White House insists it had Iraq WMD intelligence
( 2003-09-28 00:08) (Agencies)
White House national security adviser Condoleezza Rice said on Sunday there was new U.S. intelligence obtained before the Iraqi war about Baghdad's weapons of mass destruction programs, despite an assertion to the contrary by key congressional leaders.
"The president believes that he had very good intelligence going into the war," Rice said on the "Fox News Sunday" program.
The top aide to President Bush dismissed the finding by leaders of the House of Representatives Intelligence Committee that much of the information relied upon was fragmentary or dated back to when U.N. inspectors left Iraq in 1998.
"There was enrichment of the intelligence from 1998 over the period leading up to the war," Rice insisted. "And nothing pointed to a reversal of Saddam Hussein's very active efforts to acquire weapons of mass destruction."
"... It was very clear that this continued and it was a gathering danger."
"Yes, I think I would call it new information and it was certainly enriching the case in the same direction," she added.
Rice answered charges made by House Intelligence Committee Chairman Porter Goss, a Florida Republican, and Rep. Jane Harman, a California Democrat, in a letter to the CIA, obtained by Reuters on Saturday.
The letter, dated on Thursday, to CIA Director George Tenet said intelligence assessments that Iraq continued to pursue chemical and biological weapons and had ties to terror groups were long-standing judgments that were not routinely challenged within the intelligence agencies.
'CONSTANT AND STATIC'
"The assessment that Iraq continued to pursue chemical and biological weapons remained constant and static over the past 10 years," it said.
But there was "insufficient specific information" about former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein's plans and intentions, the status of Iraq's WMD programs and capabilities, and Iraq's links to al Qaeda, it said.
The lawmakers, whose letter did not reflect the full committee's opinion, cited weakness in intelligence from spies on the ground and said the government needed to develop better sources.
They concluded: "There were significant deficiencies with respect to the IC's (intelligence community's) intelligence collection activities concerning Iraq's WMD programs and ties to al-Qa'ida (al Qaeda) prior to the commencement of hostilities there."
Rice did not comment on Saddam's alleged ties to Osama bin Laden.
The CIA dismissed the "notion that our community does not challenge standing judgments."
"Iraq was an intractable and difficult subject. The tradecraft of intelligence rarely has the luxury of having black and white facts," spokesman Bill Harlow said.
The United States justified going to war largely because of a threat from Iraq's biological, chemical and nuclear weapons programs, but no such weapons have been found.
CIA adviser David Kay, who has been coordinating the hunt for Iraq's banned weapons, is scheduled to present lawmakers with an interim report in the coming week, but was not expected to reveal that any weapons had been found, sources have said.
Rice said Kay's report was "only going to be a progress report and is likely not going to draw any major conclusions."
"He's got a very long way still to go," she told Fox.
An October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate report on Iraq said it had continued its WMD programs, had chemical and biological weapons and was reconstituting its nuclear weapons programs.
"We have not found any information in the assessments that are still classified that was any more definitive," the lawmakers said.
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