Ex-CIA Agent says WMD Intelligence Ignored

[SA210]

April 21st, 2006 5:46 pm
Ex-CIA agent says WMD intelligence ignored



Reuters (http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060421/ts_nm/iraq_intelligence_cia_dc)

The CIA had evidence Iraq possessed no weapons of mass destruction six months before the 2003 U.S.-led invasion but was ignored by a White House intent on ousting Saddam Hussein, a former senior CIA official said according to CBS.

Tyler Drumheller, who headed CIA covert operations in Europe during the run-up to the Iraq war, said intelligence opposing administration claims of a WMD threat came from a top Iraqi official who provided the U.S. spy agency with other credible information.

The source "told us that there were no active weapons of mass destruction programs," Drumheller said in a CBS interview to be aired on Sunday on the network's news magazine, "60 Minutes."

"The (White House) group that was dealing with preparation for the Iraq war came back and said they were no longer interested," he was quoted as saying in interview excerpts released by CBS on Friday.

"We said: 'Well, what about the intel?' And they said: 'Well, this isn't about intel anymore. This is about regime change'," added Drumheller, whose CIA operation was assigned the task of debriefing the Iraqi official.

He was the latest former U.S. official to accuse the White House of setting an early course toward war in Iraq and ignoring intelligence that conflicted with its aim.

CBS said the CIA's intelligence source was former Iraqi Foreign Minister Naji Sabri and that former CIA Director George Tenet delivered the information personally to President George W. Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney and other top White House officials in September 2002. They rebuffed the CIA three days later.

"The policy was set. The war in Iraq was coming and they were looking for intelligence to fit into the policy," the former CIA agent told CBS.

U.S. allegations that Saddam had WMD and posed a threat to international security was a main justification for the March 2003 invasion.

A 2002 National Intelligence Estimate, to which the CIA was a major contributor, concluded that prewar Iraq had an active nuclear program and a huge stockpile of unconventional weapons.

No such weapons have been found, however, and U.S. assertions that they existed are now regarded as a hugely damaging intelligence failure.

But Drumheller, co-author of a forthcoming book entitled "On the Brink: How the White House Has Compromised American Intelligence," rejects the notion of an intelligence failure.

"It just sticks in my craw every time I hear them say it's an intelligence failure," he told CBS. "This was a policy failure."
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[SA210]

bueller bueller.....

[Vashner]

Saddam said the same thing. The UN did find that he was subverting inspectors and had banned equipment as well as plans to resume after UN inspections where over.

They found basic nuke plans hidden in an Iraqi scientist's house. Under a planter. He said Saddam told him to hide the plans.

The President decided to not play guessing games and took the motherfucker out.

I suggest you join a rotary club or like a sewing club. Also knitting.

You don't have to join the Army.. so please go learn do to like making dresses and stuff and stand the FUCK aside and let the troops do the dirty fucking work of destroying Radical Islam.


Clinton first linked al Qaeda to Saddam


By Rowan Scarborough
THE WASHINGTON TIMES


The Clinton administration talked about firm evidence linking Saddam Hussein's regime to Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network years before President Bush made the same statements.
The issue arose again this month after the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States reported there was no "collaborative relationship" between the old Iraqi regime and bin Laden.

Democrats have cited the staff report to accuse Mr. Bush of making inaccurate statements about a linkage. Commission members, including a Democrat and two Republicans, quickly came to the administration's defense by saying there had been such contacts.
In fact, during President Clinton's eight years in office, there were at least two official pronouncements of an alarming alliance between Baghdad and al Qaeda. One came from William S. Cohen, Mr. Clinton's defense secretary. He cited an al Qaeda-Baghdad link to justify the bombing of a pharmaceutical plant in Sudan.
Mr. Bush cited the linkage, in part, to justify invading Iraq and ousting Saddam. He said he could not take the risk of Iraq's weapons falling into bin Laden's hands.
The other pronouncement is contained in a Justice Department indictment on Nov. 4, 1998, charging bin Laden with murder in the bombings of two U.S. embassies in Africa.
The indictment disclosed a close relationship between al Qaeda and Saddam's regime, which included specialists on chemical weapons and all types of bombs, including truck bombs, a favorite weapon of terrorists.
The 1998 indictment said: "Al Qaeda also forged alliances with the National Islamic Front in the Sudan and with the government of Iran and its associated terrorist group Hezbollah for the purpose of working together against their perceived common enemies in the West, particularly the United States. In addition, al Qaeda reached an understanding with the government of Iraq that al Qaeda would not work against that government and that on particular projects, specifically including weapons development, al Qaeda would work cooperatively with the government of Iraq."
Shortly after the embassy bombings, Mr. Clinton ordered air strikes on al Qaeda training camps in Afghanistan and on the Shifa pharmaceutical factory in Sudan.
To justify the Sudanese plant as a target, Clinton aides said it was involved in the production of deadly VX nerve gas. Officials further determined that bin Laden owned a stake in the operation and that its manager had traveled to Baghdad to learn bomb-making techniques from Saddam's weapons scientists.
Mr. Cohen elaborated in March in testimony before the September 11 commission.
He testified that "bin Laden had been living [at the plant], that he had, in fact, money that he had put into this military industrial corporation, that the owner of the plant had traveled to Baghdad to meet with the father of the VX program."
He said that if the plant had been allowed to produce VX that was used to kill thousands of Americans, people would have asked him, " 'You had a manager that went to Baghdad; you had Osama bin Laden, who had funded, at least the corporation, and you had traces of [VX precursor] and you did what? And you did nothing?' Is that a responsible activity on the part of the secretary of defense?"

[LittleGeneral]

Saddam said the same thing. The UN did find that he was subverting inspectors and had banned equipment as well as plans to resume after UN inspections where over.

They found basic nuke plans hidden in an Iraqi scientist's house. Under a planter. He said Saddam told him to hide the plans.

The President decided to not play guessing games and took the motherfucker out.

I suggest you join a rotary club or like a sewing club. Also knitting.

You don't have to join the Army.. so please go learn do to like making dresses and stuff and stand the FUCK aside and let the troops do the dirty fucking work of destroying Radical Islam.

Looks like the extremism on this board continues to hit new highs...or lows, depending on how you look at it.

[SA210]

Saddam said the same thing. The UN did find that he was subverting inspectors and had banned equipment as well as plans to resume after UN inspections where over.

They found basic nuke plans hidden in an Iraqi scientist's house. Under a planter. He said Saddam told him to hide the plans.

The President decided to not play guessing games and took the motherfucker out.

I suggest you join a rotary club or like a sewing club. Also knitting.

You don't have to join the Army.. so please go learn do to like making dresses and stuff and stand the FUCK aside and let the troops do the dirty fucking work of destroying Radical Islam.
I love the words of so called conservative "Christians".

[xrayzebra]

Hasn't all this been posted about humpteen times?

[SA210]

video

60 Minutes: CIA Official Reveals Bush, Cheney, Rice Were Personally Told Iraq Had No WMD in Fall 2002

Today on 60 Minutes:
http://images1.americanprogress.org/il80web20037/ThinkProgress/2006/60min.320.240.mov

[Vashner]

So the people doing the briefing gave that as there best guess. Only boots on the ground found out the truth. Which was no WMD's found but a program, banned components and audio tapes saying they where just waiting for UN to leave.

THE PRESIDENT decides if Saddam was a threat not the intel agents.

This guy is just a fucking worker bee it's not his job to make judgements.

[SA210]

Yea, Bush has made great judgment calls.

He's been right the whole time, on preventing 9/11 after he got that CIA briefing warning him of an attack on the US by Bin Laden, on sitting for 7 minutes like Forrest Gump with school children while America was under attack, on the illegal Iraq war, the Supreme Court appointing, Katrina, the ports, immigration, the environment, being against wiretapping before he was for it, being against leaking the info he leaked himself, and on and on and on......

32% approval ratings

Man, you're right Vashner. He just makes great decisions on everything.
We should really trust him. :rolleyes

[Clandestino]

saddam was a great leader... he should still be in power... i can't believe bush, with the backing of congress(demos and repubs), took him out... the injustice!

[boutons_]

Clandy, how does the wasted blood of 2300 US military looks on your voting hand?

[Clandestino]

wasted? ask the majority of soldiers, sailors and airmen who have served over there if they think what they are doing or did is/was a waste... i am sure most will not say that...

[boutons_]

The military, as late as 2005, still believed dubya/dickhead that Saddam was responsible for WTC, and that's why they are over there fighting.

The military are valiantly trying to salvage a disaster. Hats off, but they were duped and abused by the Repugs.

Viet Nam accomplished NOTHING for the USA. 50K lives, 250K injuries wassted.

The same will be true for Irag. All wasted, nothing accomplished, Saddam didn't hit WTC, the Repugs lied, America is no safer after the Iraq invasions and 3+ years of disaster.

[Aggie Hoopsfan]

I thought you all said our intelligence branch sucked, so why is some lone wolf being considered the bearer of truth all of a sudden?


The military, as late as 2005, still believed dubya/dickhead that Saddam was responsible for WTC, and that's why they are over there fighting.

You're a dumbass if you believe that. I know lots of folks in the military, none of them think we're in Iraq because Saddam was responsible for WTC.

I don't know what else to say, you're just a total dumbass.

[SA210]

. I know lots of folks in the military, none of them think we're in Iraq because Saddam was responsible for WTC.
You haven't signed up for the military yet? What's the holdup?

[Drill Instructor]

I thought you all said our intelligence branch sucked, so why is some lone wolf being considered the bearer of truth all of a sudden?



You're a dumbass if you believe that. I know lots of folks in the military, none of them think we're in Iraq because Saddam was responsible for WTC.

I don't know what else to say, you're just a total dumbass.


Were you born worthless, or did you have to work at it?!!

[boutons_]

Over 60% of Americans, at one point, believed dickhead's oft-repeated lie that Saddam was responsible for/related to the WTC.

I can't find the article, but I remember that the military was over 70%. Both number were shocking, but the military percentage being above the general poplulation percentage is credible.

For some reason, I trust numerous polls that come up with the same results rather any dickless twerp's dubya-sucking, ideological, unsupported, robotic drivel.

AHF, your commander-in-chief dubya is fucked every which way, and the military along with him.