New White House Aide Linked to Faulty Iraqi WMD Data

The White House yesterday announced that an aide linked to inaccurate information on Iraq and weapons of mass destruction has replaced I. Lewis Libby as Vice President Dick Cheney’s national security adviser, Knight Ridder reported (see GSN, Oct. 31).

John Hannah was identified by a member of the Iraqi National Congress, a group of former exiles, as the official who was given information on Saddam Hussein’s WMD program. The information turned out to be false.

The group gave him information from Adnan Ihsan al-Haideri, a defector who claimed to have visited 20 secret WMD production sites in Iraq. 

Al-Haideri was later discredited by the CIA and was unable to identify any of the arms productions plants he referred to in the runup to the war, according to Knight Ridder.

Also appointed yesterday was David Addington, who was named Cheney’s chief of staff. Human Rights Watch accused Addington of assisting in the development of policies that led to torture in Afghanistan and Iraq (Landay/Strobel, Knight Ridder/San Jose Mercury News, Nov. 1).

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