was small enough to fit in a swimming pool, according to a unit analysis.

“There is still a huge set of missing chemical weapons that will be found,” one of the three intelligence officials said.  “The guys have a lot of digging to do in hot, remote places to find them,” the official said (Diamond/Nichols, USA Today, Sept. 26).

White House press secretary Scott McClellan said yesterday that the Bush administration still believes that former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction.

“We continue to believe that he possessed weapons of mass destruction, had a weapons of mass destruction program and Dr. Kay is going to pull together a full picture,” McClellan said (John Lumpkin, Associated Press/Salon.com, Sept. 26).

Powell Defends Earlier Iraq WMD Assessment

Meanwhile, U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell yesterday defended a statement he made in early 2001 that Iraq did not have “any significant capability with respect to weapons of mass destruction.”

Powell was asked about the Feb. 24, 2001, remark after it was found on a U.S. State Department Web site, according to the Washington Post.  He defended the statement by saying that more information on Iraq was later discovered.

“What I said was, at that time, three weeks into the administration, when I was trying to get sanctions retained — and we did succeed in getting sanctions retained — I made that observation,” Powell said.  “You’ll note that I did not say that he didn’t have weapons of mass destruction. … He was a threat then.  The extent of his holdings were yet to be determined.  It was early in the administration and, fact of the matter, it was long before 9/11,” he said (Dana Milbank, Washington Post, Sept. 26).

U.S. President George W. Bush also defended Powell yesterday, saying the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks had led to a re-evaluation of the threat posed by Hussein.

“9/11 changed my calculation.  It made it really clear we have to deal with threats before they come on our shore,” Bush said.  “You know, for a long period of time, we thought oceans could protect us from danger, and we learned a tough lesson on September the 11th.  It’s really important for this nation to continue to chase down and deal with threats before they materialize, and we learned that on September the 11th,” he said (Federal News Service transcript, Sept. 25).

New Evidence on Iraqi Drones

A U.S. defense official has said that evidence found in Iraq helps to support the prewar claim made by the Bush administration that Iraq was developing unmanned aerial vehicles for use in conducting biological and chemical weapons attacks, according to the Washington Post (see GSN, Sept. 2).

The official described a report of an interrogation of a former member of Hussein’s “inner circle” who said Hussein had ordered accelerated production of drones shortly before the war for use in attack missions, the Post reported.  Some U.S. analysts have argued, however, that the drones were meant to be used in reconnaissance missions (Bradley Graham, Washington Post, Sept. 26).

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U.S. Senate Approves Fiscal 2004 Defense Appropriations Bill

The U.S. Senate yesterday voted 95-0 to approve the fiscal 2004 defense appropriations bill, which provides almost $370 billion for the U.S. Defense Department, according to the Associated Press (see GSN, Sept. 25).

The $368 billion bill, which was approved by the House of Representatives earlier this week, includes $9.1 billion to build a national missile defense system, an increase of $140 million over this year’s funding.  The bill does not address $87 billion requested separately by President George W. Bush to pay for military operation in Afghanistan and Iraq.

The bill is a “demonstration of our support, of Congress’ support, of our men and women in uniform,” Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) said (Jim Abrams, Associated Press/Contra Costa Times, Sept. 26).

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Northrop Grumman Receives Marine Corps Contract to Build WMD Warning System

The U.S. defense contractor Northrop Grumman announced yesterday that it has received a U.S. Marine Corps contract to build a new WMD warning system (see GSN, Oct. 2, 2002).

Under the contract, Northrop Grumman will build a Joint Warning and Reporting Network to provide early warning of WMD attacks, according to a company press release.  The five-year contract is worth up to $15 million (Northrop Grumman release, Sept. 25).

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Draft U.S. Report Says No WMD Found in Iraq

Confirming unofficial accounts, a draft report by the CIA’s top WMD hunter in Iraq indicates that U.S. investigators have found no weapons of mass destruction there, U.S. officials said yesterday (see GSN, Sept. 24).

The draft interim report was prepared by David Kay, the CIA’s representative on the 1,200-member Iraq Survey Group, responsible for looking for evidence of Iraqi WMD programs. 

The draft report says that although no WMD stockpiles have been found, the survey group has found evidence of precursors and dual-use equipment that could have been used to produce biological and chemical weapons.  The team also interviewed at least one Iraqi security officer who said he had been involved in a biological and chemical weapons program shortly before the United States invaded Iraq in March, the officials said (Jehl/Miller, New York Times, Sept. 24).

Kay’s analysis of recovered Iraqi documents is expected to prove that Hussein had the “intent” to resume production of biological and chemical weapons once U.N. sanctions were lifted and weapons inspectors were gone, a senior intelligence official said recently.  Then-Iraqi President Saddam Hussein “also had scientists working in small groups on nonweapons work who could quickly be shifted over if weapons were needed,” the official said.

CIA chief spokesman Bill Harlow said yesterday that Kay, who is now in Washington completing his report, is “still gathering information from the field.”

“Don’t expect any firm conclusions.  He will not rule in or rule out anything,” Harlow said.

Kay is expected to present his report to Congress late next week, the Washington Post reported (Pincus/Priest, Washington Post, Sept. 25).  U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said yesterday that it would be up to the CIA to determine whether an unclassified version would be released.

Kay will turn over his findings to CIA Director George Tenet, Rumsfeld said.  The White House had not established a deadline for Kay to do so, according to InsideDefense.com.

“It’s a matter of putting the pieces together, and then they do a judgment as to whether he (Kay) wants to wait for a final report, whether he wants to hand in some sort of interim report, whether it should be classified or not — all those are things that he and George (Tenet) are working out,” Rumsfeld said.

National security adviser Condoleezza Rice said that a version of the report might not be released at all.

“I would not count on reports,” Rice said.  “I suppose there may be interim reports.  I don’t know when those will be, and I don’t know what the public nature of them will be,” she said (John Liang, InsideDefense.com, Sept. 24).

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Congressional Support Growing for Syria Sanctions Bill

Congressional support is increasing for the Syria Accountability Act, which would require sanctions against Damascus if it does not end the WMD development the Bush administration has recently accused Syria of pursuing, the New York Forward reported this week (see GSN, Sept. 17).

“What we have heard about the WMD programs of both Syria and Iran is alarming, and people here are eager to take action,” a House International Relations Committee staff member said.

Supporters of the bill, which would require sanctions against Syria if it does not end its suspected WMD efforts, support of terrorism and occupation of Lebanon, said they are close to bringing it up for a vote, according to Forward.  While White House officials had previously said the bill would damage U.S. efforts in the Middle East, Undersecretary of State John Bolton told an International Relations subcommittee last week that President George W. Bush and his foreign policy advisers “do not have a position on the bill.”

The White House’s apparent decision to not vigorously oppose the bill should make it easier to pass, supporters said.

The Bush administration “went from opposing it to saying ‘we have no position,’” said a spokesman for Representative Elliot Engel (D-N.Y.), who co-introduced the bill earlier this year.  “We think this change is very significant.  We view this as maybe not a green light, but certainly a yellow light,” the spokesman said (Ori Nir, New York Forward, Sept. 26).

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$368 Billion Pentagon Budget Moves Toward Completion

The U.S. House of Representatives yesterday approved a $368 billion U.S. Defense Department appropriations bill for fiscal 2004, including the $9.1 billion the White House had requested for ballistic missile defense (see GSN, July 18).

The bill does not include the $87 billion war supplemental requested by President George W. Bush for fiscal 2004, which begins next week (Council for a Livable World, Sept. 25).

The bill includes $75 billion for procurement, which represents a $2 billion increase.  Procurement funding has increased each year since 1996, the Washington Post reported.

The House passed the spending bill 407-15, after seven minutes of debate, and the Senate is expected to take up the budget today, according to the Post.

Some lawmakers warned that continuing operations would make it difficult to provide sufficient funds for Pentagon modernization projects.

“We need to spend $15 billion to $16 billion just to refurbish equipment in Iraq,” said Representative John Murtha (D-Pa.).  A major procurement budget increase in the future, he said, “is not going to happen” (Dan Morgan, Washington Post, Sept. 25).

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Greek Security Exercise Tests Preparation for 2004 Olympics

Greek authorities this week are holding a two-day security exercise that includes biological and chemical weapons scenarios in preparation for the 2004 Olympics in Athens, Xinhua News Agency reported today (see GSN, May 20, 2002). 

A number of Greek and foreign security experts are set to take part in the map exercise, being held at the Athens 2004 Olympic Organizing Committee’s headquarters (Xinhua News Agency, Sept. 25).

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White House, Senate Republicans Lash Out at Kennedy Over Iraqi War “Fraud” Comments

The White House and Senate Republicans yesterday criticized Senator Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) for his recent comments alleging that the Bush administration chose to go war with Iraq for political gain, according to the Washington Post (see GSN, Sept. 19).

In an interview with the Associated Press last week, Kennedy called the war a “fraud,” saying the decision to invade Iraq was “made up in Texas” to aid Republicans politically.  Kennedy also said the White House could not account for billions of dollars being spent in Iraq, suggesting that some of the money is being provided to foreign leaders, “bribing them to send in troops.”

White House spokeswoman Claire Buchan yesterday said Kennedy’s “bribes” were, in fact, standard foreign aid.

“As any member of Congress knows or should know, foreign assistance to friends and allies has been a staple of America’s international policy for decades,” Buchan said.  “Reducing the discourse to this level is a real disservice to the American people,” she said.

Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John Warner (R-Va.) yesterday also lashed out at Kennedy for his comments.

“Stop to think of the reaction of a young wife surrounded by small children, not knowing from day to day whether her husband will survive another day’s engagement in Afghanistan or Iraq,” Warner said.  “And they hear that this whole thing has been a fraud perpetrated upon this family and was made up in Texas.  I find that very painful,” he said.

Some Senate Democrats yesterday, such as Minority Leader Tom Daschle (D-S.D.) rose to Kennedy’s defense, according to the Post.  During a press conference, Daschle said it was “McCarthyesque” to criticize those who vocally oppose White House policies.

“It seems like anyone who comes to the floor to express concern or to express his views or her views on Iraq is now the subject of attack,” Daschle said.

Kennedy himself defended his remarks on the Senate floor yesterday.

“Many Americans share my views, and I regret that the president considers them uncivil and not in the national interest,” Kennedy said.  “The real action that was not in the American interest was the decision to go to war unilaterally, without the support of our allies and without a plan to win the peace,” he said (Dewar/Loeb, Washington Post, Sept. 24).

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Herd Mentality Led to Iraqi WMD Conclusions, Former Official Says

The conventional prewar assumption that Iraq held stocks of weapons of mass destruction was the product of a herd mentality in the intelligence and defense communities, according to a commentary this week by retired Deputy Defense Secretary John Hamre.

Describing his experience with analyzing intelligence reports, Hamre said, “Once a general proposition was accepted as valid, it was usually repeated without question in subsequent analyses.”  Hamre, who served under former President Bill Clinton, is now president of the Center for Strategic and International Studies. 

“As we saw recently, the entire intelligence community and the policy community — and I include myself here — were convinced we would find major stocks of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.  We have not,” he added.

Speaking of intelligence reports more generally, Hamre said that during his time in the Pentagon, his access to information was necessarily limited by aides, who might have weeded out alternative theories on intelligence issues before they reached him.

“Someone who works for you is deciding if you need to see it and when you need to see it.  This is not a bad thing.  This is just a fact of life,” he added.

Hamre said also that aides tailor presentations to fit the secretary and deputy secretary’s interests, which might have also sifted out alternative hypotheses on Iraq.

To free the Pentagon from the “group think” mentality, Hamre recommended several measures, including continuing the intelligence community’s “redundant analytic capabilities” that can offer competiting intelligence assessments, drawing more from open sources and nongovernment analysts, improving the understanding of how group dynamics can affect judgments, and continuing to ask hard questions (John Hamre, Aviation Week & Space Technology, Sept. 22).

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