Congressional Record: February 23, 2004 (Senate)
Page S1436-S1437
Flawed Intelligence Assessments
Mr. LEVIN. Madam President, there is now confirmation from the
administration's own leading weapons inspector that the intelligence
community produced greatly flawed assessments about Iraq's weapons of
mass destruction in the months leading up to the invasion of Iraq. It
is my opinion that flawed intelligence and the administration's
exaggerations concerning Iraq's weapons of mass destruction resulted
from an effort to make the threat appear more imminent and the case for
military action against Iraq appear more urgent than they were.
However, regardless of whether one thought the threat was imminent or
not to proceed as unilaterally as we did, our intelligence was so far
off the mark and the descriptions of that intelligence by the
administration were even further off the mark that for the sake of the
future security of this Nation, there needs to be an independent
assessment not just of the intelligence but also the characterization
by the administration of that intelligence.
Today, I want to raise a related issue: how the Director of Central
Intelligence, George Tenet, misled the American people before the war
about the status of our sharing of U.S. intelligence information with
the United Nations inspectors.
Director Tenet, after 12 months of indefensible stonewalling,
recently relented and declassified the material that I requested, which
makes clear that his public testimony before the Congress on the extent
to which the United States shared intelligence with the United Nations
on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction programs was false.
Prior to the war, the CIA identified 550 sites in Iraq as possibly
having weapons of mass destruction or prohibited WMD materials or
equipment. They were called "suspect sites." Madam President, 150 of
those sites were so-called "top suspect" sites where the CIA believed
it would be more likely to find such items. The 150 top suspect sites
were, in turn, divided into three categories: High priority, medium
priority, and low priority.
At two public hearings shortly before the war on February 11 and
February 12, 2003, I pressed Director Tenet on the issue of how many
suspect WMD sites were shared with the United Nations. On February 12,
Director Tenet said the following:
When the inspections began, we drew up a list of suspect
sites which we believe may have a continuing association with
Iraq's WMD programs. The list is dynamic. It changes
according to available intelligence or other information that
we receive.
Of this set number of suspect sites, we identified a
specific number as being highest interest, highest value, or
moderate value because of recent activities suggesting
ongoing WMD association or other intelligence information
that we received.
And here is his bottom line:
As I said yesterday, we have briefed all of these high
value and moderate value sites to UNMOVIC and the IAEA.
Mr. Tenet did not say "some;" he did not say "most;" he said
"all." We have briefed "all" of these high value and moderate value
sites to the U.N.
I told Director Tenet at the time in two public hearings that he was
wrong and that classified numbers told a different story. On March 6,
2003, Director Tenet again stated in writing that:
We have now provided detailed information on all of the
high value and moderate value sites to UNMOVIC and the IAEA.
National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice made the same
representation in a letter to me on March 6, 2003, in which she said:
United Nations inspectors have been briefed on every high
or medium priority weapons of mass destruction, missile, and
UAV-related site the U.S. intelligence community has
identified.
On January 20, 2004, the CIA, after a year of resistance, finally
declassified the number of "high and medium priority 'top suspect' WMD
sites" where the CIA shared information with the U.N. inspectors prior
to the war in Iraq.
In doing so, they finally acknowledged that 21 of the 105 high and
medium priority top suspect sites on the CIA list were not shared with
the United Nations before the war. So the record is now clear that
Director Tenet twice gave false information on this matter to the
public and to the Congress shortly before the war.
The January 20, 2004, letter from the CIA states their position. The
position of the CIA is that it provided the United Nations "with the
intelligence that we judged would be fruitful in their search."
History will, and a thorough investigation would, determine the
accuracy of that statement. But the public can now judge the accuracy
of Director Tenet's public statements before the war that all high and
medium priority top suspect sites were shared with the United Nations.
All such sites were not shared and Mr. Tenet's repeated statements were
false.
Last February, Director Tenet could have answered honestly and said:
We have not given the U.N. inspectors all the high and medium priority
top suspect sites and this is why, Senator.
Instead, he chose a different path, one of misstating the facts. I
can only speculate as to Director Tenet's motive. If he had answered
honestly and said that there were 21 high and medium priority top
suspect sites that we had not yet shared with the United Nations, it
would have put an obstacle in the path of the administration's move to
end U.N. inspections and proceed to war. It would have been more
difficult for the administration to proceed to war without first having
shared with the U.N. our intelligence on all high and medium priority
top suspect WMD sites and it would have reinforced widely held public
and international sentiment that we should allow the U.N. to complete
their inspections before going to war.
In other words, honest answers by Director Tenet might have
undermined the false sense of urgency for proceeding to war and could
have contributed to delay, neither of which fit the administration's
policy goals. For the last year, I have attempted to have declassified
the number of high and medium priority top suspect sites that the U.S.
did not share with the United Nations. The CIA stonewalled doing that
for no reason that I can think of except that the facts are
embarrassing to them. Surely, that is no reason to withhold information
from the American people and to give inaccurate information repeatedly
to Congress in public testimony. We rely on our intelligence agencies
to give us the facts, not to give us the spin on the facts.
The accuracy and objectivity of intelligence should never be tainted
or slanted to support a particular policy. What is badly needed and
what is lacking so far is candor about how we were so far off in the
assessments of Iraq's possession of WMD. The lack of candor is one of
the many reasons an independent commission should be appointed by
Congress, not just by the President, to look at not just how the
intelligence came to be so flawed but
[[Page S1437]]
how that flawed intelligence came to be further exaggerated by the
administration in order to support its decision to initiate military
action.
One small part of this picture is this recent letter from the CIA
that finally makes clear the truth. The CIA did not share all of the
top suspect WMD sites in Iraq that Director Tenet said twice publicly
before the war that it had shared with U.N. inspectors. It is more
evidence of the shaping of intelligence to fit the administration's
policy objectives.
I ask unanimous consent that the letter from the CIA that I have
referred to on this matter be printed in the Record.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:
Central Intelligence Agency,
Washington, DC, January 20, 2004.
Hon. Carl Levin,
Committee on Armed Services,
U.S. Senate,
Washington, DC.
Dear Senator Levin: I am responding to your letters of 23
October 2003 and 8 January 2004 regarding declassification of
specific information concerning the Intelligence Community's
(IC's) sharing of information on Iraqi suspect weapons of
mass destruction (WMD) sites with the United Nations (UN)
inspectors.
I want to begin by ensuring that there is a mutual
understanding of what has been declassified thus far with
respect to Iraqi suspect WMD site numbers and the sharing of
this information with the UN inspectors.
In our 23 May 2003 letter, we provided the number of
approximate Iraqi suspect WMD sites identified by Central
Intelligence Agency, 550; and, the number of suspect sites
where inspectors were more likely to find something than at
other sites, 150.
In our 11 July 2003 letter, we provided the number of
suspect WMD site packages provided to the UN inspectors, 67.
In our 9 and 13 May briefings to the SSCI staff, we
explained that this number represented the number of site
packages shared with the UN inspectors at the IC initiative.
The 67 number does not include site packages provided
pursuant to UN inspectors' requests,
Your most recent letters concern three specific requests:
The number of high and medium priority sites on the IC's
150-site top suspect site list. Answer: High: 37; Medium: 68.
The number of high and medium priority sites where the IC
shared information with the UN, including briefing packages.
Answer: High: 33; Medium: 51.
The number of high and medium priority sites where the IC
shared briefing packages with the UN. Answer: High: 21;
Medium: 30.
The 21 high and 30 medium site packages provided to the UN
inspectors represent site packages provided at the IC's
initiative and pursuant to UN inspectors' requests. The
number of high and medium site packages provided to the UN
inspectors solely at the IC's initiative are 20 and 25,
respectively.
These numbers have been declassified. However, in order to
ensure that the numbers are accurately characterized, it is
important to reiterate what has been previously provided in
earlier correspondence to you regarding the suspect WMD site
information shared with the UN inspectors. I specifically
call your attention to the Director of Central Intelligence's
11 July 2003 letter, signed by the Deputy Director of Central
Intelligence, which states:
". . . CIA provided UNMOVIC with the intelligence that we
judged would be fruitful in their search for prohibited
material and activities in Iraq. We did not have and we never
claimed to have, smoking-gun information that would lead the
inspectors to a quick find. We selected the best sites we had
that we judged would have the best chance of finding
something. It is important to remember that we had given the
UN a vast amount of data in the 10-plus years we cooperated
with them on inspections, including data on many of the sites
long suspected of containing illicit activity. Thus, when
inspections resumed last year, we wanted to focus our effort
on giving the UN new data that we had not told them
previously. We started by considering about 150 sites that
seemed promising--we further refined that list because many
of these sites were already known to the UN inspectors, had
been the subject of previous discussions by CIA and those
organizations, and on which we had no new information. By the
time inspections stopped, we had developed site packages for
67 sites. These included the sites on which we had the best
intelligence--on which we had pertinent and possible
`actionable' information. We would not have helped the UN
inspectors by giving them large volumes of data they already
had. The UN relied on us to prioritize the information rather
than simply to give them everything we had on every possible
site in Iraq."
We ask that the numbers and text be used in tandem when
discussing Iraqi WMD suspect sites and site packages provided
to the UN inspectors.
I believe that with this response all your requests for
declassification of Iraqi suspect site numbers have been
addressed.
Sincerely,
Stanley M. Moskowitz,
Director of Congressional Affairs.
Mr. LEVIN. I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. BUNNING. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order
for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
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