June 27,\r\n2003
\r\n<\/p>\r\nContaiment Was Working\r\nCIA: Seven Months\r\nBefore 9\/11, the Agency Said Iraq Posed No Threat to the US\r\n
By JASON LEOPOLD<\/p>\r\n
http:\/\/www.counterpunch.org\/leopold06272003.html<\/p>\r\n
Seven\r\nmonths before two-dozen or so al-Qaida terrorists hijacked four commercial\r\nairplanes and flew three of the aircrafts directly into the World Trade Center\r\nand the Pentagon on September 11, 2001, killing 3,000 innocent civilians, CIA\r\nDirector George Tenet, testified before Congress that Iraq posed no immediate\r\nthreat to the United States or to other countries in the Middle East.<\/p>\r\n
But immediately after the terrorist attacks on 9-11,\r\nwhich the Bush administration claims Iraq is partially responsible for, the\r\nPresident and his advisers were already making a case for war against Iraq\r\nwithout so much as providing a shred of evidence to back up the allegations that\r\nIraq and its former President, Saddam Hussein, was aware of the attacks or\r\nhelped the al-Qaida hijackers plan the catastrophe.<\/p>\r\n
It was then, after the 9-11 attacks, that intelligence\r\nreports from the CIA radically changed from previous months, which said Iraq\r\nposed no immediate threat to the U.S., to now show Iraq had a stockpile of\r\nchemical and biological weapons and was in hot pursuit of a nuclear bomb. The\r\nBush administration seized upon the reports to build public support for the war\r\nand used the information to eventually justify a preemptive strike against the\r\ncountry in March even though much of the information in the CIA report has since\r\nbeen disputed.<\/p>\r\n
In just seven short months, beginning as early as\r\nFebruary 2001, Bush administration officials said Iraq went from being a threat\r\nonly to its own people to posing an imminent threat to the world. Indeed, in a\r\nFeb. 12, 2001 interview with the Fox News Channel Secretary of Defense Donald\r\nRumsfeld said: \"Iraq is probably not a nuclear threat at the present\r\ntime.\"<\/p>\r\n
But Rumsfeld testified before the House Armed Services\r\nCommittee on Sept. 18, 2002 that Iraq is close to acquiring the materials needed\r\nto build a nuclear bomb.<\/p>\r\n
\"Some have argued that the nuclear threat from Iraq\r\nis not imminent -- that Saddam is at least 5-7 years away from having nuclear\r\nweapons,\" Rumsfeld\r\ntestified before the committee.<\/p>\r\n
\"I would not be so certain... He has, at this\r\nmoment, stockpiles chemical and biological weapons, and is pursuing nuclear\r\nweapons.\"<\/p>\r\n
Rumsfeld never offered any evidence to support his\r\nclaims, but his dire warnings of a nuclear catastrophe caused by Saddam Hussein\r\nwas enough to convince most lawmakers, both Democrat and Republican, that\r\nSaddam's Iraq was doomed. Shortly after his remarks before the House Armed\r\nServices Committee, Congress passed a resolution authorizing President Bush to\r\nuse \"all appropriate means\" to remove Saddam from power.<\/p>\r\n
Two months have passed since the U.S. invaded Iraq and\r\nnot a spec of anthrax nor any other deadly chemical or biological weapon has\r\nbeen found. U.S. military forces have searched more than 300 sites but have\r\nturned up nothing substantial. Lawmakers are now questioning whether the\r\nintelligence information gathered by the CIA was accurate or whether the Bush\r\nadministration manipulated and or exaggerated the intelligence to make a case\r\nfor war.<\/p>\r\n
However, intelligence reports released by the CIA and\r\nmore than 100 interviews top officials in the Bush administration, such as\r\nSecretary of State Colin Powell, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Deputy\r\nDefense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, gave to various Senate and Congressional\r\ncommittees and media outlets prior to 9-11 show that the U.S. never believed\r\nSaddam Hussein to be an imminent threat other than to his own people. Moreover,\r\nthe CIA reported in February 2001 that Iraq was \"probably\" pursuing\r\nchemical and biological weapons programs but that it had no direct evidence that\r\nIraq actually had actually obtained such weapons.<\/p>\r\n
\"We do not have any direct evidence that Iraq has\r\nused the period since (Operation) Desert Fox to reconstitute its WMD programs,\r\nalthough given its past behavior, this type of activity must be regarded as\r\nlikely,\" CIA director Tenet said in an\r\nagency report to Congress on Feb 7, 2001 .<\/p>\r\n
\"We assess that since the suspension of (United\r\nNations) inspections in December of 1998, Baghdad has had the capability to\r\nreinitiate both its (chemical and biological weapons) programs... without an\r\ninspection monitoring program, however, it is more difficult to determine if\r\nIraq has done so.\"<\/p>\r\n
\"Moreover, the automated video monitoring systems\r\ninstalled by the UN at known and suspect WMD facilities in Iraq are still not\r\noperating,\" according to the 2001 CIA report. \"Having lost this\r\non-the-ground access, it is more difficult for the UN or the US to accurately\r\nassess the current state of Iraq's WMD programs.\"<\/p>\r\n
Ironically, in the February 2001 report, Tenet said\r\nOsama bin Laden and his al-Qaida terrorist network remain the single greatest\r\nthreat to U.S. interests here and abroad. Tenet eerily describes in the report a\r\nscenario that six months later would become a reality.<\/p>\r\n
\"Terrorists are also becoming more operationally\r\nadept and more technically sophisticated in order to defeat counter-terrorism\r\nmeasures. For example, as we have increased security around government and\r\nmilitary facilities, terrorists are seeking out \"softer\" targets that\r\nprovide opportunities for mass casualties. Employing increasingly advanced\r\ndevices and using strategies such as simultaneous attacks, the number of people\r\nkilled ... Usama bin Ladin and his global network of lieutenants and associates\r\nremain the most immediate and serious threat. Since 1998, Bin Ladin has declared\r\nall U.S. citizens legitimate targets of attack. As shown by the bombing of our\r\nembassies in Africa in 1998 and his Millennium plots last year, he is capable of\r\nplanning multiple attacks with little or no warning,\" Tenet said.<\/p>\r\n
However, Tenet only briefly discussed the al-Qaida\r\nthreat and devoted the bulk of his testimony on how to deal with the threat of\r\nrogue countries such as North Korea, Syria, Iran and Iraq. Six months later, Bin\r\nLaden was identified as the mastermind behind 9-11.<\/p>\r\n
Between 1998 and early 2002, the CIA's reports on the\r\nso-called terror threat offered no details on what types of chemical and\r\nbiological weapons that Iraq obtained.<\/p>\r\n
But that changed dramatically in October 2002 when\r\nthe CIA issued another report that this time included details of Iraq's\r\nalleged vast chemical and biological weapons.<\/p>\r\n
The October 2002 CIA report into Iraq's WMD identifies\r\nsarin, mustard gas, VX and numerous other chemical weapons that the CIA claims\r\nIraq had been stockpiling over the years, in stark contrast to earlier reports\r\nby Tenet that said the agency had no evidence to support such claims. And unlike\r\ntestimony Tenet gave a year earlier, in which he said the CIA had no direct\r\nevidence of Iraq's WMD programs, the intelligence information in the 2002\r\nreport, Tenet said, is rock solid.<\/p>\r\n
\"This information is based on a solid foundation of\r\nintelligence,\" Tenet\r\nsaid during a CIA briefing in February.<\/p>\r\n
\"It comes to us from credible and reliable sources.\r\nMuch of it is corroborated by multiple sources.\"<\/p>\r\n
The CIA would not comment on the differing reports\r\nbetween 2001 and 2002 or how the agency was able to obtain such intelligence\r\ninformation and corroborate it so quickly.<\/p>\r\n
Still, in early 2001, while hardliners in the Bush\r\nadministration were privately discussing ways to remove Saddam Hussein from\r\npower, Secretary of State Powell said the U.S. successfully\r\n\"contained\" Iraq in the years since the first Gulf War and that\r\nbecause of economic sanctions placed on the country Iraq was unable to obtain\r\nWMD.<\/p>\r\n
\"We have been able to keep weapons from going into\r\nIraq,\" Powell said during a Feb 11, 2001 interview with \"Face the\r\nNation. \"We have been able to keep the sanctions in place to the extent\r\nthat items that might support weapons of mass destruction development have had\r\nsome controls on them... it's been quite a success for ten years...\"<\/p>\r\n
Moreover, during a meeting with Joschka Fischer, the\r\nGerman Foreign Minister, in February 2001 on how to deal with Iraq, Powell said\r\nthe U.N., the U.S. and its allies \"have succeeded in containing Saddam\r\nHussein and his ambitions.\"<\/p>\r\n
Saddam's \"forces are about one-third their original\r\nsize. They don't really possess the capability to attack their neighbors the way\r\nthey did ten years ago,\" Powell\r\nsaid during the meeting with Fischer.<\/p>\r\n
\"Containment has been a successful policy, and I\r\nthink we should make sure that we continue it until such time as Saddam Hussein\r\ncomes into compliance with the agreements he made at the end of the (Gulf)\r\nwar.\"<\/p>\r\n
Powell added that Iraq is \"not threatening\r\nAmerica,\" but in a separate interview with ABC's Sam Donaldson on Feb. 1,\r\n2001, Powell said the U.S. could attack Iraq if \"something occurred to\r\nus,\" which would suggest that the 9-11 terrorist attacks made Iraq a\r\nlegitimate target.
\r\n<\/p>\r\n\n","contact":"","link":"","address":"","phone":"","parent_id":0,"mime_type":"text\/html","summary":"Contaiment Was Working","numcomment":4,"fileurl":"\/uploads\/","filesize":null,"article_url":"\/news\/2003\/06\/68524.php"},"attachments":[],"comments":[{"id":68646,"heading":"Avoid Confusion","article":" Don't confuse us with facts; our brains are already taxed with keeping track of the wildcard possibilites in the Major League baseball races. Just keep blowing up those towel heads - they are probably all fags, anyway. Keep that cheap gas comin' so we won't have to move to the city and take public transportation like our fathers and grandfathers did. We might have to sit next to people who are not just like us and therefore obviously inferior. And shoot all the bastards who don't worship Old Glory. We should all try to run down at least one with our suvs.","author":"Suburban White Male","parent_id":68524,"mime_type":"text\/plain","created":"2003-07-01 15:27:45","modified":"2003-07-01 15:27:45","fileurl":""},{"id":68946,"heading":"KOBE SBM, don't you have your own place to play.","article":"Don't you have another place to play? IndyMedia is for rational normal people. There's this place called KOBEHQ where hairy knuckled cyber perverts with fixations on dissidents hang out. Why don't you go back there and wack off.","author":"KOBE SBM is a mentally ill cyber stalker.","parent_id":68524,"mime_type":"text\/plain","created":"2003-07-02 14:20:12","modified":"2003-07-02 14:20:12","fileurl":""},{"id":68958,"heading":"I play wherever I wish. Got a problem with that?","article":"TOO FUCKING BAD.","author":"KOBE SBM","parent_id":68524,"mime_type":"text\/plain","created":"2003-07-02 14:33:53","modified":"2003-07-02 14:33:53","fileurl":""}]}