Smeagol-Gollum
05-04-2004, 12:37
Agencies misled me on Iraq: Powell
By Paul Richter in Washington
The US Secretary of State, Colin Powell, has for the first time directly criticised intelligence agencies for giving him the apparently flawed information he used to justify the invasion of Iraq.
Mr Powell said that the "most dramatic" of his allegations, that Saddam Hussein's regime had mobile chemical and biological weapons labs, was based on questionable US intelligence. He called on the commission investigating prewar intelligence to examine how the data was gathered.
The comments were an abrupt reversal for Mr Powell, who has acknowledged disagreements among analysts but not criticised the intelligence agencies.
Speaking to reporters on a flight home from Europe, he acknowledged widespread doubts about Iraqi informants who told US officials before the war that Saddam had built mobile germ weapons laboratories.
The allegations were central to the evidence Mr Powell dramatically presented to the UN Security Council on February 5, 2003, as he urged a sceptical world body to confront Saddam.
Mr Powell said that as he prepared for his UN presentation, intelligence officials gave him data from four sources on trucks being used as mobile weapons laboratories. "It was presented to me in the preparation of that [portfolio of evidence] as the best information and intelligence that we had. They certainly indicated to me . . . that it was solid," he said.
He said the evidence about mobile labs was "the most dramatic" of the proof he offered the Security Council, and "I made sure it was multi-sourced".
"I'm not the intelligence community, but I probed, and I made sure," Mr Powell said.
"Now it appears not to be the case that it was solid. If the sources fell apart, then we need to find out how we've gotten ourselves in that position."
Mr Powell said he hoped the White House-appointed commission would "look into these matters to see whether or not the intelligence agency had a basis for the confidence that they placed in the intelligence at that time".
As recently as January, the Vice-President, Dick Cheney, referred to the trucks as "conclusive" proof that Iraq was producing weapons of mass destruction.
Some UN weapons inspectors had doubted from the beginning that the trucks were equipped to be mobile weapons labs. They believed the equipment was intended for more benign industrial uses.
Mr Powell's remarks also sparked calls for the Blair Government in Britain to explain whether prewar claims it made about Iraq's nuclear, biological and chemical weapons programs were from the same source.
"If the American Secretary of State has misled the people of the United States, it also appears that we have been misled in this country by the same faulty intelligence," said Doug Henderson, an MP in Mr Blair's ruling Labour Party and a former junior defence and foreign office minister.
Los Angeles Times, Agence France-Presse
SOURCE : http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2004/04/04/1081017037630.html
COMMENT.
At last we are starting to hear what a lot of us suspected all along.
Quite simply, no Weapons of Mass Destruction.
But, of course, it was all a mistake. All the fault of the intelligence agencies. No deliberate attempt to deceive. And, well, the government can hardly be expected to be responsible for its intelligence agencies can it?
Can these guys have any shred of credibility left?
By Paul Richter in Washington
The US Secretary of State, Colin Powell, has for the first time directly criticised intelligence agencies for giving him the apparently flawed information he used to justify the invasion of Iraq.
Mr Powell said that the "most dramatic" of his allegations, that Saddam Hussein's regime had mobile chemical and biological weapons labs, was based on questionable US intelligence. He called on the commission investigating prewar intelligence to examine how the data was gathered.
The comments were an abrupt reversal for Mr Powell, who has acknowledged disagreements among analysts but not criticised the intelligence agencies.
Speaking to reporters on a flight home from Europe, he acknowledged widespread doubts about Iraqi informants who told US officials before the war that Saddam had built mobile germ weapons laboratories.
The allegations were central to the evidence Mr Powell dramatically presented to the UN Security Council on February 5, 2003, as he urged a sceptical world body to confront Saddam.
Mr Powell said that as he prepared for his UN presentation, intelligence officials gave him data from four sources on trucks being used as mobile weapons laboratories. "It was presented to me in the preparation of that [portfolio of evidence] as the best information and intelligence that we had. They certainly indicated to me . . . that it was solid," he said.
He said the evidence about mobile labs was "the most dramatic" of the proof he offered the Security Council, and "I made sure it was multi-sourced".
"I'm not the intelligence community, but I probed, and I made sure," Mr Powell said.
"Now it appears not to be the case that it was solid. If the sources fell apart, then we need to find out how we've gotten ourselves in that position."
Mr Powell said he hoped the White House-appointed commission would "look into these matters to see whether or not the intelligence agency had a basis for the confidence that they placed in the intelligence at that time".
As recently as January, the Vice-President, Dick Cheney, referred to the trucks as "conclusive" proof that Iraq was producing weapons of mass destruction.
Some UN weapons inspectors had doubted from the beginning that the trucks were equipped to be mobile weapons labs. They believed the equipment was intended for more benign industrial uses.
Mr Powell's remarks also sparked calls for the Blair Government in Britain to explain whether prewar claims it made about Iraq's nuclear, biological and chemical weapons programs were from the same source.
"If the American Secretary of State has misled the people of the United States, it also appears that we have been misled in this country by the same faulty intelligence," said Doug Henderson, an MP in Mr Blair's ruling Labour Party and a former junior defence and foreign office minister.
Los Angeles Times, Agence France-Presse
SOURCE : http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2004/04/04/1081017037630.html
COMMENT.
At last we are starting to hear what a lot of us suspected all along.
Quite simply, no Weapons of Mass Destruction.
But, of course, it was all a mistake. All the fault of the intelligence agencies. No deliberate attempt to deceive. And, well, the government can hardly be expected to be responsible for its intelligence agencies can it?
Can these guys have any shred of credibility left?