Saddam's Bombmaker
by Khidhir Hamza
with Jeff Stein
Posted on 03/24/2005 8:17:55 PM PST by SmithL
WASHINGTON - A presidential commission investigating weapons of mass destruction is highly critical of U.S. intelligence agencies' performance on Iran, North Korea and Libya and attempts to lay out what went wrong on Iraq, according to individuals familiar with the findings.
None of the 15 agencies is expected to be singled out as doing an exemplary job of collecting or assessing intelligence on weapons of mass destruction. The report from the nine-member panel led by Republican Laurence Silberman and Democrat Charles Robb is expected next week.
"I don't get the impression that one (agency) is better than the other," said Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., and a member of the commission.
The report comes at a critical time for the CIA, the Defense Intelligence Agency, the National Security Agency and others charged with collecting, protecting and analyzing secrets.
They all face the prospect of sweeping changes from the intelligence reform bill passed in December, including the appointment of a national intelligence director. President Bush's nominee, John Negroponte, has a Senate confirmation hearing next month.
The new director takes over a sprawling bureaucracy, beset by infighting and finger-pointing following the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and the botched prewar intelligence on the threat from Iraq. The commission's recommendations will largely fall to him to implement.
Individuals familiar with the report, who spoke only on the condition of anonymity, said the commission devoted significant time to dissecting what went wrong on the Iraq intelligence, including many issues that have been examined by internal government investigations and the Senate Intelligence Committee.
The commission, for instance, has reconsidered the issue of aluminum tubes. A National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq in October 2002 said that most intelligence agencies believed that Iraq's "aggressive pursuit" of high-strength aluminum tubes provided "compelling evidence" that the Saddam Hussein's regime was reconstituting its uranium enrichment effort and nuclear program.
In its report last summer, the Senate Intelligence Committee found that the Energy Department was more accurate in its assessment that Iraq sought the tubes for a conventional rocket program, not a nuclear program.
The Silberman-Robb commission also closely examined U.S. capability to understand the weapons of mass destruction, or WMD, programs of Libya, North Korea and Iran.
Libya has agreed to give up its efforts to develop such weapons of mass destruction and dismantle those it has. Iran and North Korea, however, remain significant hot spots for the United States. Intelligence operatives and analysts are not expected to get glowing marks on their abilities there.
Based on Bush's direction, the commission looked at the merits of creating a new intelligence center devoted to tracking WMD proliferation, as written in the intelligence overhaul law passed in December.
The panel also consulted lawmakers on congressional oversight and considered how the president actually receives intelligence, including his daily briefings.
In contrast to the Sept. 11 commission, the WMD commission's work has been done largely behind closed doors, with only brief press releases about witnesses who appeared provided to the public.
McCain said he's learned much about the intelligence agencies and how they interact now and in the run-up to the Iraq invasion. He said he's gotten an understanding of the value of "human intelligence" - or traditional spying - and that the report was worth the $10 million Congress dedicated to it.
"I think questions had to be answered as to why we were so wrong," McCain said, referring to faulty intelligence on Iraq. "We needed to have recommendations as to how to prevent something like this from ever happening again."
Final drafts of the commission's report are now being circulated among the intelligence agencies for declassification. Historically, they have tried to use that process to keep secret some of the most embarrassing or critical details of investigative findings.
It's unclear how much of this report, which is expected to run hundreds of pages, will be available to the public. Commission spokesman Larry McQuillan said commissioners intend to release as much as possible.
Hmmm...the only countries this story points out we've got 'issues' with--Iran, N. Korea, Libya--are the only ones posing a real nuke threat, with the exception of (now, at least) Libya.
How do these 'journalists' expect to be taken seriously?
Seriously.
Ping!!!
I wonder if the commission DETAILS HOW CLINTON GUTTED OUR INTELLIGENCE AGENCIES?????????
Little Kim pops one and it's going to be a moot point.
(Terrorism):
Al-Qaeda chemical attack in Jordan could have killed 80,000: officials,
Apr 26, 2004
Jordan foiled an Al-Qaeda chemical bomb plot against the intelligence services HQ using trucks packed with 20 tons of explosives that could have killed as many as 80,000 people, security officials said Monday. Members of the network, who were arrested or killed, also planned attacks on the prime minister's office and the US embassy in Amman, the officials said on state television but without giving details on those targets. Several suspects, including Jordanian ringleader Azmi al-Jayussi who was recRuited in Iraq, were shown shown on television which aired their confessions.
http://www.homelandsecurity.com/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=34566&mode=thread&order=0&thold=0
Liberal democRats never cease to amaze me. First, when Billy Jeff was in office, Senator Torriccelli (D-NJ) led the charge to prevent CIA from dealing with "immoral" people, essentially disabling them.
The CIA resulting weakness allowed most of the fiascos that followed. What is so damned hard to figure out here?
Do you think this commission will ever investigate why Saddam tried to bribe U.N. weapon inspectors?
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2005/03/12/wsaddam12.xml&sSheet=/news/2005/03/12/ixworld.html
Saddam's $2m offer to WMD inspector
By Francis Harris in Washington
(Filed: 12/03/2005)
Saddam Hussein's regime offered a $2 million (£1.4 million) bribe to the United Nations' chief weapons inspector to doctor his reports on the search for weapons of mass destruction.
Rolf Ekeus, the Swede who led the UN's efforts to track down the weapons from 1991 to 1997, said that the offer came from Tariq Aziz, Saddam's foreign minister and deputy.
Mr Ekeus told Reuters news agency that he had passed the information to the Volcker Commission. "I told the Volcker people that Tariq [Aziz] said a couple of million was there if we report right. My answer was, 'That is not the way we do business in Sweden.' "
A clean report from Mr Ekeus's inspectors would have been vital in lifting sanctions against Saddam's regime. But the inspectors never established what had happened to the regime's illicit weapons and never gave Iraq a clean bill of health.
The news that Iraq attempted to bribe a top UN official is a key piece of evidence for investigators into the scandal surrounding the oil-for-food programme. It proves that Iraq was offering huge sums of cash to influential foreigners in return for political favours.
Nile Gardiner, of the Heritage Foundation in Washington, who has followed the inquiries, said: "It's the tip of the iceberg of what the Iraqis were offering. For every official like Ekeus who turned down a bribe, there are many more who will have been tempted by it."
Saddam and his henchmen siphoned off an estimated £885 million from the humanitarian scheme, allegedly paying some of that to 270 foreign politicians, officials and journalists.
Most of those alleged to have been involved in the scandal, including the former head of the programme, Benon Sevan, have denied that they did anything wrong.
A United States Senate report said that Mr Sevan had committed criminal acts by soliciting oil contracts, while the Volcker commission said that he had failed to explain $160,000 (£83,000) paid into personal bank accounts while he was the head of the programme.
If The Bush Administration Lied About WMD,"The community of nations may see more and more of the very kind of threat Iraq poses now: a rogue state with weapons of mass destruction, ready to use them or provide them to terrorists. If we fail to respond today, Saddam and all those who would follow in his footsteps will be emboldened tomorrow." -- Bill Clinton in 1998
So Did These People
compiled by John Hawkins
"In the four years since the inspectors left, intelligence reports show that Saddam Hussein has worked to rebuild his chemical and biological weapons stock, his missile delivery capability, and his nuclear program. He has also given aid, comfort, and sanctuary to terrorists, including Al Qaeda members, though there is apparently no evidence of his involvement in the terrible events of September 11, 2001. It is clear, however, that if left unchecked, Saddam Hussein will continue to increase his capacity to wage biological and chemical warfare, and will keep trying to develop nuclear weapons. Should he succeed in that endeavor, he could alter the political and security landscape of the Middle East, which as we know all too well affects American security." -- Hillary Clinton, October 10, 2002
"Iraq does pose a serious threat to the stability of the Persian Gulf and we should organize an international coalition to eliminate his access to weapons of mass destruction. Iraq's search for weapons of mass destruction has proven impossible to completely deter and we should assume that it will continue for as long as Saddam is in power." -- Al Gore, 2002
[many others]
Saddam's Bombmaker
by Khidhir Hamza
with Jeff Stein
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