Pre-War Intelligence: Levin Floor Speech on the Senate Intelligence Committee’s Phase II Report: 09/08/06
Mr. President, today the Senate Intelligence Committee is releasing two of five parts of Phase II of the committee’s inquiry into prewar intelligence. One of the two reports released today looks at what we learned after the attack on Iraq about the accuracy of prewar intelligence regarding links between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaida. Today’s report is a devastating indictment of the Bush administration’s unrelenting, misleading, and deceptive attempts to convince the American people that Saddam Hussein was linked with al-Qaida, the perpetrators of the 9/11 attack.
The President said this week that “One of the hardest parts of my job is to connect Iraq to the war on terror.” Well, that shouldn’t surprise anybody. The President’s decision to ignore intelligence community assessments prior to the Iraq war and to make repeated public statements that gave the misleading impression that Saddam Hussein’s regime was connected to the terrorists who attacked us on 9/11 cost him any credibility he may have had on this issue.
President Bush said Saddam and al-Qaida were “allies” and that “You can’t distinguish between al-Qaida and Saddam when you talk about the war on terror.” The bipartisan report released today directly contradicts that linkage which the President has consistently made in his effort to build public support for his Iraq policy.
The bipartisan committee report finds that the prewar intelligence assessments were right when the intelligence community said Saddam and al-Qaida were independent actors who were far from being natural partners. The report finds that prewar intelligence assessments were right when they expressed consistent doubts that a meeting occurred between 9/11 hijacker Mohamed Atta and a senior Iraqi intelligence official in Prague prior to September 11. And the report finds that prewar intelligence assessments were right when they said there was no credible reporting on al-Qaida operatives being trained in Iraq. Those were the two principal arguments which were used prior to the war to support the alleged linkage between al-Qaida and Saddam Hussein.
The accurate prewar intelligence assessments didn’t stop the administration from making many false and misleading statements trying to link Saddam Hussein with al-Qaida. In his September 5 presentation to the United Nations, Secretary Powell said “Iraq today harbors a deadly terrorist network headed by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, an associate and collaborator of Osama bin Laden, and his al-Qaida lieutenant.” After the war, in June of 2004, the President said that al-Zarqawi, the terrorist leader recently killed in Iraq, was the best evidence of a connection between Iraq and al-Qaida.
And to this day these statements have not stopped.
Just 2 weeks ago, the President said in a press conference that Saddam Hussein “had relations with Zarqawi.'’ Our Intelligence Committee report demonstrates that statement made 2 weeks ago by the President was false. The committee report discloses, for the first time, the CIA’s October 2005 assessment that Saddam’s regime “did not have a relationship, harbor, or turn a blind eye towards Zarqawi and his associates.” The President’s statement made just 2 weeks ago is flat out false.
The drumbeat of misleading administration statements alleging Saddam’s links to al-Qaida was unrelenting in the lead-up to the Iraq war which began in March of 2003.
On September 25, 2002, the President said “Al-Qaida hides. Saddam doesn’t, but the danger is that they work in concert. The danger is that al-Qaida becomes an extension of Saddam’s madness and his hatred and his capacity to extend weapons of mass destruction around the world.” And then he said “You can’t distinguish between al-Qaida and Saddam when you talk about the war on terror.”
The next day, in September of 2002, Secretary Rumsfeld said “We have what we consider to be credible evidence that al-Qaida’s leaders have sought contacts in Iraq who would help them acquire weapons of mass destruction capabilities.”
On 14, 2002, the President said “This is a man [Saddam] that we know has had connections with al-Qaida. This is a man who, in my judgment, would like to use al-Qaida as a forward army.”
On January 30, 2003, Vice President Cheney said: “Saddam’s regime aids and protects terrorists, including members of al-Qaida. He could decide secretly to provide weapons of mass destruction to terrorists for use against us. And as the President said on Tuesday it would just take one vial, one canister, one crate to bring a day of horror to our Nation unlike any we have ever known.”
On February 6, 2003, Deputy Secretary of Defense Wolfowitz said “And, worst of all, his connections with terrorists which go back decades and which started some 10 years ago with al-Qaida are growing every day.”
What the President and other administration officials did not say was what the intelligence community was saying about this crucial issue because it would have undermined their march to war and it would have refuted their main argument for attacking Iraq: that Iraq was linked to the terrorists who attacked us on 9/11.
What was the intelligence community saying before the war? In June of 2002, the CIA said that “Our assessment of al-Qaida’s ties to Iraq rests on a body of fragmented, conflicting reporting from sources of varying reliability.” That same report of the CIA said “The ties between Saddam and bin Laden appear much like those between rival intelligence services.” And the Defense Intelligence Agency stated in a July 2002 assessment, being declassified for this first time in this report “Compelling evidence demonstrating direct cooperation between the government of Iraq and al-Qaida has not been established.”
So these two then-classified assessments preceded the President’s statements that “You can’t distinguish between Iraq and al-Qaida'’ and that, in his view, Saddam would love to use al-Qaida as a “forward army.'’
The CIA assessed in January 2003 that “Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden are far from being natural partners'’ and that Saddam has “viewed Islamic extremists operating inside Iraq as a threat.'’ The CIA also assessed in January of 2003 that Saddam viewed al-Qaida with “deep suspicion'’ and stated that “The relationship between Saddam and bin Laden appears to more closely resemble that of two independent actors trying to exploit each other. That 2003 classified report by the CIA was issued 1 day before the Vice President stated to the American public that Saddam’s regime “Aids and protects terrorists, including members of al-Qaida.”
The misleading statements by administration officials didn’t stop there. The Intelligence Committee report recounts the story of the alleged meeting between Mohamed Atta and the Iraqi intelligence officer in Prague. In the fall of 2001, the Czech intelligence service provided the CIA with reporting based on a single source who stated that Atta met with an Iraqi intelligence officer in Prague in April of 2001.
On December 9, 2001, Vice President Cheney was asked about the report on Meet the Press. The Vice President said “it has been pretty well confirmed that he–the 9/11 hijacker Mohamed Atta–did go to Prague and he did meet with a senior official with the Iraqi intelligence service in Czechoslovakia last April, several months before the attack.” On March 24, 2002, the Vice President told Meet the Press that “We discovered, and it has since been public, the allegation that one of the lead hijackers, Mohammed Atta, had, in fact, met with Iraqi intelligence in Prague.”
But the Intelligence Committee report released today cites a June 2002 CIA paper that said “Reporting is contradictory on hijacker Mohammed Atta’s alleged trip to Prague and meeting with an Iraqi intelligence officer and we have not verified his travels.”
The Intelligence Committee report released today also declassifies, for the first time, a July 2002 Defense Intelligence Agency paper that said “Mohammed Atta reportedly was identified by an asset, not an officer, of a Czech service, only after Atta’s picture was widely circulated in the media after the attacks, approximately five months after the alleged meeting occurred,” and that “There is no photographic, immigration, or other documentary evidence indicating that Atta was in the Czech Republic during the time frame of the meeting.”
Two months later, in September 2002, the CIA published its assessment that “evidence casts doubt'’ on the possibility that the meeting had occurred and that “The CIA and FBI have reviewed the reporting available so far and they are unable to confirm that Atta met al-Ani in Prague.”
None of those assessments stopped the Vice President from continuing to suggest that the report of the meeting was evidence that Saddam’s regime was linked to the 9/11 attack. On September 8, 2002, in a Meet the Press interview, the Vice President said that the CIA considered the report of the meeting “credible,” although again, that same month, the CIA said there was evidence that “cast doubt” on it having occurred.
In January 2003, the CIA published an assessment stating that “A CIA and FBI review of intelligence and open-source reporting leads us to question the information provided by the Czech service source who claimed that Atta met al-Ani.” The January 2003 paper stated that the CIA was “increasingly skeptical that Atta traveled to Prague in 2001 or met with the IIS officer, al-Ani,'’ and that “the most reliable reporting to date casts doubt on this possibility.'’
But the Vice President was undeterred by the CIA’s skepticism. On September 14, 2003, 8 months after the CIA said that the most reliable reporting cast doubt on the possibility of a meeting between Atta and the Iraqi intelligence officer, Vice President Cheney was still citing as this having possibly occurred.
On January 14, 2004, a full year after the CIA expressed serious doubts about the meeting and the fact that not a shred of evidence had been found to support the claim of a meeting, the Vice President told the Rocky Mountain News that the Atta meeting was “the one that possibly tied the two together to 9/11.'’ Six months later, on June 17, 2004, the Vice President was asked whether Iraq was involved in 9/11. The Vice President said, “We don’t know. ….. We had one report, this was the famous report on the Czech intelligence service, and we’ve never been able to confirm it or knock it down. We just don’t know.'’ The Vice President may not have “known,'’ but the intelligence community sure as heck did not believe, and did not believe for a long time before the Vice President’s statement, that the meeting took place.
The intelligence assessments contained in the Intelligence Committee’s unclassified report are an indictment of the administration’s unrelenting and misleading attempts to link Saddam Hussein to 9/11. But portions of the report which the intelligence community leaders have determined to keep from public view provide some of the most damaging evidence of this administration’s falsehoods and distortions.
Among what remains classified, and therefore covered up, includes deeply disturbing information. Much of the information redacted from the public report does not jeopardize any intelligence source or method but serves effectively to cover up certain highly offensive activities. Even the partially released picture is plenty bleak about the administration’s use of falsehoods and distortions to build public support for the war. But the public is entitled to the full picture. Unless this report is further declassified, they won’t get it. While the battle is waged to declassify those covered-up portions of the report–unless, of course, those portions truly disclose intelligence sources or methods–every Senator should read the classified version of this report. It is available to every Senator, and I urge every Senator to read the classified version of this report and reach his own conclusion about what Senator Rockefeller and I have said about the portions of this report that remain classified and unavailable to the public.
In addition to trying to create the impression that Iraq was connected to the 9/11 attackers, the administration also claimed that Iraq had provided al-Qaida with training in poisons and gases. For instance, in a speech on October 2002, the President said, “We’ve learned that Iraq has trained al-Qaida members in bomb making and poisons and deadly gases.'’ In February, 2003, the President said, “Iraq has also provided al-Qaida with chemical and biological weapons training.'’
In March of 2003, National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice said there was a “very strong link to training al-Qaida in chemical and biological weapons techniques, we know from a detainee that–the head of training for al-Qaida, that they sought help in developing chemical and biological weapons because they weren’t doing very well on their own. They sought it in Iraq. They received the help.'’
Those statements were based on representations of Ibn al Shaykh al-Libi, a detained senior al-Qaida operative. But what the administration hid was the fact that the Defense Intelligence Agency did not believe al-Libi’s statement. In February 2002, a year before the President claimed that Iraq “provided al-Qaida with chemical and biological weapons training,'’ the DIA assessed that al-Libi “is more likely…intentionally misleading the debriefers.'’
Nor did the administration disclose a second DIA assessment in February of 2002 that said, “Iraq is unlikely to have provided bin Ladin any useful CB knowledge or assistance,'’ or DIA’s April 2000 assessment that there was no credible reporting on al-Qaida training “anywhere'’ in Iraq. The administration’s statements also flew in the face of the CIA’s January 2003 assessment that al-Libi was not in a position to know whether training had taken place.
So here is what we have. The President still says that Saddam had a relationship with Zarqawi. The Senate Intelligence Committee found that the intelligence community, in 2005, concluded that “the regime did not have a relationship with, harbor, or turn a blind eye towards Zarqawi.'’
The President said that Saddam and al Qaida were “allies.'’ The intelligence community found that intelligence shows that Saddam Hussein “viewed Islamic extremists as a threat to his regime,'’ and, indeed, as postwar intelligence shows, Saddam “refused all requests from al-Qaida to provide material or operational support.'’
The Vice President called the claim that lead hijacker Mohammed Atta met with the Iraqi intelligence officer “credible'’ and “pretty much confirmed,'’ but the Intelligence Committee report finds that the intelligence shows “no such meeting occurred.'’
The President said that Iraq provided training in poisons and gases to al-Qaida, but the Intelligence Committee finds that postwar intelligence supports prewar assessments that there was no credible reporting on al-Qaida training “anywhere'’ in Iraq and that the terrorist who made the claim of training was “likely intentionally misleading his debriefers'’ when he said that Iraq had provided poisons and gases training.
But the administration’s efforts to create the false impression that Iraq and al-Qaida were linked didn’t stop with just statements. One of the most significant disclosures of the Intelligence Committee report is the account of the administration’s successful efforts to obtain the support of CIA Director George Tenet to help them make that false case. The events were of major significance. They go to the heart of the administration’s case for war on the eve of a congressional vote on whether to authorize that war. Here is what happened.
On October 7, 2002, in a speech in Cincinnati, the President represented that linkage existed between Saddam and terrorist groups. He said that “Iraq could decide on any given day to provide a biological or chemical weapon to a terrorist group or an individual terrorist.'’ But on that very day, October 7, 2002, in a letter to Intelligence Committee Chairman Bob Graham, the CIA declassified at the request of the committee the CIA assessment that it would be an “extreme step'’ for Saddam Hussein to assist Islamic terrorists in conducting a weapons-of-mass-destruction attack against the United States and that the likelihood of Saddam Hussein using weapons of mass destruction if he did not feel threatened by an attack was “low.'’
When made public, the CIA assessment would have undercut the President’s case. Something had to be done. So on October 8, 2002, the Director of Central Intelligence, George Tenet, issued a statement that “there is no inconsistency between our view of Saddam’s growing threat and the view expressed by the President in his speech.'’ The Tenet statement was aimed at damage control and it undercut the CIA’s own crucial assessment at a critical moment. The New York Times quoted Tenet prominently in a major story on October 9.
We called Tenet before the Intelligence Committee a month and a half ago, on July 26, 2006. In his testimony, quoted in the Intelligence Committee’s report, Mr. Tenet admitted that perhaps there was an inconsistency between the President’s statement and the CIA’s assessment. Mr. Tenet said he issued his statement denying the inconsistency after policymakers expressed concern about the CIA’s assessment, as expressed in the declassified October 7, saying that it would be an extreme step for Saddam to assist Islamic terrorists in conducting a weapons-of-mass destruction attack. Tenet admitted to the Intelligence Committee that the policymakers wanted him to “say something about not being inconsistent with what the President had said.'’ Tenet complied.
Tenet acknowledged to the committee, in his July 26, 2006, testimony, that issuing the statement was “the wrong thing to do.'’ It was much more than that. It was a shocking abdication of a CIA Director’s duty not to act as a shill for any administration or its policies. Director Tenet issued that statement at the behest of the administration on the eve of the Congress’s debate on the resolution authorizing the use of force in Iraq. The use of the Director of Central Intelligence by the administration to contradict his own agency’s assessment in order to support a policy goal of the administration is reprehensible, and it seriously damaged the credibility of the CIA.