The October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on Iraq's Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) has been dissected like no other product in the history of the US Intelligence Community. We have reexamined every phrase, line, sentence, judgment and alternative view in this 90-page document and have traced their genesis completely. I believed at the time the Estimate was approved for publication, and still believe now, that we were on solid ground in how we reached the judgments we made.

I remain convinced that no reasonable person could have viewed the totality of the information that the Intelligence Community had at its disposal—literally millions of pages—and reached any conclusions or alternative views that were profoundly different from those that we reached. The four National Intelligence Officers who oversaw the production of the NIE had over 100 years' collective work experience on weapons of mass destruction issues, and the hundreds of men and women from across the US Intelligence Community who supported this effort had thousands of man-years invested in studying these issues.

Let me be clear: The NIE judged with high confidence that Iraq had chemical and biological weapons as well as missiles with ranges in excess of the 150 km limit imposed by the UN Security Council, and with moderate confidence that Iraq did not have nuclear weapons. These judgments were essentially the same conclusions reached by the United Nations and by a wide array of intelligence services—friendly and unfriendly alike. The only government in the world that claimed that Iraq was not working on, and did not have, biological and chemical weapons or prohibited missile systems was in Baghdad. Moreover, in those cases where US intelligence agencies disagreed, particularly regarding whether Iraq was reconstituting a uranium enrichment effort for its nuclear weapons program, the alternative views were spelled out in detail. Despite all of this, ten myths have been confused with facts in the current media frenzy. A hard look at the facts of the NIE should dispel some popular myths making the media circuit.

Myth #1: The Estimate favored going to war: Intelligence judgments, including NIEs, are policy neutral. We do not propose policies and the Estimate in no way sought to sway policymakers toward a particular course of action. We described what we judged were Saddam's WMD programs and capabilities and how and when he might use them and left it to policymakers, as we always do, to determine the appropriate course of action.

Myth #2: Analysts were pressured to change judgments to meet the needs of the Bush Administration: The judgments presented in the October 2002 NIE were based on data acquired and analyzed over fifteen years. Any changes in judgments over that period were based on new evidence, including clandestinely collected information that led to new analysis. Our judgments were presented to three different Administrations. And the principal participants in the production of the NIE from across the entire US Intelligence Community have sworn to Congress, under oath, that they were NOT pressured to change their views on Iraq WMD or to conform to Administration positions on this issue. In my particular case, I was able to swear under oath that not only had no one pressured me to take a particular view but that I had not pressured anyone else working on the Estimate to change or alter their reading of the intelligence information.

Myth #3: NIE judgments were news to Congress: Over the past fifteen years our assessments on Iraq WMD issues have been presented routinely to six different congressional committees including the two oversight committees, the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, and the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. To the best of my knowledge, prior to this NIE, these committees never came back to us with a concern of bias or an assertion that we had gotten it wrong.

Myth #4: We buried divergent views and concealed uncertainties: Diverse agency views, particularly on whether Baghdad was reconstituting its uranium enrichment effort and as a subset of that, the purposes of attempted Iraqi aluminum tube purchases, were fully vetted during the coordination process. Alternative views presented by the Bureau of Intelligence and Research at the Department of State, the Office of Intelligence in the Department of Energy, and by the US Air Force were showcased in the National Intelligence Estimate and were acknowledged in unclassified papers on the subject. Moreover, suggestions that their alternative views were buried as footnotes in the text are wrong. All agencies were fully exposed to these alternative views, and the heads of those organizations blessed the wording and placement of their alternative views. Uncertainties were highlighted in the Key Judgments and throughout the main text. Any reader would have had to read only as far as the second paragraph of the Key Judgments to know that as we said: "We lacked specific information on many key aspects of Iraq's WMD program."

Myth #5: Major NIE judgments were based on single sources: Overwhelmingly, major judgments in the NIE on WMD were based on multiple sources–often from human intelligence, satellite imagery, and communications intercepts. Not only is the allegation wrong, but it is also worth noting that it is not even a valid measure of the quality of intelligence performance. A single human source with direct access to a specific program and whose judgment and performance have proven reliable can provide the "crown jewels"; in the early 1960s Colonel Oleg Penkovskiy, who was then this country's only penetration of the Soviet high command, was just such a source. His information enabled President Kennedy to stare down a Soviet threat emanating from Cuba, and his information informed US intelligence analysis for more than two decades thereafter. In short, the charge is both wrong and meaningless.

Myth #6: We relied too much on United Nations reporting and were complacent after UN inspectors left in 1998: We never accepted UN reporting at face value. I know, because in the mid 1990s I was the coordinator for US intelligence support to UNSCOM and the IAEA. Their ability to see firsthand what was going on in Iraq, including inside facilities that we could only peer at from above, demanded that we pay attention to what they saw and that we support their efforts fully. Did we ever have all the information that we wanted or required? Of course not. Moreover, for virtually any critical intelligence issue that faces us the answer always will be "no." There is a reason that the October 2002 review of Iraq's WMD programs is called a National Intelligence ESTIMATE and not a National Intelligence FACTBOOK. On almost any issue of the day that we face, hard evidence will only take intelligence professionals so far. Our job is to fill in the gaps with informed analysis. And we sought to do that consistently and with vigor. The departure of UNSCOM inspectors in 1998 certainly did reduce our information about what was occurring in Iraq's WMD programs. But to say that we were blind after 1998 is wrong. Efforts to enhance collection were vigorous, creative, and productive. Intelligence collection after 1998, including information collected by friendly and allied intelligence services, painted a picture of Saddam's continuing efforts to develop WMD programs and weapons that reasonable people would have found compelling.

Myth # 7: We were fooled on the Niger "yellowcake" story—a major issue in the NIE: This was not one of the reasons underpinning our Key Judgment about nuclear reconstitution. In the body of the Estimate, after noting that Iraq had considerable low-enriched and other forms of uranium already in country—enough to produce roughly 100 nuclear weapons—we included the Niger issue with appropriate caveats, for the sake of completeness. Mentioning, with appropriate caveats, even unconfirmed reporting is standard practice in NIEs and other intelligence assessments; it helps consumers of the assessment understand the full range of possibly relevant intelligence.

Myth #8: We overcompensated for having underestimated the WMD threat in 1991: Our judgments were based on the evidence we acquired and the analysis we produced over a 15-year period. The NIE noted that we had underestimated key aspects of Saddam's WMD efforts in the 1990s. We were not alone in that regard: UNSCOM missed Iraq's BW program and the IAEA underestimated Baghdad's progress on nuclear weapons development. But, what we learned from the past was the difficulty we have had in detecting key Iraqi WMD activities. Consequently, the Estimate specified what we knew and what we believed but also warned policymakers that we might have underestimated important aspects of Saddam's program. But in no case were any of the judgments "hyped" to compensate for earlier underestimates.

Myth #9: We mistook rapid mobilization programs for actual weapons: There is practically no difference in threat between a standing chemical and biological weapons capability and one that could be mobilized quickly with little chance of detection. The Estimate acknowledged that Saddam was seeking rapid mobilization capabilities that he could invigorate on short notice. Those who find such programs to be less of a threat than actual weapons should understand that Iraqi denial and deception activities virtually would have ensured our inability to detect the activation of such efforts. Even with "only" rapid mobilization capabilities, Saddam would have been able to achieve production and stockpiling of chemical and biological weapons in the midst of a crisis, and the Intelligence Community would have had little, if any, chance of detecting this activity, particularly in the case of BW. In the case of chemical weapons, although we might have detected indicators of mobilization activity, we would have been hard pressed to accurately interpret such evidence. Those who conclude that no threat existed because actual weapons have not yet been found do not understand the significance posed by biological and chemical warfare programs in the hands of tyrants.

Myth #10: The NIE asserted that there were "large WMD stockpiles" and because we haven't found them, Baghdad had no WMD: From experience gained at the end of Desert Storm more than ten years ago, it was clear to us and should have been clear to our critics, that finding WMD in the aftermath of a conflict wouldn't be easy. We judged that Iraq probably possessed one hundred to five hundred metric tons of CW munitions fill. One hundred metric tons would fit in a backyard swimming pool; five hundred could be hidden in a small warehouse. We made no assessment of the size of Iraq's biological weapons holdings but a biological weapon can be carried in a small container. (And of course, we judged that Saddam did not have a nuclear weapon.) When the Iraq Survey Group (ISG), led by David Kay, issued its interim report in October, acknowledging that it had not found chemical or biological weapons, the inspectors had then visited only ten of the 130 major ammunition depots in Iraq; these ammunition dumps are huge, sometimes five miles by five miles on a side. Two depots alone are roughly the size of Manhattan. It is worth recalling that after Desert Storm, US forces unknowingly destroyed over 1,000 rounds of chemical-filled munitions at a facility called Al Kamissiyah. Baghdad sometimes had special markings for chemical and biological munitions and sometimes did not. In short, much remains to be done in the hunt for Iraq's WMD.

We do not know whether the ISG ultimately will be able to find physical evidence of Iraq's chemical and biological weapons or confirm the status of its WMD programs and its nuclear ambitions. The purposeful, apparently regime-directed, destruction of evidence pertaining to WMD from one end of Iraq to the other, which began even before the Coalition occupied Baghdad, and has continued since then, already has affected the ISG's work. Moreover, Iraqis who have been willing to talk to US intelligence officers are in great danger. Many have been threatened; some have been killed. The denial and deception efforts directed by the extraordinarily brutal, but very competent Iraqi Intelligence Services, which matured through ten years of inspections by various UN agencies, remain a formidable challenge. And finally, finding physically small but extraordinarily lethal weapons in a country that is larger than the state of California would be a daunting task even under far more hospitable circumstances. But now that we have our own eyes on the ground, David Kay and the ISG must be allowed to complete their work and other collection efforts we have under way also must be allowed to run their course. And even then, it will be necessary to integrate all the new information with intelligence and analyses produced over the past fifteen years before we can determine the status of Iraq's WMD efforts prior to the war.

Allegations about the quality of the US intelligence performance and the need to confront these charges have forced senior intelligence officials throughout US Intelligence to spend much of their time looking backwards. I worry about the opportunity costs of this sort of preoccupation, but I also worry that analysts laboring under a barrage of allegations will become more and more disinclined to make judgments that go beyond ironclad evidence—a scarce commodity in our business. If this is allowed to happen, the Nation will be poorly served by its Intelligence Community and ultimately much less secure. Fundamentally, the Intelligence Community increasingly will be in danger of not connecting the dots until the dots have become a straight line.

We must keep in mind that the search for WMD cannot and should not be about the reputation of US Intelligence or even just about finding weapons. At its core, men and women from across the Intelligence Community continue to focus on this issue because understanding the extent of Iraq's WMD efforts and finding and securing weapons and all of the key elements that make up Baghdad's WMD programs— before they fall into the wrong hands—is vital to our national security. If we eventually are proven wrong—that is, that there were no weapons of mass destruction and the WMD programs were dormant or abandoned—the American people will be told the truth; we would have it no other way.

-------------------------------------------------------- Stu Cohen is an intelligence professional with 30 years of service in the CIA. He was acting Chairman of the National Intelligence Council when the 2002 National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq's Weapons of Mass Destruction was published

Joe Wilson and his pals have done a tremendous disservice to every aspect of the public understanding of intelligence agencies, WMDs, and the Iraq war. I would hope that Valerie Plame is ashamed to show her face anywhere in the CIA, maybe that's why she took a year off, because any of her colleagues who are not themselves left-wing moonbats should thoroughly despise her and Joe. By hijacking the national debate to make it all about the "16 words" and Niger uranium...

One would think that Plame played a role, perhaps a major role, in the preparation of this particular NIE. At the very least, she would have been familiar with the consensus that Saddam had WMD.

As nuffsenuff pointed out on another thread, it's probable that Miss Valerie shared her knowledge about Iraqi WMD with husband Joe. Certainly, from October, 2002 thru February, 2003, Wilson was an outspoken proponent of Saddam's store of WMD.

Then, in a fit of partisan opportunism, this pair of "public servants" ignored any and every responsibility they had regarding national security...and began vigorously promoting a lie.

Traitorous? Yes, but not treason. Criminal? Perhaps, but prosecution is unlikely. Despicable? Oh, yes, definitely! Joe and Valerie are nothing more than liars and ingrates. A pair of certified losers. Yet, the MSM treats them like royalty...

In case there is any doubt about the coordination, and who is doing it, notice the dates mentioned in this piece:

The Insiders Are Coming Out
By William Rivers Pitt
t r u t h o u t | Perspective

Tuesday 08 July 2003

On June 26 [2003], I conducted an interview with 27-year CIA veteran Ray McGovern...

One key question McGovern answered dealt with the rapidly expanding scandal surrounding Bush administration tampering with evidence of Iraqi weapons...

McGovern made a prescient prediction:

"To the degree that esprit de corps exists, and I know it does among the folks we talk to, there is great, great turmoil there. In the coming weeks, we're going to be seeing folks coming out and coming forth with what they know, and it is going to be very embarrassing for the Bush administration."

A New York Times article from Sunday July 6 quoted former US ambassador Joseph Wilson as saying...

t r u t h o u t - William Rivers Pitt | The Insiders Are Coming Out
http://truthout.org/docs_03/070803A.shtml

Ray McGovern (the head of VIPS and Ellsberg's partner with his group) had met with Wilson just a couple of days before June 26. (I think they appeared together on June 23rd, and maybe even before that.)

McGovern knew that this was coming from Wilson. (The next line in the article after McGovern's prediction is about Wilson.)

There is little room to doubt that McGovern helped Wilson coordinate his campaign of lies. He may have even given him some of his ideas--such as the forged documents line, since Wilson could not have seen them in actuality.

2003 Iraq Forum Online

June 14, 2003
Washington, DC

Iraq Forum Home
Program Schedule | Program Report (PDF: 173K)
2002 Iraq Forum Online

The Iraq Forum online is packed with a list of presenters, their photos, brief biographies and links to their audio presentations at EPIC's 2003 Iraq Forum. In some cases, you will find links to written transcripts and visual slide presentations. You can listen to the entire 2003 Iraq Forum including presenters and discussion by clicking here. EPIC hopes this event will continue to stimulate learning and discussion throughout the year and with it, a better situation for Iraqis and U.S.-Iraq relations.

Evening Public Lecture: A State of the Movement Address
EVENING KEYNOTE LECTURE

Ray McGovern was a CIA analyst for 27 years and is on the Steering Group of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity. He is co-director of the Servant Leadership School, an outreach ministry in inner city Washington D.C.

Hear Ray McGovern now.Or download and listen.

Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson, IV served as a member of the U.S. Diplomatic Service from 1976 until 1998. From 1988 to 1991, Ambassador Wilson served in Baghdad as Deputy Chief of Mission at the U.S. Embassy. As acting Ambassador during "Desert Shield," he was responsible for the negotiations that resulted in the release of several hundred American hostages. He was the last official American to meet with Saddam Hussein before the launching of "Desert Storm." Ambassador Wilson graduated from the University of California at Santa Barbara in 1972. He has been decorated as a Commander in the Order of the Equatorial Star by the Government of Gabon and as an Admiral in the El Paso Navy by the El Paso County Commissioners. He is married to the former Valerie Plame and has four children. Hear Ambassador Joe Wilson now.Or download and listen.

This is from a cached page on Google, which is why there are so many highlights.

http://tinyurl.com/dpg7l

"And the NY Slimes and the rest of the MSM fawned all over him, egging him on. As you say, I think they will both regret their perfidy for a long time to come."

Let's also remember the NY Times role in perpetuating the WMD story. Besides Judith Miller, there was an entire team of reporters detailing this story. The story below appeared just days after Bush's Inauguration...and if you read between the lines, they are challenging Bush to do something about this threat.

One of the worst hypocrises that should be noted is that Carnegie was one of the groups that had the nerve to later come out with another report claiming Bush exaggerated the WMD threat:

Carnegie - Jan. 22, 2001]
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace [left-wing think tank], NY Times, William Cohen| Jan. 22, 2001
Posted on 06/06/2003 6:20:51 PM EDT by Ragtime Cowgirl

Iraq Resumes WMD Activities, New York Times Reports Monday, January 22, 2001
Press reports that Iraq has rebuilt chemical and biological weapons plants bombed by the United States in late 1998 present newly-inaugurated President George W. Bush with a serious non-proliferation challenge. A New York Times report that Iraq has rebuilt chemical and biological weapons-capable plants at Falluja demonstrates the continued threat posed to regional stability by Saddam Hussein.

A recently released Department of Defense report "Proliferation: Threat and Response: 2001" stated that Iraq "may have begun program reconstitution" of its chemical and biological weapons capabilities. The news story focuses on alleged development of these weapons at Falluja, an industrial complex west of Baghdad, and specifically mentions production of chlorine and ricin.

Chlorine is a dual-use chemical that, if weaponized, is a choking agent that destroys lung tissue. Ricin is a protein toxin produced from castor beans (ricin constitutes approximately 5% of the waste from castor oil production) that causes a variety of symptoms culminating in circulatory and respiratory failure in victims.

The reports and allegations highlight the fact that Iraq continues to block U.N. inspections of its weapons of mass destruction (WMD) programs, as required by the Gulf War cease-fire. Created by the U.N. Security Council in the aftermath of Iraq's defeat, the U.N. Special Commission on Iraq (UNSCOM) inspected and dismantled much of Iraq's infrastructure for building WMD. However, its activities took place against a background of increasing Iraqi hostility towards the inspections that culminated with UNSCOM being kicked out of Iraq in December 1998.

In December 1999 the Security Council voted to establish a new U.N. presence in Iraq, the United Nations Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC). By September 2000 UNMOVIC, led by former International Atomic Energy Agency Director Hans Blix, was assembled and prepared to begin inspections.

Iraq continues to prevent any inspectors from entering the country, and insists that it has disarmed to the extent called for by U.N. resolutions. With the will of the Security Council to continue sanctions and inspections wavering, UNMOVIC remains in limbo.

In his inaugural address, Bush pledged to do more to confront the threat posed by weapons of mass destruction.
Bush's foreign policy advisors have stated both publicly and privately that they wish to shore up flagging international support for economic sanctions on Iraq. Even as the Bush administration forms its Iraq policy, U.S. and British fighters remain on patrol in the no-fly zone, periodically drawing the fire of Iraqi air defense installations as the battle of wills between Washington and Baghdad continues.

~~~

Iraq Rebuilt Weapons Factories, Officials Say
Source: New York Times
Published: 1/22/01

By STEVEN LEE MYERS and ERIC SCHMITT
ASHINGTON, Jan. 21 — Iraq has rebuilt a series of factories that the United States has long suspected of producing chemical and biological weapons, according to senior government officials. The new intelligence estimate could confront President Bush with an early test of his pledge to take a tougher stance against President Saddam Hussein than the Clinton administration did.

The factories — in an industrial complex in Falluja, west of Baghdad — include two that were bombed and badly damaged by American and British air raids in December 1998 to punish Mr. Hussein for his refusal to cooperate with United Nations weapons inspectors, the government officials said.

The new intelligence estimates were mentioned, but without any such specific details, in a report on weapons threats released on Jan. 10 by the outgoing secretary of defense, William S. Cohen. It warned that Iraq had rebuilt at least its weapons infrastructure and may have begun covertly producing some chemical or biological agents. Last week, the officials provided details on what they said was the reconstruction of the two factories, and the resumption of the production of chlorine at a third in the same complex.

The factories have ostensibly commercial purposes, but all three were previously involved in producing chemical or biological agents and were among those closely monitored by the United Nations inspectors, the officials said. One of the rebuilt factories, for example, is making castor oil used in brake fluid, the Iraqis say, but the mash from castor beans contains a deadly biological toxin called ricin, the officials said.

~~~~

While officials have previously disclosed that Iraq had rebuilt missile plants destroyed in the 1998 strikes, the Jan. 10 report released by Mr. Cohen was the first public acknowledgment of the resumption of work at suspected chemical and biological plants.

"Some of Iraq's facilities could be converted fairly quickly to production of chemical weapons," the report said at one point. It went on to warn, "Iraq retains the expertise, once a decision is made, to resume chemical agent production within a few weeks or months, depending on the type of agent."

It becomes obvious that this "Iraq Forum Online" is not some impartial and objective group but rather a far-left activist group, co-sponsored by "Voices in the Wilderness" and other far-left groups which worked hard to try to end sanctions long before the 2003 Iraq War. Thus, Joe Wilson was pals with the far-left 'movement' to undermine US policy and end sanctions (thus ending all economic containment of Saddam's WMD efforts) before he ever emerged as the public face of the "Niger uranium" issue.

A review of both the 2002 and 2003 programs of this group shows that it considers itself the 'movement' (activist, not academic) to first end sanctions and now end the US 'occupation'..... thus undermining Wilson's pretence that he was coming forth against the Bush administration as some dispassionate objective professional.... the previous year's (2002) event characterized the group as part of the "anti-sanctions movement" and it is led by a leader and co-founder of "Voices in the Wilderness"--

http://vitw.org/who_we_are/

And let's not forget that the previous (2002) "Iraq Forum Online" featured none other than the infamous Scott Ritter who was far into moonbat-land by that time.... and look at the list of far-left sponsoring groups -- and the fact that the 2003 "Evening Public Lecture: A State of the Movement Address"

Evening Public Lecture: A State of the Movement Address PEACE in IRAQ: VISION and CRITIQUE of the US ANTI-SANCTIONS MOVEMENT
Kathy Kelly, Co-Founder, Voices in the Wilderness Hear Kathy Kelly now. (23:06 min)

Ilham Heather Al-Sarraf, Ph.D., Iraq Civil Action Network Hear Ilham Al-Sarraf now. (21:00 min)
Scott Ritter, Retired Marine Captain, former UNSCOM Chief Weapons Inspector

Hear Scott Ritter now. (21:55 min)

Listen to the discussion. (25:56 min)
Listen to the Closing Remarks. (7:12 min)

Co-sponsoring Organizations: Arab American Institute, American Friends Service Committee, Fellowship of Reconciliation, Focus on American and Arab Interests and Relations (FAAIR), Friends Committee for National Legislation, American-Arab Anti-Descrimination Committee, American Muslims for Global Peace and Justice, Church of the Brethren Washington Office, Mennonite Central Committee USA-Washington Office, Muslim American Society, NETWORK, Pax Christi, Peace Action, Veterans for Peace, Voices in the Wilderness, and Women's Action for New Directions. For a chronological view of the 2002 Iraq Forum, with additional talks and speakers including Scott Ritter, Louis Fisher and Kathy Kelly, see the Iraq Forum Schedule.

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2003 Iraq Forum Online

June 14, 2003 Washington, DC

Evening Public Lecture: A State of the Movement Address EVENING KEYNOTE LECTURE

June 14, 2003
Washington, DC

Evening Public Lecture: A State of the Movement Address
EVENING KEYNOTE LECTURE