Brian Rucker
06-02-2004, 09:49 AM
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/06/02/politics/02inte.html?pagewanted=1
Powell Presses C.I.A. on Faulty Intelligence on Iraq Arms
By DOUGLAS JEHL and DAVID E. SANGER
Published: June 2, 2004
WASHINGTON, June 1 - Secretary of State Colin L. Powell has pressed the Central Intelligence Agency for several months to account for the faulty intelligence that led Mr. Powell to tell the United Nations last year that Iraq definitely possessed illicit weapons, several senior administration officials said Tuesday.
In particular, Mr. Powell has sought answers about the C.I.A.'s sources of information for the evidence, now considered false by the agency, that Iraq possessed mobile biological weapons laboratories. Serious doubts have now arisen about all four of the sources that the C.I.A. relied on, intelligence officials say. At least two of the sources were Iraqi defectors introduced to intelligence agencies by the Iraqi National Congress, led by Ahmad Chalabi, the government officials said.
The contention that Saddam Hussein had developed the mobile laboratories was a critical element of Mr. Powell's presentation to the United Nations on Feb. 5, 2003, which was broadcast around the world. In past interviews, Mr. Powell has described an intensive process he went through at the C.I.A. in the days and nights before the speech, reviewing the intelligence.
He said last summer that the mobile labs were "some of the most solid" evidence the United States possessed, but in the past few months he has stepped back from those remarks, and then reversed himself. Two weeks ago he declared "the sourcing was inaccurate and wrong and in some cases, deliberately misleading."
"And for that, I am disappointed and I regret it," he added.
Now, said one senior State Department official, "he is asking the agency, 'What can you tell me about this?' "
"He has raised a number of questions over a number of months," the official added, but has not requested a formal report.
After the American invasion last year, the White House and the C.I.A. initially said that suspicious semitrailers found in Iraq were the mobile biological weapons facilities that the sources had described, and a May 2003 C.I.A. white paper making that case is still posted on the agency's Web site. As recently as January, Vice President Dick Cheney cited the trailers, saying if they turned out to be what he and others long suspected, he "would deem that conclusive evidence" that Mr. Hussein had such programs.
A spokesman for Mr. Cheney declined to say whether Mr. Cheney had asked for the updated intelligence on the mobile labs question.
"It's an issue that Powell is intensely interested in," said one senior administration official. "If Cheney is still interested, he isn't saying."
Powell Presses C.I.A. on Faulty Intelligence on Iraq Arms
By DOUGLAS JEHL and DAVID E. SANGER
Published: June 2, 2004
WASHINGTON, June 1 - Secretary of State Colin L. Powell has pressed the Central Intelligence Agency for several months to account for the faulty intelligence that led Mr. Powell to tell the United Nations last year that Iraq definitely possessed illicit weapons, several senior administration officials said Tuesday.
In particular, Mr. Powell has sought answers about the C.I.A.'s sources of information for the evidence, now considered false by the agency, that Iraq possessed mobile biological weapons laboratories. Serious doubts have now arisen about all four of the sources that the C.I.A. relied on, intelligence officials say. At least two of the sources were Iraqi defectors introduced to intelligence agencies by the Iraqi National Congress, led by Ahmad Chalabi, the government officials said.
The contention that Saddam Hussein had developed the mobile laboratories was a critical element of Mr. Powell's presentation to the United Nations on Feb. 5, 2003, which was broadcast around the world. In past interviews, Mr. Powell has described an intensive process he went through at the C.I.A. in the days and nights before the speech, reviewing the intelligence.
He said last summer that the mobile labs were "some of the most solid" evidence the United States possessed, but in the past few months he has stepped back from those remarks, and then reversed himself. Two weeks ago he declared "the sourcing was inaccurate and wrong and in some cases, deliberately misleading."
"And for that, I am disappointed and I regret it," he added.
Now, said one senior State Department official, "he is asking the agency, 'What can you tell me about this?' "
"He has raised a number of questions over a number of months," the official added, but has not requested a formal report.
After the American invasion last year, the White House and the C.I.A. initially said that suspicious semitrailers found in Iraq were the mobile biological weapons facilities that the sources had described, and a May 2003 C.I.A. white paper making that case is still posted on the agency's Web site. As recently as January, Vice President Dick Cheney cited the trailers, saying if they turned out to be what he and others long suspected, he "would deem that conclusive evidence" that Mr. Hussein had such programs.
A spokesman for Mr. Cheney declined to say whether Mr. Cheney had asked for the updated intelligence on the mobile labs question.
"It's an issue that Powell is intensely interested in," said one senior administration official. "If Cheney is still interested, he isn't saying."