Today and over the weekend, top U.S. and British officials defended their prewar intelligence estimates of Iraq’s WMD capabilities, according to reports.

British Prime Minister Tony Blair today supported British intelligence assessments on Iraqi weapons of mass destruction that were released prior to the recent war.

“I stand absolutely, 100 percent” behind the intelligence information, Blair said this afternoon at a press conference held during the Group of Eight’s summit in Evian, France (Mike Nartker, GSN, June 2).

Yesterday, Blair said he had seen new evidence of Iraq’s WMD arsenal “which is not yet public,” adding that he had “no doubt at all” that Iraq possessed illegal weapons (Sparrow/Brogan, London Telegraph, June 2).

Recently, there has been increasing criticism of information contained in a British dossier released last year on the threat posed by Iraqi biological and chemical weapons.  For example, the dossier said the Iraqi military could deploy such weapons within 45 minutes of receiving an order to do so — a claim some of Blair’s critics have called exaggerated.

Blair denied that any British intelligence had been “doctored” prior to release, saying that the British Parliament’s Joint Intelligence Committee had first cleared such information.  Blair also denied recent allegations made by former Cabinet member Claire Short that he and U.S. President George W. Bush made a secret agreement last year to invade Iraq. 

During his address today, Blair called for patience in assessing the results of the coalition’s search for Iraqi weapons of mass destruction.  An international survey group is set to begin its work in Iraq this week, and the results will be released upon completion, Blair said (see related GSN story, today).  He refused to comment directly, however, on whether an independent inquiry of the disputed intelligence information will be conducted.

“Have a little patience,”  Blair said (Nartker, GSN).

Bush Claims Smoking Gun

Late last week, U.S. President George W. Bush told a Polish television station that the discovery of two Iraqi mobile laboratories meant the United States has “found the weapons of mass destruction,” the Washington Post reported yesterday (see GSN, May 29).

Officials did not find any illegal or dangerous biological agents in the two trailers, but the vehicles did contain laboratory equipment.  The threat of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction was the major reason Bush cited for invading and occupying Iraq, but U.S. forces have yet to find any illicit weapons or biological agents that could be used to build weapons of mass destruction.

“We found the weapons of mass destruction,” Bush said.  “We found biological laboratories.  You remember when [U.S. Secretary of State] Colin Powell stood up in front of the world, and he said, Iraq has got laboratories, mobile labs to build biological weapons.  They’re illegal.  They’re against the United Nations resolutions, and we’ve so far discovered two.  And we’ll find more weapons as time goes on.  But for those who say we haven’t found the banned manufacturing devices or banned weapons, they wrong.  We found them,” he added.

U.S. officials have been shifting away from the prewar claims that Iraq had large WMD stocks and posed a direct threat to the United States, the Post reported.

“Just because they found two mobile labs, to say that’s evidence of weapons of mass destruction is absurd,” said Kristian Denny, a spokeswoman for Senator Bob Graham (D-Fla.) (Dana Milbank, Washington Post, June 1).

Tenet Defends CIA Analysis

In the face of growing criticism, CIA Director George Tenet Friday defended his agency’s analysis of Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction capabilities, the Post reported (see GSN, May 30).

Tenet is sending Congress “all the statements made by the administration on weapons of mass destruction and the underlying intelligence that supported those statements,” according to Senator John Warner (R-Va.), the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee.

Warner said that he might support an investigation of the intelligence that supported the U.S. invasion.  Warner said, however, that his actions should not be construed as criticism of the agency or Bush’s decision to invade.

Democratic lawmakers were more critical.

“If we don’t find these weapons of mass destruction, it will represent a serious intelligence failure or the manipulation of that intelligence to keep the American people in the dark,” according to Graham.

Representative Jane Harmon (D-Calif.), the ranking member on the House intelligence committee, said that she is concerned about weapons of mass destruction that have not been found and might be in the hands of U.S. enemies.

If weapons of mass destruction are buried in Iraq, “someone knows where that is, Saddam Hussein and his sons may still be alive, and the major moral underpinning of our war, to prevent him from using (weapons of mass destruction) against American interests and Iraqi citizens, may still be out there,” Harmon said (Walter Pincus, Washington Post, June 2).

Powell Was Frustrated at Holes in Allegations, Report Says

Before the invasion, the Bush administration was seriously divided over the merits of the evidence of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, according to U.S. News and World Report.

On Feb. 1, 24 U.S. officials reportedly met to review Secretary Powell’s pending speech to the United Nations, in which he would allege an extensive Iraqi WMD program.

Powell reportedly became frustrated with holes in the U.S. allegations.

“I’m not reading this,” Powell reportedly said after throwing some pages of the speech in the air.  “This is bull----,” he added.

In the speech he presented to the United Nations, Powell excluded some allegations that did not stand up to a close examination, according to U.S. News and World Report.

Lower ranking officials were also distressed.

“The policy decisions weren’t matching the reports we were reading every day,” said a U.S. intelligence official (U.S. News and World Report, June 9).

Greg Thielmann, a recently retired State Department intelligence analyst who was directly involved in reviewing intelligence on Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, said that “there is a lot of sorrow and anger at the way intelligence was misused,” according to Newsweek (Newsweek, June 9).

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