Calling Mr. Fitzgerald...
Former intelligence analyst Greg Thielmann says that key evidence cited by the Bush administration was misrepresented to the public. (Photo: CBS)
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One of the things that they talked about was attempts by the Iraqis to purchase uranium from Africa. You had done some analysis of this and come to different conclusions.
This was not a major story when I looked back at the months and year leading up to the war. It was not a major story because it was, we considered, bad intelligence. We looked at a lot of bad reports -- reports that were worth exploring because they were serious allegations, but when given a close look, they proved not to be credible. This was really in that category. It was something that made no sense, in terms of the structure of the country that was allegedly planning to provide the uranium.
Niger.
Niger. It made no sense in terms of Saddam's behavior on these kinds of issues. All things really fit together in this case to shoot down the story. ...
So this had come across your desk. What exactly came to you?
Well, as I recall, it was a human intelligence report that came to the United States. I should make clear that I was a manager of the action officers of intelligence analysts, and so most of what I gathered about this was not firsthand analysis of documents as an intelligence analyst; it was supervising the people who would do the close scrutiny of the intelligence reporting.
In this case, our specialists who were weapons intelligence experts, and the African experts, and the Middle Eastern experts in the Intelligence Bureau were all of one accord that this was a bad story.
And you let the secretary of state know that?
That's right.
Then in January, you hear the president talking about it.
That's right, and it was a big surprise to me, because I left government at the end of September 2002. I was not privy to the classified version of the National Intelligence Estimate that came out shortly after that. So I had no indication in the fall that this story had any life on it at all. It was not part of the public summary of the National Intelligence Estimate. It was buried in the classified details of the estimate. So it was really a shock to me when the president gave it such visibility in January 2003. ...
But at the same time, you had already seen, starting in August 2002, that the intelligence was being twisted.
I had seen that, but I thought there were limits on how much one was willing to do in order to twist things.
So you were a little aghast.
Yes. ...
The administration has said, "This is just 16 words. OK. We perhaps should not have included this in the president's speech. This was an oversight. There was a mistake made, but there is a solid case to be made that Saddam Hussein was engaged in a nuclear weapons program."
Yes, they do make that claim.
Why shouldn't we believe them?
The way I look at it, first of all, they chose to essentially declassify a top-secret sensitive report. They did on this matter and they did--
On the Niger matter.
-- on the Niger matter and on the aluminum tubes matter that they contended were being procured by Iraq for the nuclear weapons program.
More here...
Did INR Director Greg Thielmann change his story, and if so, why?
Greg Thielmann, the former director for strategic proliferation and military affairs at the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR), seems to stand in the center of every journalism piece documenting how the Bush administration distorted Iraq intelligence. Thielmann told CBS that "contrary arguments were ignored." He told The New Republic that the administration dismissed INR intelligence on those infamous aluminum tubes -- tubes that Colin Powell claimed could be used for an Iraqi nuclear program. And perhaps most critically, Thielmann told Seymour Hersh that he was eventually excluded from intelligence meetings with John Bolton, the Under-Secretary of State for Arms Control. Thielmann alleged that Bolton bypassed the entire intelligence vetting process. Bolton himself explained his actions to Hersh: "I didn’t want [the intelligence] filtered. I wanted to see everything—to be fully informed. If that puts someone’s nose out of joint, sorry about that."
Some of this is corroborated in the Senate report. On page 278, an unnamed INR analyst is quoted as saying that Bolton's office was not listening to INR, but receiving information only from the CIA. After that, however, the report gets very interesting. Presumably, Thielmann is the unnamed "Former INR Office Director" quoted on page 279. As the Committee reports, Thielmann testified that "he did not feel pressure from the Secretary [Colin Powell], the Under-Secretary [Bolton], or Director of INR on Iraq WMD issues."
Really? If this speaker is indeed Thielmann -- as it seems to be -- why did he do a complete about-face from his earlier allegations? Did the Senate Committee at all explore the ramifications of his previous statements? Why or why not?
http://tinyurl.com/d8urk
Greg Thielmann served as a top intelligence official at the U.S. State Department until resigning shortly before the war with Iraq and charging the Bush administration with cooking its intelligence.
A graduate of the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University, worked for U.S. Congressman John Culver (Democrat) before entering the United States Foreign Service where he has served for more than 25 years, working in arms control and security issues. He was acting director of the Strategic, Proliferation, and Military Affairs Office in the Bureau of Intelligence and Research at the State Department at the time of his retirement.[1]
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Consider the remarks of Greg Thielmann, career foreign service officer from 1977-2002 (he retired in September) whose last post was head of the State Department's Office of Strategic Proliferation and Military Affairs. In his own words, after 7 years in intelligence and serving in his final post, Thielmann had "full access to the whole range of classified information on those subjects." CBS News, in regard to his appearance on "60 Minutes II," said (dated October 15, 2003 on the web), "He and his staff had the highest security clearances, and everything – whether it came into the CIA or the Defense Department – came through his office."
One of the things Thielmann investigated was the claim that Iraq sought uranium from Africa.