Mass Destruction Softball

Iraq and Weapons of Mass Destruction. Or steal an amount of highly enriched uranium a little larger than a single softball, it could have a nuclear weapon in less than a year.' Document 17: Letter, George J. Tenet, Director of Central Intelligence, to Senator Bob Graham, Chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, October 7.

Iraqand Weapons of Mass DestructionNationalSecurity Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 80Updated- February 11, 2004Editedby Jeffrey RichelsonOriginallyposted December 20, 2002Previously updated February 26, 2003- -Between Iraq's invasion of Kuwait in August 1990, and thecommencement of military action in January 1991, then President GeorgeH.W.

Bush raised the specter of the Iraqi pursuit of nuclear weaponsas one justification for taking decisive action against Iraq. In thethen-classified National Security Directive 54, signed on January15, 1991, authorizing the use of force to expel Iraq from Kuwait,he identified Iraqi use of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) againstallied forces as an action that would lead the U.S. To seek the removalof Saddam Hussein from power. In the aftermath of Iraq's defeat, the U.S.-led U.N. Coalitionwas able to compel Iraq to agree to an inspection and monitoringregime, intended to insure that Iraq dismantled its WMD programsand did not take actions to reconstitute them. The means of implementingthe relevant U.N. Resolutions was the Special Commission on Iraq(UNSCOM).

That inspection regime continued until December 16, 1998- although it involved interruptions, confrontations, and Iraqiattempts at denial and deception - when UNSCOM withdrew from Iraqin the face of Iraqi refusal to cooperate, and harassment.Subsequent to George W. Bush's assumption of the presidency inJanuary 2001, the U.S. Made it clear that it would not accept whathad become the status quo with respect to Iraq - a country ruledby Saddam Hussein and free to attempt to reconstitute its assortedweapons of mass destruction programs. As part of their campaignagainst the status quo, which included the clear threat of the eventualuse of military force against the Iraqi regime, the U.S. And Britainpublished documents and provided briefings detailing their conclusionsconcerning Iraq's WMD programs and its attempts to deceive othernations about those programs.As a result of the U.S. And British campaign, and after prolongednegotiations between the United States, Britain, France, Russiaand other U.N.

Security Council members, the United Nations declaredthat Iraq would have to accept even more intrusive inspections thanunder the previous inspection regime - to be carried out by theU.N. Monitoring, Verification, and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC)and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) - or face 'seriousconsequences.' Iraq agreed to accept the U.N. Decision andinspections resumed in late November 2002. On December 7, 2002,Iraq submitted its 12,000 page declaration, which claimed that ithad no current WMD programs. Intelligence analysts from the UnitedStates and other nations immediately began to scrutinize the document,and senior U.S. Officials quickly rejected the claims.

Over the next several months, inspections continued in Iraq, andthe chief inspectors, Hans Blix (UNMOVIC) and Mohammed El Baradei(IAEA) provided periodic updates to the U.N. Security Council concerningthe extent of Iraqi cooperation, what they had or had not discovered,and what they believed remained to be done. During that period theBush administration, as well as the Tony Blair administration inthe United Kingdom, charged that Iraq was not living up to the requirementthat it fully disclose its WMD activities, and declared that ifit continued along that path, 'serious consequences' -that is, invasion - should follow.The trigger for military action preferred by the British government,other allies, and at least some segments of the Bush administration,was a second U.N. Resolution that would authorize an armed response.Other key U.N.

Security Council members - including France, Germany,and Russia - argued that the inspections were working and that theinspectors should be allowed to continue. When it became apparentthat the Council would not approve a second resolution, the UnitedStates and Britain terminated their attempts to obtain it.

Instead,they, along with other allies, launched Operation Iraqi Freedomon March 19, 2003 - a military campaign that quickly brought aboutthe end of Saddam Hussein's regime and ultimately resulted in hiscapture. Forces moved through Iraq, there were initial reports thatchemical or biological weapons might have been uncovered, but closerexaminations produced negative results.

In May 2003, the Bush administrationdecided to establish a specialized group of about 1,500 individuals,the Iraq Survey Group (ISG), to search the country for WMD - replacingthe 75th Exploitation Task Force, which had originally been assignedthe mission. Appointed to lead the Group, whose motto is 'find,exploit, eliminate,' was Maj. Keith Dayton, the head ofthe Defense Intelligence Agency's Directorate of Operations. InJune, David Kay, who served as a U.N. Weapons inspector after OperationDesert Storm, was appointed special advisor and traveled to Iraqto lead the search. By the time of the creation of the ISG, and continuing to thedate of this publication, a controversy has existed over the performanceof U.S. (and British) intelligence in collecting and evaluatinginformation about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction programs.

Thereliability of sources has been questioned. It has been suggestedthat some human intelligence may have been purposeful deceptionby the Iraqi intelligence and security services, while exiles anddefectors may have provided other intelligence seeking to influenceU.S. Policy.The quality of the intelligence analysis has also come under scrutiny.The failure to find weapons stocks or active production lines, underminingclaims by the October 2002 NIE and both President Bush and Secretaryof State Colin Powell (, ), has been one particular cause for criticism.

Controversyhas also centered around specific judgments - in the United Stateswith regard to assessments of Iraq's motives for seeking high-strengthaluminum tubes, and in the United Kingdom with respect to the government'sclaim that Iraq sought to acquire uranium from Africa. Post-warevaluation of captured material, particularly two mobile facilitiesthat the CIA and DIA judged to be biological weapons laboratories,has also been the subject of dispute. In addition, members of Congress and Parliament, as well as potentialpolitical opponents and outside observers have criticized the useof intelligence by the Bush and Blair administrations. Charges haveincluded outright distortion, selective use of intelligence, andexertion of political pressure to influence the content of intelligenceestimates in order to provide support to the decision to go to warwith Iraq.

The material presented in this electronic briefing book includesboth essential pre-war documentation and documents produced or releasedsubsequent to the start of military action in March 2003. Pre-wardocumentation includes the major unclassified U.S. And British assessmentsof Iraq's WMD programs; the IAEA and UNSCOM reports covering thefinal period prior to their 1998 departure, and between November27, 2002, and February 2003; the transcript of a key speech by PresidentBush; a statement of U.S. Policy toward combating WMD; the transcriptof and slides for Secretary Powell's presentation to the U.N.

OnFebruary 5, 2003; and documents from the 1980s and 1990's concerningvarious aspects of Iraqi WMD activities.Key documentation related to the controversy that has become availablein recent months makes up almost of all of the 14 additional documentscontained in this updated briefing book. These records include:. The full Top Secret key judgments section of the October 2002National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq's Continuing Programsfor Weapons of Mass Destruction. The CIA-DIA evaluation of two specialized tractor-trailers. Reviews by the British parliamentary committees concerning thequality and use of intelligence on Iraq by the British government(, ). David Kay's unclassified statement on the ISG's interim findings. Congressional critiques of U.S.

Intelligence performance (, ). Administration rebuttals of those and other critiques.

(, ).Much that is of interest concerning intelligence and Iraqi weaponsof mass destruction has appeared in articles, monographs, and studiespublished by magazines or research groups. A list of key publicationsis provided immediately after the notes section.

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