From the Wash post "letters to the editor section" here : [www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A49199-2003Oct31.html]
The Hunt for Iraq's Weapons
Saturday, November 1, 2003; Page A21
The Oct. 26 front-page article "Search in Iraq Fails to Find Nuclear Threat" is wildly off the mark. Your reporter, Barton Gellman, bases much of his analysis on what he says was told to him by an Australian brigadier, Stephen D. Meekin. Gellman describes Meekin as someone "who commands the Joint Captured Materiel Exploitation Center, the largest of a half-dozen units that report to [David] Kay."The writer is special adviser to the director of central intelligence.Meekin does not report, nor has he ever reported, to me in any individual capacity or as commander of the exploitation center. The work of the center did not form a part of my first interim report, which was delivered last month, nor do I direct what Meekin's organization does. The center's mission has never involved weapons of mass destruction, nor does it have any WMD expertise.
Gellman's description of information provided by Mahdi Obeidi, chief of Iraq's pre-1991 centrifuge program, relies on an unnamed "U.S. official" who, by the reporter's own admission, read only one reporting cable. How Gellman's source was able to describe reporting that covered four months is a mystery to me. Furthermore, the source mischaracterized our views on the reliability of Obeidi's information.
With regard to Obeidi's move to the United States, Gellman writes, "By summer's end, under unknown circumstances, Obeidi received permission to bring his family to an East Coast suburb in the United States." The reader is left with the impression that this move involved something manipulative or sinister. The "unknown circumstances" are called Public Law 110. This mechanism was created during the Cold War to give the director of central intelligence the authority to resettle those who help provide valuable intelligence information. Nothing unusual or mysterious here.
When the article moves to describe the actual work of the nuclear team, Gellman states that "frustrated members of the nuclear search team by late spring began calling themselves the 'book of the month club.' " But he fails to note that this was before the establishment of the Iraq Survey Group. In fact, the team's frustration with the pace of the work is what led President Bush to shift the responsibility for the WMD search to the director of central intelligence and to send me to Baghdad.
One would believe from what Gellman writes that I have sent home the two leaders of my nuclear team, William Domke and Jeffrey Bedell, and abandoned all attempts to determine the state of Iraq's nuclear activities. Wrong again. Domke's assignment had been twice extended well beyond what the Department of Energy had agreed to. He and Bedell were replaced with a much larger contingent of experts from DOE's National Labs.
Finally, with regard to the aluminum tubes, the tubes were certainly being imported and were being used for rockets. The question that continues to occupy us is whether similar tubes, with higher specifications, had other uses, specifically in nuclear centrifuges. Why anyone would think that we should want to confiscate the thousands of aluminum tubes of the lower specification is unclear. Our investigation is focused on whether a nuclear centrifuge program was either underway or in the planning stages, what design and components were being contemplated or used in such a program if it existed and the reason for the constant raising of the specifications of the tubes the Iraqis were importing clandestinely.
We have much work left to do before any conclusions can be reached on the state of possible Iraqi nuclear weapons program efforts. Your story gives the false impression that conclusions can already be drawn.
-- David Kay
Baghdad
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When Barton Gellman interviewed me last month I stressed on a number of occasions that my remarks related to Iraqi's conventional weapons program. I am responsible for aspects of that program as the commander of the coalition Joint Captured Materiel Exploitation Center. I did not provide assessments or views on Iraq's nuclear program or the status of investigations being conducted by the Iraq Survey Group.The writer, a brigadier in the Australian Army, is commander of the coalition's Joint Captured Materiel Exploitation Center in Iraq.On the issue of Iraq's use of aluminum tubes, I did confirm, in response to a question by Gellman, that aluminum tubes form the body of Iraqi 81mm battlefield rockets and that my teams had recovered some of these rockets for technical examination. Further, I stated that the empty tubes were innocuous in view of the large quantities of lethal Iraqi conventional weapons such as small arms, explosive ordnance and man-portable air defense systems in this country. I did not make any judgment on the suitability of the 81mm aluminum tubes as components in a nuclear program.
In discussing the disbanding of the Joint Captured Materiel Exploitation Center, I told your reporter that the center's work was largely complete, and I made clear that its role was in the realm of Iraq's conventional weapons and technologies.
Gellman attributed to me comments about the effect of U.N.-imposed sanctions. Again, I referred to Iraqi efforts to acquire conventional military equipment. I made no assessment about the effect of U.N. sanctions on Iraq's nuclear program.
-- Stephen D. Meekin
Baghdad
...Gellman writes that Meekin’s team had uncovered the aluminum tubes cited by the CIA and the administration before the war as evidence of Iraq’s efforts to reconstitute its nuclear program. Meekin told Gellman, however, that investigators have determined the tubes to be "innocuous." Gellman quotes Meekin as saying the "tubes were used for rockets."But within a week, Kay and Meekin had issued rebuttals to Gellman’s claims. Instead of running their letters on the editorial page, the Post chose to bury these in its "Free for All" page deep inside its Saturday edition. Meekin wrote that Gellman had misrepresented both Meekin’s mission and his comments on the aluminum tubes. Meekin stressed that he had told Gellman that his unit’s job was focused on Iraq’s conventional arms program.
He wrote that he had not given Gellman "assessments or views" on the status of Kay’s nuclear inspections. Meekin also disputed Gellman’s interpretation of his judgment that the aluminum tubes were "innocuous."
He wrote that he had made clear that the reference was to the contribution of the tubes within the context of Iraq’s overall conventional capabilities. He wrote, "I did not make any judgment on the suitability of the 81-millimeter aluminum tubes as components in a nuclear program."
Kay’s letter affirmed that Meekin has never reported to him in any capacity and he called Gellman on several other key points in the article. Kay’s bottom line: Gellman’s article gave the "false impression" that judgments about Iraq’s nuclear program could already be made. Too much work remained to be done, wrote Kay, before any conclusions can be drawn.
Shortly thereafter, the Post published two more corrections on its Internet Web site. The Post noted that Gellman had misstated the size of the work force searching for WMD by a factor of 10. And he overstated the technical credentials of one scientist working on Kay’s team.
---by Notra Trulock, Associate Editor of the AIM Report; can be reached at aimeditor@yahoo.com.