|
CIA at centre of WMD row
28/09/2003 20:59 - (SA)
Washington - The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) hit back at criticism of its Iraq weapons evidence on Sunday after lawmakers attacked the White House information used to justify the Iraqi war.
The CIA said doubts raised by two top members of the house of representatives intelligence committee were "absurd."
National security advisor Condoleezza Rice also defended the White House.
"The intelligence community stands fully behind its findings and judgments as stated in the national intelligence estimate on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction," CIA spokesperson Bill Harlow said in a statement.
Two top members of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence said in a letter to CIA director George Tenet that the White House relied on information that was "circumstantial," "fragmentary" and filled with "many uncertainties" to justify the Iraq war, US media reports said.
The committee spent four months combing through 19 volumes of classified material used by President George W Bush's administration to make its case for war. 'Significant deficiencies'
The letter was written by committee chair Porter Goss, a Republican, and vice-chair Jane Harman, the ranking Democrat.
The letter said committee members found "significant deficiencies" in the intelligence community's ability to collect fresh intelligence on Iraq.
According to the Washington Post, the letter criticised the fact that the White House relied on "past assessments" dating back to when UN inspectors left Iraq in 1998, supplemented with "some new 'piecemeal' intelligence" in reaching the conclusion that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction and ties to al-Qaeda.
"The absence of proof that chemical and biological weapons and their related development programmes had been destroyed was considered proof that they continued to exist," said the letter, which was sent last Thursday.
In response, the CIA said the intelligence committee "has yet to take the time to fully evaluate how the national intelligence estimate was constructed and why and one what specific basis, judgements and findings were reached by our national intelligence officer and intelligence analysts."
Harlow added in the statement: "The notion that our community does not challenge standing judgements is absurd.
"In the post-1998 time period, the intelligence community launched an important and sustained effort to enhance our unilateral understanding of Iraq and its weapons of mass destruction programmes.
"From all of our discplines, important gains were made. The committee has not once asked use to explain what our effort or its results."
Harlow said the committee had yet to conduct an inquiry on its "detailed, carefully sourced and comprehensive study" evidence on links between Iraq and al-Qaeda.
"As intelligence professionals, we, more than anyone else, want to know whether we were correct in our judgements. But to attempt to make such a determination so quickly, and without all the facts, is premature and wrong," said the CIA spokesperson. Iraq a 'difficult subject'
"Iraq was an intractable and difficult subject. The tradecraft of intelligence rarely has the luxury of having black and white facts. The judgements reached and the tradecraft used were honest and professional - based on many years of effort and experience."
Bush's national security advisor said the US administration had new evidence going into the war.
"There was enrichment of the intelligence from 1998 over the period leading up to the war," Rice told Fox television news.
She said there was information about efforts Saddam was making to "reconstitute groups of scientists that worked for him."
A report on the hunt for Iraq's weapons programmes is to be released this week by former weapons inspector David Kay. But the CIA has warned it will not contain any new proof of Iraq's weapons programmes.
Rice said it was just "a progress report" but strongly denied that the president had tried to mislead the American public.
"All of the dots added up to weapons and a weapons programme that was dangerous and just getting more so," she added. Rice said: "This was a threat that the president of the United States could not allow to remain there."
|
News
