DIA had no info on Iraq WMD

2003-06-06 21:21

Washington - The Defense Intelligence Agency reported before the war with Iraq it had "no reliable information" that Iraq had chemical and biological weapons, a US defense official confirmed on Friday.

"It is fair to say there was no reliable information to say declaratively, 'yes, there was stuff," the official told AFP on condition of anonymity.

But the official said that there was reliable information to say "with a degree of confidence that there was a weapons program," the official said.

The cautious DIA assessment contrasted with unqualified assertions by US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and other top administration officials that Iraq had amassed large stocks of chemical and biological weapons.

US claims that Iraq was hiding chemical and biological weapons from UN inspectors and had revived a nuclear program became the prime rationale for the US-led invasion of Iraq in March and ouster of the regime of Saddam Hussein three weeks later.

US forces have found no banned weapons so far, but have found two tractor-trailers that US intelligence conclude - based on accounts from defectors and expert analysis - were probably designed as mobile factories to make biological agents.

The failure to find any weapons has prompted sharp questions from Congress about the intelligence that informed US decision-making, and whether it was manipulated to make the administration's case for war.

The latest twist relates to a September 2002 DIA intelligence assessment disclosed by US New and World Report in its June 9 edition.

The defense official said the report was classified, but the Pentagon was considering whether to make it public.

The Senate Intelligence Committee plans to hold hearings, and the CIA is conducting an internal review of the intelligence before and after the war.

US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, who had requested the review, told reporters on Thursday after meeting with members of Congress that the intelligence was "good."

President George W Bush also let it be known through his spokesperson last week he was satisfied with the intelligence he had received, and that it had been "borne out" since the war.

In a scathing attack on Thursday, Senator Robert Byrd of West Virginia expressed amazement over the president's complacency.

"It is his truthfulness that is being questioned. It is his integrity that is on the line," said Byrd, a ardent critic of the war against Iraq.

"Yet he has raised no question, expressed no curiosity, about the strange turn of events in Iraq - expressed no anger at the possibility that he might have been misled."

"How is it that the president who was so adamant about the dangers of WMD, has expressed no concern about the whereabouts of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq?" Byrd said.

The Pentagon meanwhile has revamped its search for weapons of mass destruction, setting aside for now what had turned out to be a fruitless search of some 900 suspect sites compiled by the US intelligence community before the war.

Instead, a new team of some 1 300 to 1 400 experts from across government, as well as Britain and Austrialia, will try to piece together a new picture of Iraq's secret pre-war programs from documents and interrogations of former officials.

- SAPA