Iraq:  Tenet Takes Responsibility for State of the Union Address

CIA Director George Tenet took responsibility Friday for U.S. President George W. Bush’s January State of the Union address, which contained the now-discredited claim that Iraq had sought to obtain uranium from Africa (see GSN, July 11).

“First, CIA approved the president’s State of the Union address before it was delivered.  Second, I am responsible for the approval process in my agency.  And third, the president had every reason to believe that the text presented to him was sound,” Tenet said in a press statement.  “These 16 words should never have been included in the text written for the president,” he said (CIA release, July 11).

White House press secretary Ari Fleischer said Saturday that the decision for Tenet to release his statement was a mutual one between the CIA director and the White House.

“Discussions with Director Tenet about the statement have been going on for days,” Fleischer said.  “The discussion was, the CIA needs to explain what its role was in this,” he said.

Bush said Saturday that he “absolutely” had faith in both Tenet and the CIA itself.

“I’ve got confidence in George Tenet and in the men and women who work at the CIA,” Bush said during a press conference in Abuja, Nigeria. 

Tenet’s statement should close the issue of the Africa claim, according to Fleischer.

“The president is pleased that the director of central intelligence acknowledged what needed to be acknowledged,” Fleischer said.  “The president has moved on.  And I think, frankly, much of the country has moved on as well,” he said (Richard Stevenson, New York Times, July 13).

The Washington Post reported yesterday that Tenet was able to persuade White House officials to remove a claim that Iraq was attempting to purchase uranium from Niger from a Bush speech in October.

The White House wanted to include in the speech an allegation that Iraq had attempted to purchase 500 tons of uranium oxide, an assertion that was contained in a national intelligence estimate in late September 2002, according to the Post.  Tenet personally told White House officials, including deputy national security adviser Stephen Hadley, that the allegation should not be used because it only came from one source, according to a senior official.  The CIA also doubted the accuracy of the documents that served as the basis of the allegation, which were later revealed to have been forgeries, a second senior official said.

The late September national intelligence estimate was the basis for Bush’s claim in his State of the Union address that Iraq had attempted to obtain uranium from Africa, the Post reported.

A former White House official said that there had been information “available within the system” that should have been able to keep the Africa claim out of the State of the Union address.

“The information was available within the system that should have caught this kind of big mistake,” the former Bush administration official said.  “The question is how the management of the system, and the process that supported it, allowed this kind of misinformation to be used and embarrass the president,” the former official said (Pincus/Allen, Washington Post, July 13).

In his statement Friday, Tenet defended the text of Bush’s State of the Union address as being “factually correct.”

“From what we know now, agency officials in the end concurred that the text in the speech was factually correct — i.e. that the British government report said that Iraq sought uranium from Africa,” Tenet said.  “This should not have been the test for clearing a presidential address.  This did not rise to the level of certainty which should be required for presidential speeches, and CIA should have ensured that it was removed,” he added (CIA release).

Yesterday, two senior Bush administration officials also defended the text of the State of the Union address as being factually correct.

“The statement that he [Bush] made was indeed accurate,” U.S. national security adviser Condoleezza Rice said on Fox News Sunday.  “The British government did say that,” she said.

Appearing on NBC’s Meet the Press, U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld also said that Bush’s address was correct, adding that London has continued to stand by its assertion.

“It turns out that it’s technically correct what the president said, that the U.K. does — did say that — and still says that,” Rumsfeld said.  “They haven’t changed their mind, the United Kingdom intelligence people,” he said (James Risen, New York Times, July 14).

Rumsfeld also said yesterday that Vice President Dick Cheney misspoke when he said on Meet the Press that Iraq had reconstituted nuclear weapons, saying that the vice president had meant to say Iraq had rebuilt its nuclear weapons program.

“In no instance did anyone in the administration that I know of suggested that they had a nuclear weapon,” Rumsfeld said.  “We did believe, and do believe, that they had reconstituted their program, and at some point would have … a nuclear weapon — if left alone,” he said (U.S. Defense Department release, July 13).

British Intelligence Report

Meanwhile, France and Italy are believed to have provided the United Kingdom with information that was used to support the British claim that Iraq had attempted to obtain uranium from Africa, according to the Financial Times.

The information used to support the claim came from two Western European countries and not from the documents that were found to have been forgeries, according to senior British government sources.  The United Kingdom did not share the intelligence it received with the United States because it “was not ours to share,” an official said (Huband/Adams, Financial Times, July 13).

The French secret service, the DGSE, is believed to have refused to allow the British MI6 intelligence service to provide the United States with “credible” intelligence that showed that Iraq had attempted to purchase uranium ore from Niger, U.S. intelligence sources said yesterday.

MI6 had more than one “different and credible” piece of intelligence that showed that Iraq had attempted to purchase the uranium, but because it was provided by foreign intelligence services, under rules governing cooperation, it could not be shared without the originator’s permission, British officials said.  U.S. intelligence sources believe that MI6’s information came from the DGSE because Niger is a former French colony and its uranium mines are operated by a French company, according to the London Telegraph.  In addition, France was opposed to the war on Iraq and would have been against the idea of intelligence sharing, according to U.S. sources (Michael Smith, London Telegraph, July 14).

Blix Criticizes British 45-Minute Claim

The British government made “a fundamental mistake” in claiming that the Iraqi military could have deployed biological and chemical weapons within 45 minutes of receiving an order to do so, former U.N. chief weapons inspector Hans Blix said.

“I think that was a fundamental mistake,” Blix said of the 45-minute claim, which was included in a British dossier on Iraq’s WMD programs released in September 2002.  “I don’t know exactly how they calculated this figure of 45 minutes in the dossier of September last year.  That seems pretty far off the mark to me,” he said.

Blix also said that the United Kingdom had “overinterpreted the intelligence they had.”

British Prime Minister Tony Blair, however, was “strongly convinced” that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction, Blix said.

“I talked to him several times, and I never had any other impression,” Blix said.  “In fact, I was the one who was skeptical and critical, and said that I didn’t think that the evidence was so strong, and said so to the [U.N.] Security Council,” he said (Irving/Whitaker, London Independent, July 13).

Iraqi Militia Claims Al-Qaeda Connection

A group calling itself the “Islamic Armed Group of al-Qaeda, Fallujah branch” has said that it, and not former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, is behind the series of attacks on U.S. troops in Iraq, according to a videotape aired on the al-Arabiya satellite television network yesterday.

On the videotape, a distorted male voice tells U.S. troops to “leave Iraq’s territories and to live up to their promises.”  The voice also takes credit for the recent attacks on U.S. troops.

“By God, not one of (Saddam’s) followers carried out any of the Jihadi (holy war) operations like he claims,” the voice said.

The voice also warned that the “coming days … will show you the strike that will break America’s back” (Associated Press/Yahoo!News, July 14).

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U.S. Response:  New York Distributes Gas Masks to Police

More than 13,000 New York City police officers will be equipped with gas masks to respond to chemical or biological attacks, the New York Post reported today (see GSN, June 30).

More than 3,000 anti-terrorist police have already received the new lightweight “Millennium Masks” and 10,000 more are scheduled to be delivered by the end of 2003.

All police officials now carry “Tactical Response Hoods,” a mask that allows them to evacuate a contaminated area.

“We have different masks depending on what your job is in the department,” said New York City Police Commissioner Ray Kelly.  “I would like to move to this mask, which is a mask for working in a toxic environment rather than just escaping.  It’s a tighter seal.  The filters last for a longer period of time,” he added.

Kelly plans to eventually distribute the masks to all 34,000 police officers in the city, the Post reported (Hamilton/Lisi, New York Post, July 14).

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Iraq:  Bush, Senior U.S. Officials Defend State of the Union Address

U.S. President George W. Bush today said that U.S. intelligence agencies had approved his January State of the Union address, in which he alleged that Iraq had attempted to purchase uranium from Africa — an allegation the White House admitted earlier this week was made in error (see GSN, July 10).

“I gave a speech to the nation that was cleared by the intelligence services,” Bush said.

U.S. national security adviser Condoleezza Rice was more specific, saying the CIA had “cleared the speech in its entirety.”

The CIA had previously mentioned the claim that Iraq had sought to purchase uranium from Africa in a classified National Intelligence Assessment periodically provided to Bush, according to Rice.

“If the CIA — the director of central intelligence — had said ‘Take this out of the speech,’ it would have been gone,” Rice said of the Africa claim.  “We have a high standard for the president’s speeches,” she said.

The CIA only objected to a sentence that alleged that Iraq had attempted to obtain processed uranium known as “yellowcake,” Rice said.  “Some specifics about amount and place were taken out,” she said.

“With the changes in that sentence, the speech was cleared,” Rice said.  “The agency did not say they wanted that sentence (on uranium) out,” she added (Associated Press/New York Times, July 11).

U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell said twice yesterday that the U.S. intelligence community had vetted Bush’s address and had approved the inclusion of the Africa claim.

“It was my understanding that it had been seen and cleared by the intelligence community,” Powell said during a press conference in Pretoria, South Africa.

“The sentence in the State of the Union was not put in there without the knowledge and approval of the intelligence committee that saw this speech,” Powell later said (Mike Nartker, GSN, July 11).

CBS Evening News has reported, however, that the White House ignored a CIA request to remove the Africa allegation from the State of the Union address, according to Reuters.

After reviewing Bush’s speech, CIA officials told the White House National Security Council that there was not enough intelligence to conclude that Iraq had attempted to purchase uranium from Africa, according to CBS News.  White House officials said, however, that an earlier British report contained the allegation, and if Bush attributed the claim to the United Kingdom, then he would be factually correct, CBS News said.  CIA officials then dropped their objections (Reuters, July 11).

At the time of Bush’s State of the Union address in January, it was determined that it would be appropriate for Bush to include the allegation that Iraq had attempted to purchase uranium from Africa, Powell said.  “There was no effort or attempt on the part of the president or anyone else in the administration to mislead or to deceive the American people,” he said.

Earlier this week, the White House acknowledged that it was wrong for Bush to have included the Africa claim in his address.  A major piece of evidence that was used to support the claim — documents purporting to show that Iraq had attempted to purchase uranium from Niger — was later determined by the International Atomic Energy Agency to be false.

Powell noted that he did not include the allegation in a presentation he made to the U.N. Security Council in early February on Iraq’s WMD programs.

“When I made my presentation to the United Nations and we really went through every single thing we knew about all of the various issues with respect to weapons of mass destruction, we did not believe that it was appropriate to use that example anymore.  It was not standing the test of time,” Powell said.  “And so I didn’t use it, and we haven’t used it since,” he said (Nartker, GSN).

The United Kingdom, however, has chosen to stand by the claim, citing additional, undisclosed evidence.  Senior Bush administration officials said yesterday that the CIA failed to persuade the United Kingdom in September 2002 to remove the Africa claim from an official intelligence dossier.

“We consulted about the paper and recommended against using that material,” a senior Bush administration official said.

British officials have said that the Bush administration has not been provided with the intelligence that supported the claim included in the British government’s September 2002 dossier, according to the Washington Post.  The United Kingdom received its intelligence from an unidentified “third country,” a diplomatic source said (Walter Pincus, Washington Post, July 11).

Powell yesterday offered tentative support for the United Kingdom’s decision to stand by its original assertion.

“I would not dispute them or disagree with them or say they’re wrong and we’re right, or we’re right and they’re wrong.  I wouldn’t do that, because intelligence is of that nature,” Powell said.  “Some people have more sources than others on a particular issue.  Some people have greater confidence in their analysis,” he said.

Powell also defended the overall U.S. intelligence on Iraq’s WMD efforts, as outlined in his U.N. Security Council presentation.  There was additional intelligence that was considered for inclusion in the presentation, but was ultimately rejected because of a lack of supporting sources, he said.

“The case I put down on the 5th of February, for an hour and 20 minutes, roughly, on terrorism, on weapons of mass destruction and on the human rights case … we stand behind,” Powell said (Nartker, GSN).

Retired U.S. Army Gen. Tommy Franks, who led U.S. troops in Iraq, said yesterday that he believed Iraqi weapons of mass destruction would ultimately be found, and that such a discovery would vindicate U.S. intelligence.

The coalition search for Iraqi weapons of mass destruction “is not completed,” Franks told the House Armed Services Committee.  “And so I believe that we will either find the weapons or we will find evidence of the weapons of mass destruction.  And I believe … that will vindicate the intelligence that we received,” he said.

U.S. Senator John Kerry (D-Mass.) yesterday called for a congressional investigation into the handling of prewar U.S. intelligence.

“I believe we need an open, thorough, complete and absolutely believable investigation into the quality of American intelligence so that going forward from now the national security interests of our country will be properly protected,” Kerry said (Stephanie Griffith, Agence France-Presse, July 11).

British Officials Doubt Weapons Will Be Found

Meanwhile, senior British officials have said they no longer believe that stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction will be found in Iraq, according to the New York Times.

According to British news reports, officials have begun to say that while weapons of mass destruction had existed, they were either dismantled or hidden before the war.  They also said that interviews with Iraqi scientists and military officers might illustrate how such concealment or destruction had occurred (Warren Hoge, New York Times, July 11).

British Prime Minister Tony Blair convened a special Cabinet meeting yesterday to discuss measures to improve the government’s credibility and to confront reports that British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw was allegedly responsible for a BBC report that said officials doubted weapons would be found, according to the London Telegraph.  A spokesman for the secretary would not “confirm or deny” whether Straw had spoken to BBC political editor Andrew Marr.

A Blair spokesman said yesterday that the prime minister was “absolutely confident” that both actual weapons of mass destruction and evidence of WMD programs would be found.

“The prime minister is … absolutely confident that we will find evidence not only of his WMD programs, but concrete evidence of the product of those programs as well,” the spokesman said (George Jones, London Telegraph, July 11).

Former British Foreign Secretary Robin Cook said, however, that only the discovery of actual weapons of mass destruction would vindicate Blair’s decision to go to war.

“Parliament voted for war because it was told that [former Iraqi President] Saddam [Hussein] did have real weapons of mass destruction,” Cook said.  “We were told it was so urgent that we went to war, we could not let Hans Blix and the U.N. weapons inspectors have the extra few months they asked for to finish the job,” he said.

“To establish that that’s correct, you do have to produce the weapons, you do have to actually produce the factories; you cannot now say, ‘Well, there were some scientists around who might at some time have had the capacity to develop it,’” Cook said (Associated Press/USA Today, July 11).

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International Response:  British Diplomats Dispute U.S. Authority to Intercept Suspect Shipments

The United States has found itself in dispute with other members of the Proliferation Security Initiative over the existing U.S. authority to intercept suspect cargo shipments, the London Times reported today (see GSN, July 10).

Following a meeting yesterday of initiative partners in Brisbane, Australia, U.S. Undersecretary of State John Bolton said the United States is “prepared to undertake interdictions right now,” and would do so if needed.  British diplomatic sources, however, argued with Bolton’s interpretation, saying the United States must act in accordance with international law, according to the Times.

“All 11 participants agreed that any action that might be taken would have to be consistent with international law,” a British Foreign Office spokesman said.

Bolton said the group of 11 countries had reached an agreement that gave the United States the authority to intercept suspect shipments.  “There is broad agreement within the group that we have that authority,” he said (Michael Evans, London Times, July 11).

Meanwhile, two nonproliferation experts said today that while the initiative is a good start, a stronger international legal mechanism is also needed.

While the initiative may not completely prevent a country from shipping or receiving WMD materials, such as plutonium, it may have a strong deterrent effect, Brookings Institution researchers Michael Levi and Michael O’Hanlon said in a commentary published in today’s Financial Times.

“If rogue leaders knew there was a decent chance that their WMD exports would be intercepted — inviting U.S. retaliation — they might be deterred from sending such exports in the first place,” they wrote.

Levi and O’Hanlon also called for the development of a stronger legal mechanism to allow for the interception of ships or aircraft from rogue states, even without evidence that they are carrying suspect cargo.  For example, the United States should call on the U.N. Security Council to declare North Korean plutonium illegal on the basis that it was acquired under false pretenses, Levi and O’Hanlon wrote.  This in turn would help establish a low threshold for searches aimed at intercepting such illegal material and could provided a basis for naval interception, they said.

In addition, the United States could also argue that countries with demonstrated oppressive internal polices or sponsorship of terrorism merited special concern, Levi and O’Hanlon wrote.  The Security Council could then pass a resolution that said, by behaving illegally in either way, a state would lose its sovereign right to protection, thus providing automatic authority for cargo searches, they added (Levi/O’Hanlon, Financial Times, July 11).

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Iraq:  Former Intelligence Officer Charges U.S. Distortion of Prewar Intelligence

By Mike Nartker
Global Security Newswire

WASHINGTON — Lacking evidence of an Iraqi threat to U.S. security, the Bush administration misrepresented U.S. prewar intelligence on Iraq to justify going to war, a panel of intelligence and nonproliferation experts said yesterday (see GSN, July 9).

As of March, shortly before the U.S.-led coalition invaded Iraq, Baghdad posed “no imminent threat” to the United States or its neighbors, said Greg Thielmann, a former official in the U.S. State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research.  Speaking at a news conference sponsored by the Arms Control Association here yesterday, he accused the Bush administration of failing to provide “an accurate picture” of the military threat posed by Iraq.  For example, Thielmann said, Iraq’s conventional military capabilities were far less than they were prior to the 1991 Gulf War, its nuclear program was “dormant” and its biological and chemical efforts were focused more on rebuilding production capabilities than maintaining stockpiles of actual weapons.

Thielmann accused Bush administration officials of failing “to speak honestly” about the U.S. prewar intelligence on Iraq and its WMD and ballistic missile programs.  CIA Director George Tenet told Congress in February that Iraq had maintained a small cache of U.N.-prohibited Scud ballistic missiles, but Thielmann said U.S. intelligence analysts had actually reported only that they could not account for all the Scud missiles Iraq was once believed to possess — an important difference, he said.

Thielmann also said the Bush administration did not adequately consider the doubts of some intelligence analysts regarding a claim that Iraq had purchased high-strength aluminum tubes for use in making uranium enrichment centrifuges.  There were also doubts within the intelligence community on the often-asserted claim by administration officials that Iraq possessed stockpiles of chemical weapons, Thielmann said.  In addition, most terrorism experts have disputed the administration’s claims of connections between Iraq and al-Qaeda, and that the ousting of former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein has aided the war on terrorism, he said. 

In the months leading up to the war, Bush administration officials made increasingly specific allegations about the existence of large Iraqi biological and chemical weapons stockpiles in a “conscious attempt” to discredit U.N. inspections, said Joseph Cirincione, director of the Nonproliferation Project at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.  After three months of fruitless searches by coalition forces for evidence of Iraqi WMD efforts, however, it appears that the inspections were working “remarkably well” and would have continued to do so if they had been given more time and support, Cirincione said.

Thielmann yesterday accused the Bush administration of operating under a “faith-based” intelligence policy — fitting available intelligence to pre-existing conclusions.  He defended U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell, however, saying that Powell wanted departmental intelligence analysts to provide the best assessments possible.

Gregory Treverton, a former vice chairman of the National Intelligence Council, issued a similar criticism, saying the Bush administration had turned “intelligence to evidence” to make the best “bumper-sticker” case for war.

White House Defends Decision

Bush and other senior White House officials, however, have continued to defend the decision to go to war with Iraq.

During a Pretoria, South Africa, press conference yesterday, Bush said there was “no doubt” in his mind that he made the right decision, calling allegations to the contrary “attempts to try to rewrite history.”

“There is no doubt in my mind that Saddam Hussein was a threat to the world peace.  And there’s no doubt in my mind that the United States, along with allies and friends, did the right thing in removing him from power,” Bush said.  “And there’s no doubt in my mind, when it’s all said and done, the facts will show the world the truth,” he said.

Bush also said yesterday that he was “confident” Hussein had a WMD program.

“Look, I am confident that Saddam Hussein had a weapons of mass destruction program,” Bush said.  “In 1991, I will remind you, we underestimated how close he was to having a nuclear weapon.  Imagine a world in which this tyrant had a nuclear weapon,” he added.

U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld yesterday sought to play down the increasing criticism of prewar intelligence on Iraq, saying the decision to go to war was made based on a reappraisal of old information following the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

“The coalition did not act in Iraq because we had discovered dramatic new evidence of Iraq’s pursuit of weapons of mass murder,” Rumsfeld told the Senate Armed Services Committee.  “We acted because we saw the existing evidence in a new light, through the prism of our experience on Sept. 11.  On that day, we saw thousands of innocent men, women and children killed by terrorists and that experience changed our appreciation of our vulnerability and the risks the U.S. faces from terrorist states and terrorist networks armed with powerful weapons,” he said.

Supporting Rumsfeld, Senator James Inhofe (R-Okla.) criticized the questioning of the administration’s handling of intelligence.

“It’s so obvious that this whole notion — that weapons of mass destruction they claim that are not found, therefore we should not have gone in and done what we have done — is nothing but an absurd media-driven diversionary tactic, and I’ve never seen the likes of it before,” Inhofe said.

During yesterday’s news conference, Cirincione challenged Rumsfeld’s assertion, saying that Bush administration officials had given the impression that they had new intelligence prior to the war on the threat posed by Iraq.  He cited intelligence reports issued from 1998 to 2001 that said Iraq’s WMD capabilities had been mostly destroyed by the Gulf War and subsequent U.N. inspections. 

Continued Questions Over Iraqi Uranium Purchase Attempt

During yesterday’s Armed Services Committee hearing, Rumsfeld faced questioning from Senator Carl Levin (D-Mich.), the top Democrat on the committee, on the issue of the Bush administration’s claim that Iraq had attempted to purchase uranium from Africa.  Bush included the allegation, citing British intelligence reports, in his January State of the Union address. 

The International Atomic Energy Agency later determined, however, that evidence provided by the United States to support the claim — documents purporting to show that Iraq had attempted to purchase uranium from Niger — were forgeries.  Earlier this week, the White House acknowledged that Bush should not have included the allegation in his address.

Thielmann said yesterday that the Africa claim was one of the administration’s few key pieces of evidence to support allegations that Iraq had sought to develop nuclear weapons.  He said he felt a “combination of surprise and disgust” when he learned that Bush had included the claim in his State of the Union address.

During yesterday’s hearing, Levin asked Rumsfeld why it took so long for doubts over the purported Iraq-Niger uranium sale within the U.S. intelligence community to be shared with administration officials.  “I can’t give you a good answer.  I can try to get an answer for the record, if you’d like,” Rumsfeld replied.

Rumsfeld also said that he did not learn that the reports of Iraq’s attempts to purchase uranium in Africa were false until “recent days.”  Under questioning from Senator Mark Pryor (D-Ark.), Rumsfeld conceded that the information could have crossed his desk, but he does not remember receiving any intelligence denying the allegations.

“I see hundreds and hundreds of pieces of paper a day,” Rumsfeld said.  “And is it conceivable that something was in a document?  It’s conceivable.  Do I recall hearing anything or reading anything like that?  The answer is as I’ve given it.  No,” he said.

For its part, the United Kingdom has continued to support its claim that Iraq attempted to purchase uranium from Niger, according to the Financial Times.  British Prime Minister Tony Blair said Tuesday that his intelligence analysts stand by the claim.

“The evidence that we had that the Iraqi government had gone back to try to purchase further amounts of uranium from Niger did not come from so-called ‘forged’ documents,” said Blair, adding, “They came from separate intelligence.”

According to the Times, IAEA officials have asked the United Kingdom to provide its additional evidence showing Iraq attempted to purchase uranium from Africa.

Cirincione said yesterday that he believed that the “euphoria” generated by the quick military victory in Iraq is fading due to the difficulties of the postwar occupation.  It will probably be difficult for the Bush administration to prevent Congress from conducting an open inquiry into the handling of prewar intelligence, he said, adding that he expected congressional hearings to begin soon after the end of the summer recess, if not before.

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International Response:  Exercises Planned as Part of U.S.-Sponsored Cargo Interdiction Plan

A group of 11 nations yesterday agreed to share intelligence and to begin joint military exercises as part of a U.S.-proposed initiative to interdict shipments of suspected WMD cargo, according to the Associated Press (see GSN, July 9).

The 11 countries agreed on the first measures of the Proliferation Security Initiative during a two-day meeting which ended today in Brisbane, Australia.  The meeting moved the proposal “beyond diplomatic and declaratory statements” to “an operational level very quickly,” said U.S. Undersecretary of State John Bolton.

“There’s more work to do, but in diplomatic terms we are moving at light speed here,” Bolton said.

Joint military exercises would probably begin in October and would include air, land and naval forces with an emphasis on naval interdiction, said Paul O’Sullivan, head of the Australian delegation at the meeting.  The 11 countries will also work to develop an intelligence network to better detect shipments of suspect cargo, according to AP.  They also might choose to seek a U.N. Security Council endorsement of the initiative, Bolton said. 

The United States is “prepared to undertake interdictions right now” in international waters if intelligence shows a possible threat, Bolton said (Peter O’Connor, Associated Press, July 10).

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South Korean Response:  Companies Said to be Ignoring Export Control Rules

South Korean companies are ignoring export controls on materials that could be used to develop weapons of mass destruction, the Yonhap News Agency reported today (see GSN, July 9).

South Korean government officials announced earlier this year that they would crack down on violators of the “catch-all” system, designed to prevent the export of sensitive technology and materials.

“Despite massive exports of Korean chemicals, semiconductors and machinery, not a single exporter has complied with catch-all related requests so far, indicating widespread indifference in local business circles to the otherwise costly rules,” said a government spokesman.

The spokesman cautioned that companies caught trading illegal goods could face domestic penalties as well as U.S. sanctions (Yonhap News Agency/BBC Monitoring, July 10).

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Iraq I:  State Department Told IAEA of Doubts Over Bush Claims

A week after U.S. President George W. Bush alleged in his January State of the Union address that Iraq had attempted to purchase uranium from Africa, U.S. officials told the International Atomic Energy Agency that they could not confirm such reports, the U.S. State Department said in a letter sent yesterday to a congressional committee (see GSN, July 8).

The letter, provided to Representative Henry Waxman (D-Calif.), the top Democrat on the House Government Reform Committee, came in response to a statement provided to Waxman by the IAEA, according to the New York Times.  In the statement, the IAEA said it had attempted to obtain information from the United States in December 2002 to support U.S. allegations that Iraq had attempted to purchase uranium from Niger.  The Bush administration did not provide such information, however, until Feb. 4, a week after his State of the Union address. 

The IAEA was able to quickly determine that the documents purporting to illustrate the attempted Iraq-Niger uranium purchase, provided by the United States, were forgeries.  When State provided the documents to the IAEA, however, it said, “We cannot confirm these reports and have questions regarding some specific claims,” according to the letter the department provided Waxman.

On Monday, the White House acknowledged that Bush should not have included in his address the claims that Iraq had attempted to purchase uranium from Africa.  Democrats in Congress have said that the admission justifies a new full-scale investigation into the administration’s handling of prewar U.S. intelligence on Iraq, the Times reported.

“It’s a recognition that we were provided faulty information,” said Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle (D-S.D.).  “And I think it’s all the more reason why a full investigation of all of the facts surrounding this situation be undertaken, the sooner the better,” he said.

Republicans have defended Bush, saying the White House was “forthright” in acknowledging that the claims should not have been made.

“It has since turned out to be, at least according to the reports that have been just released, not true,” said Senator Rick Santorum (R-Pa.).  “The president stepped forward and said so.  I think that’s all you can expect,” he said (Sanger/Hulse, New York Times, July 9).

Bush himself today defended his decision to go to war with Iraq based on a larger body of U.S. intelligence.

“There’s no doubt in my mind that when it’s all said and done the facts will show the world the truth,” Bush said during a press conference in Pretoria, South Africa.  “There’s going to be, you know, a lot of attempts to try to rewrite history, and I can understand that.  But I’m absolutely confident in the decision I made,” he said (Associated Press/New York Times, July 9).

British Intelligence Review

Meanwhile, a adviser to former British Prime Minister John Major has said that a judicial inquiry should be conducted to address the growing doubts over the British government’s decision to go to war with Iraq, according to Agence France-Presse.  If it can be shown within eight months that the government’s decision to go to war was based on nonexistent threats, it would “leave the government looking very tattered,” said Rodric Braithwaite, a former foreign affairs adviser to Major (Agence France-Presse/Bangkok Post, July 9).

NATO Involvement in Postwar Iraq?

The Bush administration is becoming interested in placing NATO in charge of the military occupation of Iraq as a way to reduce U.S. troop levels there, U.S. and alliance officials said.

The transfer of occupation duties to NATO could be discussed as early as this fall, officials said.  Some within the Bush administration could oppose such a move because it would mean that the United States would have to share decision-making responsibilities with European leaders, analysts said.  In its position as the most powerful nation in the alliance, however, the United States would retain military command while being able to distribute the costs and burdens of the occupation among a number of other countries, diplomats said.

“There is interest” in transferring the mission to NATO, although not immediately, a senior Bush administration official said yesterday.  “I think the American public would be pleased to see NATO helping us in Iraq. ... Americans believe in NATO and would consider it a plus to have NATO secure Iraq,” the official said.

Some analysts have said, however, that the alliance would not be able to adequately handle the mission.

“NATO is not staffed, equipped or organized for the mission,” said Anthony Cordesman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

In addition, France and Germany, which opposed the war in Iraq, would probably set high conditions on agreeing to allow NATO to assume control of the occupation, according to the Baltimore Sun.

“You would need a whole package” giving allies a major role in decisions on Iraq’s reconstruction and its future government, said Robert Hunter, a former U.S. ambassador to NATO.  “It can’t be just that the U.S. is still in charge of everything,” he said (Matthews/Bowman, Baltimore Sun, July 9).

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International Response:  Australia Hosts Talks Today on U.S. Cargo Interdiction Plan

Senior officials from 11 nations began talks today in Brisbane, Australia, on a U.S.-proposed initiative to interdict suspect shipments of WMD-related cargo, according to Agence France-Presse (see GSN, June 26).

The Proliferation Security Initiative meeting will include discussions on whether there is enough international legal authority to interdict WMD-related cargo shipments, said Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer.

Members of the PSI, which was formalized in Madrid last month, include Australia, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Spain, the United Kingdom and the United States, according to AFP.  While not present at the meeting, China is being kept informed about the group’s progress and would be invited to participate in the effort, Downer said.

“China could become a key player in a process like this, particularly in relation to North Korea,” Downer said.

North Korea, a potential target of the proposed initiative, would be unlikely to support new international law designed to block the shipment of suspect cargo, Downer said.  Such shipments, however, may have to pass through other countries en route to North Korea — countries that might be willing to participate in the effort, he said (Agence France-Presse, July 9).

Downer said today that, while Australia has not considered intercepting North Korea-bound shipments, it has also not ruled out such a decision.

“Obviously we haven’t given consideration to Australian aircraft intercepting … North Korean aircraft, or our ships intercepting their ships,” Downer said.  “I’m not saying it would never be considered but I’m saying we haven’t given consideration to that yet,” he said (AAP Newsfeed, July 9).

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Iraq II:  Iraq Survey Group Steadily Collecting Evidence on WMD Programs

The Iraq Survey Group, a unit of 1,200 WMD experts now conducting the search for Iraqi WMD programs, has been steadily collecting evidence to support coalition claims that Iraq did in fact possess such programs, British sources said yesterday (see GSN, June 19).

U.S. Maj. Gen. Keith Dayton, director of operations for the U.S. Defense Department’s Defense Intelligence Agency, heads the group, along with a British deputy, Brig. John Deverell, according to the London Times.  The group has offices in Baghdad, Washington and Qatar, with 120 analysts and 250 processors advising the group’s activities within Iraq.  Approximately 100 of the group’s members are from the United Kingdom, the Times reported.

The Iraq Survey Group replaced the U.S. Army’s 75th Exploitation Task Force in the coalition’s search for Iraqi weapons of mass destruction.  While the task force worked to investigate 900 “suspect sites” identified prior to the war, the survey group examines information recovered from documents, Iraqi officials and intelligence sources, and then dispatches teams to specific sites, according to the Times.

“The way the XTF operated was that if someone tripped over a site they would come along and do an analysis,” a British military source in Baghdad said.  “The ISG is much more intelligence-led,” the source added (London Times, July 9).

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U.S. Response I:  House of Representatives Approves Fiscal 2004 Defense Bill

The U.S. House of Representatives yesterday voted 399-19 to pass the fiscal 2004 defense appropriations bill, which contains almost $370 billion in funding for the Pentagon (see GSN, June 27).  In addition, the U.S. Senate yesterday moved closer to passing its own version of the bill, with the Senate Appropriations Defense Subcommittee approving its version (Dan Morgan, Washington Post, July 9). 

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U.S. Response II:  House Appropriations Subcommittee Approves Reduced Funding for Nuclear Weapons Programs

The House Appropriations Energy and Water Development Subcommittee yesterday unanimously approved the fiscal 2004 energy and water appropriations bill, which includes reduced funding for the Bush administration’s nuclear and nonproliferation efforts, according to Reuters (see GSN, March 11).

The $27.1 billion bill cuts $326 million from the White House funding request for the U.S. Energy Department’s National Nuclear Security Administration, which oversees U.S. nuclear weapons programs.  The bill does include, however, $8.5 billion for the NNSA, an increase of $330 million over the current fiscal year, Reuters reported.

The bill also cuts most of the $15.5 million White House request to conduct research on new, smaller nuclear weapons, according to Reuters (see GSN, June 13).  In addition, the bill reduces by $60 million the administration funding request for an Energy program to help Russia dispose of its Soviet-era arsenal.

The bill does include increased funding for a project to build a nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain in Nevada, Reuters reported (see GSN, Feb. 20).  Most of increased funding, more than $174 million over the Bush administration’s request, is slated to go toward building a railroad line to transport waste to the repository around Las Vegas as part of efforts to reduce opposition to the project in Nevada (Reuters/Planet Ark, July 9).

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Iraq:  White House Acknowledges Bush Should Not Have Included Uranium Purchase Claim in State of the Union

The Bush administration yesterday acknowledged that President George W. Bush should not have included a claim in his State of the Union address in January that Iraq had attempted to purchase uranium in Africa (see GSN, July 7).

“Knowing all that we know now, the reference to Iraq’s attempt to acquire uranium from Africa should not have been included in the State of the Union speech," a senior Bush administration official said last night in a statement authorized by the White House.

In March, the International Atomic Energy Agency said that the uranium claim, which was based on documents purporting to show Iraqi efforts to purchase uranium from Niger, was based on forged information, according to the Washington Post.  The Niger claim was further debunked after it was reported that the CIA had sent a former senior U.S. diplomat to the country in 2002 to investigate the claim, and that the diplomat had reported that Nigerien officials had denied the sale.

A classified version of a U.S. National Intelligence Estimate on Iraqi WMD programs, completed in September 2002, includes references to intelligence reports that said Iraq had attempted to purchase uranium from three countries, not just Niger, a senior Bush administration official said.  The other two African countries mentioned were Namibia and Gabon, according to intelligence sources.  They said, however, that the reports about the other countries have not been confirmed and that some analysts consider the information unreliable.

There were reports of “possible attempts” by Iraq to purchase uranium, but “they were all somewhat sketchy,” a senior intelligence official said (Walter Pincus, Washington Post, July 8).

White House press secretary Ari Fleischer said yesterday that the White House’s admission that Bush should not have included the Niger claim was “nothing new.”

“There is zero, nada, nothing new here,” Fleischer said.  “We’ve long acknowledged” that the information on the alleged attempted purchase of uranium from Niger “did, indeed, turn out to be incorrect,” he said (David Sanger, New York Times, July 8).

British Intelligence Review

Meanwhile, in an appearance before a parliamentary committee, British Prime Minister Tony Blair defended his decision to draw the United Kingdom into war with Iraq.

“I am quite sure we did the right thing in removing [former Iraqi President] Saddam Hussein because not merely was he a threat ... to the wider world but it was an appalling regime that the world is well rid of,” Blair told a House of Commons liaison committee today.

Blair also denied allegations that the government had “misled Parliament or the people” (Blitz/Burt, Financial Times, July 7).

In addition, Blair denied that a group of his advisers made crucial decisions alone leading up to the war, saying that both the full Cabinet and Parliament had been involved.

“The idea that you get together a couple of people in your office over a cup of coffee and decide to take the country to war is far-fetched,” Blair said (BBC News, July 8).

Yesterday, the House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee released a report on the findings of its inquiry into the handling of prewar intelligence on Iraq, according to the London Guardian.

In its report, the committee said that government ministers had not misled Parliament about the threat Iraq posed, but that the “jury is still out” about the accuracy of information contained in a September dossier until evidence of alleged Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, or of their destruction, is found.

In addition, the committee said that the United Kingdom might have relied too heavily on U.S. intelligence in making its decision to go to war.

“We conclude that it appears likely that there was only limited access to reliable human intelligence in Iraq and that as a consequence the United Kingdom may have been heavily reliant on U.S. technical intelligence, on defectors and on exiles with an agenda of their own,” the report says (London Guardian, July 8).

Hussein — Dead or Alive?

The CIA said yesterday that the voice on a tape played last week by the Arab television network Al Jazeera was “most likely” that of Hussein.

“The CIA’s assessment, after a technical analysis of the tape, is that it is most likely his voice,” an agency spokesman said in a press statement.  “The exact date of the recording cannot be determined,” the spokesman said.    

The speaker on the tape, claiming to be Hussein, says the tape was recorded June 14 and that he is in Iraq.  The speaker also denies that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction.

“What they called the weapons of mass destruction was nothing but a cover for their plans,” the speaker says.  “I ask the invaders:  Where are these weapons of mass destruction?” the speaker adds.

There is significant background noise on the tape and it may have been produced “many months” ago, a U.S. intelligence official said (Guy Taylor, Washington Times, July 8).

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