Rumsfeld: Jury still out on Iraq WMD Defense secretary says it's too soon to reach conclusion
The Associated Press Updated: 12:12 p.m. ET Feb. 04, 2004
WASHINGTON - Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said Wednesday he is not ready to conclude that Iraq did not have weapons of mass destruction before U.S. troops invaded to depose him last year.
Rumsfeld told the Senate Armed Services Committee that U.S. weapons inspectors need more time to reach final conclusions about whether chemical and biological weapons existed in Iraq before the war, as the Bush administration had asserted before sending American troops into battle.
In a prepared statement, Rumsfeld said he was confident that prewar intelligence, while possibly flawed in some respects, was not manipulated by the administration to justify its war aims.
In his first public comments on the subject since David Kay told Congress last week that he believed it was now clear that U.S. intelligence on Iraq’s weapons programs was fundamentally flawed, Rumsfeld praised the efforts of U.S. intelligence agencies and stressed the difficulty of penetrating secretive societies like Iraq.
Rumsfeld offered several examples of what he called “alternative views” about why no weapons have been discovered in Iraq, starting with the possibility that banned arms never existed.
‘Possible, but not likely’
“I suppose that’s possible, but not likely,” he said.
Other possibilities cited by Rumsfeld:
Weapons may have been transferred to a third country before U.S. troops arrived in March.
Weapons may have been dispersed throughout Iraq and hidden.
Weapons existed but were destroyed by the Iraqis before the war started.
Or, Rumsfeld postulated, “small quantities” of chemical or biological agents may have existed, along with a “surge capability” that would allow Iraq to rapidly build an arsenal of banned weapons. Commenting on that possibility, Rumsfeld said, “We may eventually find it in the months ahead.”
Lastly, he offered the possibility that the issue of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction “may have been a charade” orchestrated by the Iraqi government. It is even possible, he said, that Saddam was “tricked” by his own people into believing he had banned weapons that did not exist.
The Kay team, known as the Iraqi Survey Group, did confirm one thing, Rumsfeld said: “The intelligence community got it essentially right” with regard to Iraq’s ballistic missile programs. It found that Iraq was working on missiles of longer range than was permitted under U.N. sanctions.
It took 10 months to find Saddam
Regarding the possibility that Iraq managed to hide some banned weapons of mass destruction, Rumsfeld noted that it took 10 months to find Saddam Hussein and that the hole in which he was found on Dec. 13 “was big enough to hold biological weapons to kill thousands” of people.
“Such objects, once buried, can stay buried,” Rumsfeld said.
The findings of the Kay group, he added, so far have “not proven Saddam Hussein had what intelligence indicated he had and what we believed he had. But it also has not proven the opposite.”
President Bush on Monday said he would appoint a commission to conduct an independent investigation of prewar intelligence on Iraq’s weapons and take a broader look at U.S. intelligence-gathering operations.
Bush, initially cool to the idea, changed his mind while under pressure from Republicans and Democrats on Capitol Hill after Kay testimony that prewar intelligence was almost all wrong.
Claims that Iraq had stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction were the main reason cited by Bush for the war, in which more than 500 U.S. troops have died.
CIA Chief to Correct 'Misperceptions' on Iraq WMD Wed February 4, 2004 06:04 PM ET
By Tabassum Zakaria
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - CIA Director George Tenet plans to try and correct what he considers "misperceptions" about prewar intelligence on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction in his first public appearance since fresh controversy erupted over the issue, an intelligence official said on Wednesday.
In a speech at Georgetown University on Thursday, Tenet will "correct some of the misperceptions and downright inaccuracies concerning what the intelligence community reported and did not report regarding Iraq," the U.S. intelligence official said on condition of anonymity.
"He will point out it is premature to reach conclusions," the official added.
The furor over whether Iraq possessed banned weapons before the U.S.-led war, flared again recently after former chief U.S. weapons inspector David Kay said he believed there were no large stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons in Iraq.
Kay, who was appointed by Tenet, had led the hunt since June for evidence of banned weapons and an active program to build nuclear weapons -- the centerpiece for the U.S. decision to launch a pre-emptive invasion of Iraq last year.
After resigning in late January, Kay said the WMD search team had found probably 85 percent of what there was to be found in Iraq.
His blunt comments that prewar intelligence on Iraq had been wrong bolstered calls for an independent inquiry and prompted the White House to agree to set up a commission to investigate the intelligence.
Tenet is expected to reject some of the criticisms that have been leveled at the intelligence agencies.
"People who have leaped to the conclusion that the intelligence was all wrong simply aren't right," the intelligence official said. "Those who say the search for WMD is 85 percent finished are 100 percent wrong."
Tenet plans to echo what other administration officials and congressional Republicans have been saying -- that it is premature to reach firm conclusions.
"He's going to make the point that in the search for WMD, there is still plenty of work that needs to be done on the ground before any conclusions should be reached," the intelligence official said.
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld defended the war in testimony to congressional committees on Wednesday and held out the possibility that the team still hunting for banned weapons in Iraq eventually might find them.
He said the intelligence agencies had a "tough assignment" trying to crack closed societies and avoid surprises from threats that can emerge suddenly.
Rumsfeld noted that when the intelligence agencies fail "the world knows it. And when they succeed, as they often do to our country's great benefit, their accomplishments often have to remain secret."
Rumsfeld said he hoped Tenet would make some of the recent successes public "so that the impression that has and is being created of broad intelligence failures can be dispelled."
Tenet is expected to talk about the "difficulties and complexities" of intelligence work, where it is unusual to have a complete picture but fragments of information must be pieced together. He also plans to discuss proliferation issues in other countries, the intelligence official said.
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