Two sources with high-level access to Saddam's regime told the CIA in the fall of 2002, shortly before the war, that production of biological and chemical weapons was ongoing, Tenet said.
Those sources "solidified and reinforced ... my own view of the danger posed by Saddam's regime," Tenet said, taking direct responsibility for what was passed on to Bush.
"On one key point that is befuddling weapons inspectors, Tenet said he did not know at this point whether it was possible Saddam's own officials had lied to the Iraqi leader about what his regime had in the way of weapons."
When I read 'Saddam's Bombmaker, by Dr. Hamza, one thing stands out now; how Hamza and his co-workers would tell Saddam's henchmen that their progress on the nuclear program was far ahead of what it really was.
Extrapolating this out to other programs, it seems logical to conclude that all Iraqi scientists were foing the same thing, in order to keep Saddam happy, and perhaps keep their jobs and perks that Saddam doled out (he was known to give new Mercedes to his scientists as incentive) or maybe just to protect their life and family.
Whatever the reason, it just seems to me that our intel guys should have picked up on this.
Let's face it; we were all given the impression that there were MASSIVE quantities of chemical / biological agents in quantities that would not have been at all easy to conceal, or haul to another country.
( 85,000 liters of anthrax, thousands of gallons of mustard gas, Sarin, ricin, etc. I believe to date all that has been found is a small vial of botulinium, and some yellow cake uranium, *possibly* from Iraq.
Illegal, and lethal, yes, but not in the massive quantities that we were all led to believe.
This hyped up number was not needed to prove that Iraq was a threat, especially in the area of supporting terrorists. We know for a fact he was supporting the PLO.
Now, I believe (sadly) that this exageration has hurt our government's credibilty, as it's become the focus, rather than the fact that Saddam was continuing in WMD developement, and that he was covertly supporting terrorism.
I never understood why "massive quantities" is supposed to be the standard. "Massive quantities" doesn't mean jack. With some of these materials, it takes only *tiny* quantities to hand off to some terrorist and have him wreak havoc.
The way some people talk, you'd think that we only have the right to be concerned if there's a warehouse full of barrels full of weaponized anthrax. If he's "only" got the equivalent of a file cabinet full of anthrax then we have no right to care.
That is just nuts. Do people who say this even think about what they are saying?