Iraq I:  Detention of Iraqi Scientists, Officials, Raises Human Rights Concerns

The continued detention of Iraqi scientists and officials by coalition forces in an attempt to gain evidence on Iraqi WMD efforts has begun to raise human rights concerns, the London Observer reported Sunday (see GSN, July 18).

The International Committee of the Red Cross has called on the United States to clarify the status of 36 Iraqi scientists and officials in custody, the Observer reported.  There has been no word on where these Iraqis are being detained, nor have journalists been allowed to see them.  Some of the scientists and officials are suspected of being imprisoned in solitary confinement or in tents near the U.S. base at the Baghdad airport, according to the Observer.

The wife of Amer al-Saadi, the former Iraqi liaison to U.N. inspectors, said it has been “more than three months” since her husband turned himself in to coalition forces for questioning.

“I don’t want to aggravate the Americans or make them feel provoked, but I’ve had no official notification of why he is being held or what charges he’s facing,” Helma al-Saadi said (Jonathan Steele, London Observer, July 20).

Senior Spanish Official Says No Proof of Iraqi Nuclear Weapons Program

Meanwhile, Spanish Foreign Minister Ana Palacio said yesterday that, while it was presumed before the war that Iraq had a nuclear weapons program, there had been “no proof.”

“There was a presumption that there was a nuclear program going on,” Palacio said in an interview with the Washington Times.  “There were no evidences, no proof, but yes, a pervasive idea that they were, that [former Iraqi President] Saddam Hussein was in a way or other involved in a nuclear program,” she said (Sharon Behn, Washington Times, July 24).

Hussein Regime Not Coming Back, Bush Says

U.S. President George W. Bush said yesterday that the deaths of Hussein’s sons Qusay and Uday during a U.S. military raid Tuesday would send a signal to Iraqis that Hussein’s regime “will not be coming back” (see GSN, July 23).

“Saddam Hussein’s sons were responsible for torture, maiming and murder of countless Iraqis,” Bush said.  “Now more than ever all Iraqis can know that the former regime is gone and will not be coming back,” he said.

British Prime Minister Tony Blair yesterday also welcomed the news of the deaths of Hussein’s two sons, saying it was a “great day for the new Iraq.”

“These two particular people were at the head of a regime that wasn’t just a threat because of its weapons program, but was also responsible for the torture and killing of thousands and thousands of innocent Iraqis,” Blair said (Spiegel/Clover, Financial Times, July 23).

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Iraq II:  Democrats Demand to Know Why Niger and African Uranium Claims Were Made Public

By Mike Nartker
Global Security Newswire

WASHINGTON — Three leading Democratic members of Congress this week called on the Bush administration to further explain how now-disputed claims that Iraq attempted to purchase uranium from Niger and other countries in Africa came to be included in administration documents (see GSN, July 23).

Earlier this week, Representative Henry Waxman (D-Calif.), the top Democrat on the House Government Reform Committee, called on the U.S. State Department to explain why the Niger uranium claim was included in a December 2002 department fact sheet on Iraq’s WMD efforts.

In addition, Senators Edward Kennedy (Mass.) and Carl Levin (Mich.), the top Democrats on the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee and the Senate Armed Services Committee, respectively, called on U.S. President George W. Bush yesterday to explain how the overall African uranium claim came to be included in a Jan. 20 report to Congress.

Niger Uranium Claim

In a letter to Secretary of State Colin Powell dated July 21, Waxman asked for further explanation as to how the Niger uranium claim came to be specifically mentioned in a Dec. 19, 2002, fact sheet that was issued in response to a declaration of WMD-related information Iraq submitted to U.N. weapons inspectors earlier that month.  The fact sheet, which listed a number of alleged omissions from the Iraqi declaration, had only one charge under its “Nuclear Weapons” heading — that Iraq had failed to account for its attempts to purchase uranium from Niger.

“The declaration ignores efforts to procure uranium from Niger,” the fact sheet said.  “Why is the Iraqi regime hiding their uranium procurement?” it added.

However, the Niger uranium claim became discredited in March when International Atomic Energy Agency Director General Mohamed ElBaradei publicly announced that documents offered to support the allegation were, in fact, forgeries.

In his letter to Powell, Waxman said he first raised the issue in a March 17 letter to U.S. President George W. Bush, in which he asked if the CIA had any role in the preparation of the fact sheet.  On April 29, Waxman received a reply from Paul Kelly, assistant secretary of state for legislative affairs, who said that Bush had asked State to reply on his behalf.  In his letter, Kelly said the fact sheet was “a product developed jointly by the CIA and the State Department.”

Both State’s own intelligence service and the CIA, however, had doubts about the Niger uranium claim.  For example, an October 2002 national intelligence estimate on Iraq’s WMD programs prepared by the CIA included a footnote that said that State’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research considered the claims that Iraq had sought to obtain uranium from anywhere in Africa to be “highly dubious.” 

“I believe that understanding how the State Department Fact Sheet was crafted — despite the objections of CIA and State Department intelligence experts — will provide crucial insights into controversy over the president’s State of the Union address,” Waxman said, referring to the ongoing controversy over the inclusion of the now-disputed claim in Bush’s January address.

Waxman said in his letter that there has been “speculation both inside and outside” of State that Undersecretary of State John Bolton was responsible for the inclusion of the African claim into the State of the Union.  Waxman called on Powell to either confirm or deny Bolton’s role and his level of involvement, if any. 

Waxman also asked Powell to name the CIA officials responsible for approving the inclusion of the Niger reference into the fact sheet, as suggested by Kelly’s April 29 letter.  In addition, Waxman asked for details of any communications between State and White House or National Security Council officials regarding the inclusion of the claim.

State has yet to reply to the letter, Waxman’s press secretary Karen Lightfoot told Global Security Newswire Tuesday, but said one is expected.

State Attempts to Explain

State spokesman Richard Boucher attempted last week to explain how the fact sheet was prepared, saying the department’s Public Affairs Bureau used both classified and unclassified information prepared by other department’s bureaus, “including information that had been cleared and was consistent with” the CIA’s October national intelligence estimate  There were reports that Iraq had dispatched agents to other countries to purchase uranium, which was not addressed in the declaration, Boucher said, adding that the purpose of the fact sheet was to call on Iraq to account for such deficiencies.

“If we’re getting reports and others are getting reports that Iraq is trying to procure uranium, it’s really for the Iraqis to explain at that point in their declaration that they didn’t explain anything with, rather than for us to have to explain at that stage,” Boucher said.  “So I think that we probably would have put something in there about Iraq’s attempts to acquire uranium,” he said.

Boucher did indicate, however, that the specific mention of Niger in the fact sheet might have been a mistake.

“I probably would not have mentioned Niger or might have even worded it differently,” Boucher said.

Lightfoot, however, dismissed Boucher’s explanation, saying State was “trying to tamp it [the issue] down and make it go away.”

White House Report to Congress

Meanwhile, Kennedy and Levin announced yesterday that they had sent a letter to Bush calling on him to explain how the now-disputed claim that Iraq had sought to obtain uranium from Africa came to be included in a Jan. 20 report to Congress that was required under the congressional resolution that authorized military action against Iraq.

So far two Bush administration officials — CIA Director George Tenet and deputy national security adviser Stephen Hadley — have taken responsibility for the inclusion of the African uranium claim into Bush’s State of the Union address, which the president gave soon after the report on Iraq’s WMD programs was submitted to Congress.  Kennedy said, however, that it was up to Bush himself to take responsibility and explain how the claim came to be included in both the report and the State of the Union.

“The buck does not stop with CIA Director George Tenet, and it does not stop with deputy national security adviser Stephen Hadley,” Kennedy said during a joint press conference with Levin at the U.S. Capitol.  “The buck stops with the president,” he said.

Kennedy and Levin’s letter calls on Bush to provide copies of all memos from the CIA and other U.S. intelligence agencies regarding the issue.  Hadley said Tuesday that he had received two memos from the CIA in October 2002 saying that intelligence on Iraq’s attempts to purchase uranium in Africa was weak, according to reports. 

Both Kennedy and Levin said they also supported the idea of Bush holding a press conference to clarify how the African uranium claim came to be included into both texts. 

Kennedy said an inquiry is needed into whether the Bush administration politicized intelligence on Iraq to justify going to war, Kennedy said.

“Congress and the American people have the right to know whether intelligence was politicized to justify the decision by the president of the United States to send the American troops to war.  This statement that he sent to Congress is really the issue of war and peace, life and death,” Kennedy said.

“What we are asking for is, when he makes the statements for the reason of sending American troops into war, we want to know what the basis of his statements … that are included in this report are based upon,” Kennedy said.  “And the American people ought to know that as well,” he said.

“Everybody Makes Mistakes,” Clinton Says

Former U.S. President Bill Clinton Tuesday night issued a surprising defense of the inclusion of the Africa uranium claim into the State of the Union, saying, “everybody makes mistakes.”

“I thought the White House did the right thing in just saying ‘we probably shouldn’t have said that,’” Clinton was quoted yesterday by CNN.com as saying during a telephone interview with CNN’s Larry King.

“You know, everybody makes mistakes when they are president,” Clinton said.  “I mean, you can’t make as many calls as you have to make without messing up once in awhile.  The thing we ought to be focused on is what is the right thing to do now.  That’s what I think,” he said.

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Iraq:  White House Adviser Takes Responsibility for African Uranium Claim

U.S. deputy national security adviser Stephen Hadley took responsibility yesterday for allowing U.S. President George W. Bush’s January State of the Union address to include the now-disputed claim that Iraq sought to obtain uranium from Africa, according to the New York Times (see GSN, July 22).

Hadley said the CIA had sent him two memorandums in October 2002 saying that intelligence on Iraq’s attempts to purchase uranium in Africa was weak.  Hadley also said that while he received the memos before Bush gave a speech on Iraq in October, he did not remember them when the African uranium issue came up during the preparation of the State of the Union.  The two CIA memos were discovered within the last three days, Hadley said.

“I should have asked that the 16 words be taken out” of the State of the Union address, Hadley said.  “I failed in that responsibility,” he added (Sanger/Miller, New York Times, July 23).

The first CIA memo, dated Oct. 5 and addressed to Hadley, Bush’s main speechwriter Michael Gerson and other White House officials, objected to a line in a draft of Bush’s October speech that said Iraq “has been caught attempting to purchase” uranium in Africa, according to the Washington Post.  The memo said that the amount of uranium in the alleged purchase was in dispute and that it was disputed that uranium “can be acquired from the source.”

A CIA memo the next day, addressed to Hadley and national security adviser Condoleezza Rice, said there was “weakness in the evidence” to support the claim and that the alleged purchase “was not particularly significant,” Hadley said.

White House Communications Director Dan Bartlett said that while Bush is “obviously not pleased” with the controversy that has arisen over the State of the Union, he “accepts the explanation” offered by his aides.  Bush also has “the highest level of confidence” in his staff, Bartlett said (Milbank/Pincus, Washington Post, July 23).

Iraqi Militias Beware

Meanwhile, U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell yesterday said Iraqi militia groups should not “welcome” the controversy over the intelligence-handling issue in the United States and the United Kingdom.

“To the extent that they believe (British Prime Minister Tony) Blair and President Bush have been weakened in some way, I think that gives them certainly something they would welcome,” Powell said in an interview with the Washington Times.  “But they are deceiving themselves if they welcomed it for very long because I think this will all pass in due course.  People will see that what President Bush, Prime Minister Blair and other members of the coalition did was right,” he said.

Powell also said he expected the controversy over Bush’s State of the Union to “fade into insignificance” as more evidence of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction and the crimes of former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein’s regime come to light.

“As more graves are opened, as more mass killings are made known and as Mr. (David) Kay (the former United Nations weapons inspector heading the U.S. search) completes his work in Iraq searching for the evidence needed to make clear to everybody that we knew what we were talking about with respect to weapons of mass destruction, I think this issue of what was in the State of the Union address will fade into insignificance,” Powell said (Fran Coombs, Washington Times, July 23).

Hussein’s Sons Killed

Hussein’s sons Uday and Qusay were killed yesterday during a U.S. military operation in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul, the top U.S. military commander in Iraq said (see GSN, April 8).

U.S. forces raided a mansion in Mosul yesterday after receiving a tip from an informer Monday night that Hussein’s sons were there, said Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez.  Four U.S. soldiers were wounded in the attack, according to the Washington Post.

“We are certain that Uday and Qusay were killed today,” said Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez.  The bodies were “in a condition where you could identify them,” and were confirmed to be Hussein’s sons by “multiple sources,” he said (Sullivan/Chandrasekaran, Washington Post, July 23).

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International Response:  United States Prepared to Intercept Illicit Shipping

As part of an 11-nation coalition intended primarily to curb North Korean WMD exports, the United States is now prepared to act quickly to clamp down on WMD-related shipments on the high seas, USA Today reported today (see GSN, July 11).

Joining the United States in the so-called Proliferation Security Initiative are Poland, Japan, Australia, France, Germany, United Kingdom, Italy, the Netherlands, Bulgaria and Spain.

“We’re ready to rock and roll right now,” said a State Department official.  “All we need is actionable intelligence,” he added (Barbara Slavin, USA Today, July 23).

Participating countries would use their own domestic laws to intercept illicit shipments, Asahi Shimbun reported.  The proposal was brought forward during a Proliferation Security Initiative meeting this month in Brisbane, Australia (Asahi Shimbun, July 23).

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Iraq:  WMD Issue “Not of Immediate Consequence,” Wolfowitz Says

U.S. Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz yesterday played down the search for evidence of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, saying it was “not of immediate consequence” (see GSN, July 21).

“I’m not saying that getting to the bottom of this WMD issue isn’t important.  It is important,” Wolfowitz said following a five-day visit to Iraq.  “But it is not of immediate consequence,” he said.

Wolfowitz said he was more concerned with the reconstruction of Iraq than the WMD issue.

“I’m not concerned about weapons of mass destruction,” Wolfowitz said.  “I’m concerned about getting Iraq on its feet.  I didn’t come (to Iraq) on a search for weapons of mass destruction,” he said.

Iraqis themselves have little interest in the WMD issue, Wolfowitz said.

“If you could get in a relaxed conversation with Iraqis on that subject they’d say, ‘Why on Earth are you Americans fussing so much about this historical issue when we have real problems here, when Baathists are killing us and Baathists are threatening us and we don’t have electricity and we don’t have jobs?’” Wolfowitz said.  “Those are the real issues,” he said (Robert Burns, Associated Press/Yahoo!News, July 22).

CIA Warned White House of Niger Uranium Claim Doubts in January

Meanwhile, CIA officials have said that the agency warned the White House in January, prior to U.S. President George W. Bush’s State of the Union address, of doubts over claims that Iraq had attempted to purchase uranium from Niger, according to U.S. News & World Report.

A senior executive intelligence brief sent by the CIA to the White House and national security agencies Jan. 17 voiced similar doubts about the Niger uranium claim as those included in a national intelligence estimate prepared in October 2002, CIA officials said.  The NIE said, “We do not know the status” of the alleged Iraq-Niger transaction, and cited U.S. State Department doubts about the Niger uranium claim.

In addition, a document prepared by Vice President Dick Cheney’s chief of staff around the same time as the State of the Union address did not include any reference to Iraq seeking to obtain uranium from Niger, according to U.S. News.  On Jan. 25, three days before Bush gave his address, Lewis “Scooter” Libby made a presentation to White House officials on Iraq’s WMD programs and links to terrorism.  Libby then summarized the conclusions of that meeting in a written document, which was provided to U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell to act as the basis of Powell’s presentation to the U.N. Security Council in early February, U.S. News reported.  The Niger claim was not included in Libby’s document (Pound/Auster, U.S. News & World Report, July 28).

Few U.S. Representatives See Iraq Intelligence

Only a small number of U.S. representatives have reviewed the more than 10,000 pages of U.S. intelligence on Iraq, which was made available by the House Select Committee on Intelligence a month ago, according to the Washington Times.

To see the information, representatives must first sign a confidentiality agreement saying they will not discuss the information.  Intelligence committee staff members said they do not brief representatives to avoid charges of spinning the information, but will help representatives find sections they are interested in examining.

The move to make the Iraq-related intelligence available to representatives is one reason why the controversy over the Bush administration’s handling of such intelligence has gained little ground in the House of Representatives as opposed to the Senate, Republicans and Democrats said.

“I honestly believe the membership of the House really believes we have a good committee that runs on a bipartisan basis,” committee Chairman Porter Goss (R-Fla.) said. 

By making the intelligence information available, it shows that “there’s no cover-up going on, nothing untoward happening here,” Goss said (Stephen Dinan, Washington Times, July 22).

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Iraq:  White House Offers Further Explanation on African Uranium Claim

A senior Bush administration official Friday offered further details as to how a now-disputed claim that Iraq sought to obtain uranium from Africa was included in U.S. President George W. Bush’s State of the Union address (see GSN, July 18).

Prior to the address, the White House changed a draft to make it more credible by attributing the African uranium claim to a British intelligence dossier, the official said.  The change was made after an internal debate as to the best way to present information, and not because of CIA-raised concerns over the credibility of reports that Iraq had attempted to purchase uranium from Niger, the official said.

The White House had originally written the State of the Union to say “we know” specific things about former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein’s WMD programs, such as “We also know that he has recently sought to buy uranium in Africa,” the senior Bush administration official said.  White House speechwriters decided to include the African uranium claim, not senior White House officials, the senior administration official said.

On the day before Bush gave his address, the White House team preparing it “decided that it would be much more credible if we could explain to the public how we knew it — not just assert it, but to fully disclose as much as possible how we knew this information,” the senior administration official said.  The address was then changed to attribute each statement on Iraq’s WMD efforts to a specific source, the official said.

The senior Bush administration official’s account as to how the African uranium claim was included into the State of the Union address differs from previously offered versions, according to the New York Times.  For example, CIA Director George Tenet said in a statement earlier this month that agency officials raised concerns about the “fragmentary nature of the intelligence” with White House officials.

“Some of the language was changed,” Tenet said (Richard Stevenson, New York Times, July 19).

Last week, Alan Foley, a CIA WMD expert, told the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence during a closed hearing that a National Security Council official had asked him whether the Niger uranium claim could be included in the State of the Union, according to the Baltimore Sun.  Foley said he told Robert Joseph, NSC director for nonproliferation, that the CIA had found the evidence on the claim to be inconclusive and that it should not be included. 

According to Foley, Joseph then tried to negotiate the inclusion of the claim, asking whether it would be accurate to say that the United Kingdom had reported that Iraq had attempted to obtain uranium from Africa.  Foley told the committee that he had eventually agreed.

The senior Bush administration official, however, said that no such “negotiation” had occurred and that the CIA had simply approved the reference to the British intelligence dossier to be included (David Greene, Baltimore Sun, July 19).

The senior Bush administration official also said Friday that neither Bush nor national security adviser Condoleezza Rice read in its entirety a National Intelligence Estimate prepared in October on Iraq’s WMD programs.

The NIE, portions of which were declassified and released Friday, said “most” of the six U.S. intelligence agencies believed there was “compelling evidence” that Iraq was rebuilding its uranium enrichment capability for a nuclear weapons program.  The report also included, however, dissent by the U.S. State Department that said the evidence did not “add up to a compelling case” that Iraq was attempting to develop nuclear weapons.

In an annex to the NIE, State’s intelligence service disputed the African uranium claim, saying it was “highly dubious.”

Bush and Rice, however, did not read the entire NIE, including the annex, the senior Bush administration official said.  “They did not read footnotes in a 90-page document,” the official said.

Bush was “briefed” on the NIE, but “I don’t think he sat down over a long weekend and read every word of it,” the official said.  The official also said that Bush “did not know” that the State Department had challenged the claim.

“The president was comfortable at the time, based on the information that was provided in his speech,” the senior Bush administration official said.  “The president of the United States is not a fact-checker,” the official said (Milbank/Priest, Washington Post, July 19).

Italian Reporter Says She Is Source of Nigerien Documents

Italian reporter Elisabetta Burba said she is the one who provided U.S. diplomats with documents purporting to illustrate an attempt by Iraq to purchase uranium from Niger — documents that were later revealed to be forgeries, according to the Associated Press.

Burba was quoted Saturday by Corriere della Sera as saying her source for the documents “in the past proved to be reliable.”

“I realized that this could be a worldwide scoop, but that’s exactly why I was very worried,” Burba said.  “If it turned out to be a hoax, and I published it, I would have ended my career,” she said.

Burba said she traveled to Niger to try to authenticate the documents.  After she returned, she told the top editor at Panorama, where she worked, that the story seemed suspicious.  After discussions at the magazine, Burba then took the documents to the U.S. Embassy in Rome, AP reported.

“I went by myself and give them the dossier.  No one said anything more to me and in any case the decision not to publish it was already taken — with no further way to check out the reliability of those papers, we chose not to risk,” Burba said.  “I informed my source that I wasn’t going to write anything and for me that affair was forgotten,” she said (Associated Press/Yahoo!News, July 20).

NIE Says Hussein Might Provide WMD to Terrorists if Facing Death, Capture

Meanwhile, the declassified portions of the NIE released Friday indicate that U.S. intelligence agencies were concerned that Hussein might provide terrorists with biological or chemical weapons if he faced death or capture, according to the Washington Post.  This contrasts with Bush administration statements prior to the war that Hussein would provide weapons of mass destruction to terrorists unprovoked.

“Saddam, if sufficiently desperate, might decide that only an organization such as al-Qaeda … already engaged in a life-or-death struggle against the United States, could perpetrate the type of terrorist attack that he would hope to conduct,” the NIE said.

Hussein could have chosen to take the “extreme step” of aiding al-Qaeda in conducting a terrorist attack against the United States if it “would be his last chance to exact vengeance by taking a large number of victims with him,” the NIE said.

With Hussein believed to be alive and in hiding and the status of Iraqi WMD stockpiles unknown, there is concern that the NIE’s assessment may still occur, Bush administration officials said.  U.S. intelligence agencies do not know either “the extent to which Saddam Hussein has access or control” over the militias attacking U.S. forces in Iraq, or where possible WMD stockpiles could be hidden.

Asked whether Hussein would now use biological or chemical weapons if he had control of them, the senior administration official said, “We would not put that past him to do whatever makes our lives miserable” (Walter Pincus, Washington Post, July 21).

WMD Hunt

Former U.N. weapons inspector David Kay, who has been appointed by the CIA to oversee the Iraq Survey Group’s search for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, has said he expects to begin releasing evidence of such weapons within six months (see GSN, July 9).

“I think in six months from now we will have a considerable amount of evidence, and we’ll be starting to reveal that evidence,” Kay said (Stephen Farrell, London Times, July 21).

Soldiers and officials involved with the Iraq Survey Group’s predecessor, the 75th Exploitation Task Force, have named a number of flaws, such as poor intelligence and a lack of speed, as reasons why that unit failed to find conclusive evidence of Iraqi WMD efforts, according to the New York Times.

Some sources said that the Bush administration used poor intelligence to plan and conduct the WMD search.  Planners had assumed that Iraq would use either biological or chemical weapons during the war, publicly proving their existence, or that such weapons would be easy to find if they were not used, the sources said.

In addition, promising suspect sites were either looted or cleaned before U.S. troops could secure and search them, some sources said.

“Because we arrived at sites so late, so often, we may never know what was there, and either walked or was taken away by looters and Baathist elements under the guise of looting,” said Capt. J. Ryan Cutchin, leader of the MET Bravo team, one of the four search teams in the task force.

Intelligence on suspect sites was often wrong, a senior officer said.

“The teams would be given a packet, with pictures and a tentative grid,” the officer said.  “They would be told:  ‘Go to this place.  You will find a McDonald’s there.  Look in the fridge.  You will find French fries, cheeseburger and Cokes.’  And they would go there, and not only was there no fridge and no McDonald’s, there was never even a thought of ever putting a McDonald’s there.  Day after day it was like that,” the officer said.

Experts and soldiers also criticized the U.S. Defense Department for failing to make the WMD search a high priority.

“Though it may be now, I don’t sense that this was much of a priority,” said former Undersecretary of Defense Fred Ikle (Judith Miller, New York Times, July 20).

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U.S. Response:  Pentagon Should Provide More Detail for CTR Budget

By David McGlinchey
Global Security Newswire

WASHINGTON — U.S. government auditors said Friday that the Defense Department should provide Congress with more details on joint disarmament efforts in Russia (see GSN, May 23).

The additional information is not required by law, but it could help lawmakers develop a better annual budget for the Cooperative Threat Reduction program, according to a General Accounting Office letter to the U.S. House and Senate Armed Services Committee.

The CTR effort funds programs in Russia to dismantle and dispose of weapons of mass destruction.

Citing its legal requirements, the Pentagon disagreed with the GAO’s assessment.

“The legislation governing the content of the CTR annual report does not require reporting on these elements,” according to a Defense Department response to the letter.

The annual Pentagon report on the threat reduction program “lacked a discussion of key strategic planning elements that could help congressional decision-makers in their annual CTR budget deliberations,” the GAO said.

Defense officials did meet their legally mandated reporting requirements in the CTR report, according to GAO, but the letter specifically asked for “annual performance goals,” “information on external factors” and “plans for revising program goals.”

Without this information, the CTR report “does not provide a useful context for understanding how project and budget plans might be affected in the future,” the GAO said.

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Iraq I:  Blair Defends War on Iraq, Cites Threat of Terrorists Obtaining Weapons

By Mike Nartker
Global Security Newswire

WASHINGTON — British Prime Minister Tony Blair yesterday defended the need for going to war with Iraq, citing the potential threat of terrorists arming themselves with weapons of mass destruction if former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein had remained in power (see GSN, July 17).

In a rare address before a joint session of Congress, Blair stressed the threat terrorism poses to international security, including the risk that terrorist groups might ally themselves with states seeking to develop weapons of mass destruction.  For example, according to Blair, Iraq under Hussein was known to have supported and sheltered such organizations.

“When you lead countries, as we both do, and you see the potential for this threat of terrorism and weapons of mass of destruction to come together, I really don’t believe that any responsible leader could ignore the evidence that we see and the threat that we face,” Blair said during a joint press conference with U.S. President George W. Bush following his address.  “And that’s why we’ve taken the action that we have, first in Afghanistan and now in Iraq,” Blair said.

Even if the threat of terrorists working together with rogue states remains unrealized, “history will forgive” the decision to go to war because of the brutality of the Hussein regime, Blair told Congress, adding that he did believe such weapons would be found.

“Can we be sure that terrorism and weapons of mass destruction will join together?  Let us say one thing:  If we are wrong, we will have destroyed a threat that, at its least, is responsible for inhuman carnage and suffering.  That is something I am confident history will forgive,” Blair said.

“But if our critics are wrong, if we are right, as I believe with every fiber of instinct and conviction I have that we are, and we do not act, then we will have hesitated in the face of this menace when we should have given leadership,” Blair said.  “That is something history will not forgive,” he said.

For his part, Bush said yesterday he was confident that the decision to go to war was justified, citing the threat Iraq posed to U.S. security.

Speaking at a joint press conference with Blair, Bush said, “The regime of Saddam Hussein was a grave and growing threat.  Given Saddam’s history of violence and aggression, it would have been reckless to place our trust in his sanity or restraint,” Bush said.  “As long as I hold this office, I will never risk the lives of American citizens by assuming the goodwill of dangerous enemies,” he said.

Bush also said he believed that coalition forces would find Iraqi weapons of mass destruction and evidence of efforts to produce such weapons.  He blamed the lack of progress so far in the WMD hunt on the postwar chaos in the country, Hussein’s history of hiding weapons from international inspectors and a lack of cooperation by former Iraqi officials.

“But, yeah, we will bring the weapons,” Bush said.  “And, of course, we will bring the information forward on the weapons when they find them.  And that’ll … end all this speculation,” he added.

During the press conference, Blair reiterated his support for a claim that Iraq had sought to obtain uranium from Africa prior to the war. 

“The British intelligence that we have we believe is genuine,” Blair said.  “We stand by that intelligence,” he said.

The uranium claim was included in a September 2002 British dossier on Iraq’s WMD programs, which Bush cited when he made the allegation in his State of the Union address in January.  The White House has admitted, however, that the claim should not have been included in Bush’s address.

Bush refused to directly answer whether he took personal responsibility for the inclusion of the claim into the State of the Union, instead praising U.S. and British intelligence.

“First, I take responsibility for putting our troops into action.  And I made that decision because Saddam Hussein was a threat to our security and a threat to the security of other nations,” Bush said.  “I take responsibility for making the decision, the tough decision to put together a coalition to remove Saddam Hussein, because the intelligence — not only our intelligence but the intelligence of this great country [the United Kingdom] — made a clear and compelling case that Saddam Hussein was a threat to security and peace,” he said.

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Iraq II:  CIA Expert Says NSC Official Pushed Africa Charge

Working to find a way to include the controversial Iraq-Niger charge in the President George W. Bush’s 2003 State of the Union address, a White House official repeatedly modified the claim until a CIA official affirmed its accuracy, according to the CIA official’s testimony to a Senate committee this week (see GSN, July 17).

Ultimately, in his January speech, Bush said, “The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa.”  The White House this month, however, acknowledged that the claim should not have been included in the address, but British Prime Minister Tony Blair yesterday stood by the charge (see related GSN story, today).

During a closed hearing Wednesday of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, CIA WMD expert Alan Foley described a prespeech meeting with National Security Council nonproliferation director Robert Joseph.  Foley’s testimony was described by unnamed senior intelligence officials.

Joseph asked Foley if Bush’s address could include a reference to Iraq attempting to obtain uranium from Niger, but he told Joseph that the CIA was not certain about the credibility of the Niger claim and recommended that it not be included.  The CIA had previously prevented a reference to Niger from appearing in an October 2002 Bush speech.

Foley then told the committee that Joseph asked him whether the speech could refer to British intelligence reports that Iraq had attempted to obtain uranium from Africa.  Foley said he told Joseph that the CIA had warned the United Kingdom about uncertainties concerning the claim when the British government included it in a September 2002 dossier on Iraq’s WMD efforts.

Foley said Joseph then asked him whether it would be accurate to say that the British report said Iraq had attempted to obtain uranium from Africa, and Foley said he agreed.  Foley did not tell the committee, however, that he had felt pressured by Joseph, officials familiar with Foley’s testimony said.

A senior Bush administration official denied Foley’s account, saying that none of the drafts of the State of the Union contained a specific reference to Niger. 

“If that was the testimony, it is not an accurate accounting of events,” the senior administration official said.  “There was never at any time a mention of place or amount in any draft of the State of the Union,” the official added (Risen/Sanger, New York Times, July 18).

Committee member Richard Durbin (D-Ill.) said CIA Director George Tenet’s and other officials’ testimony in Wednesday’s hearing demonstrated that the White House ignored warnings to not include the Africa uranium claim in the State of the Union address.

“They weren’t searching for the right words, they were searching a way around the obvious,” Durbin said.

Committee Chairman Pat Roberts (R-Kan.) said the committee expects to hear testimony in coming weeks from the CIA inspector general and U.S. Defense Department and intelligence officials overseeing the search for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.  Committee members also said they wanted to examine memos and other communications between the CIA and the White House during the negotiations over the State of the Union.

“We will take this inquiry wherever it goes,” Roberts said (Greg Miller, Los Angeles Times, July 18).

Senator John Rockefeller (D-W.Va.) said the committee is “looking at people in the executive branch, including the White House.”  Both Republicans and Democrats are concerned “about the further implication beyond Tenet,” Rockefeller said (Pincus/Priest, Washington Post, July 18).

Iraqi Scientists Says Aluminum Tubes Were Not Meant for Centrifuges

Meanwhile, an Iraqi scientist recently told the CIA that high-strength aluminum tubes purchased by Iraq were never intended for use in centrifuges to enrich uranium, counter to previous U.S. assertions, according to the Associated Press (see GSN, June 27).

Mahdi Shukur Obeidi, who has provided centrifuge components and documents to the United States, has firmly denied that the tubes were intended for centrifuges both in discussions with U.N. weapons inspectors and later in discussions with the CIA, said former U.N. inspector David Albright.

“Before the war he took the position the tubes weren’t for centrifuges, and after the war” — when there was little fear of retribution — “he told them the same thing,” Albright said.

In addition, Obeidi “also said that since ‘91 they hadn’t resurrected a nuclear weapon program,” Albright said (Charles Hanley, Associated Press/Yahoo!News, July 17).

Iraqi Ricin Efforts

The head of an Iraqi program to weaponize ricin has said that, after a failed 1991 field test, Baghdad ceased its efforts, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Prior to the recent war in Iraq, U.S. officials had cited Iraq’s research into weaponizing ricin as evidence of Iraq’s efforts to develop weapons of mass destruction, according to the Journal.  Iraqi scientist Shakir al-Akidy, who headed the ricin program, said, however, that Iraq had lacked the knowledge to turn ricin into a usable military weapon.

Iraqi scientists conducted research on ricin for two years, from 1989 to 1991, at the Salman Pak facility, according to the Journal.  While they had some success in producing small amounts of the toxin, which were refined and tested on animals, they were never successful in producing a highly concentrated form, al-Akidy said.

In 1991, a group of Iraqi scientists conducted a field test using ricin, the Journal reported.  The toxin was loaded into an artillery shell that was detonated near encaged small animals.  Once the shell exploded, those animals not killed by the blast were taken away for observation, according to two Iraqis involved in the experiment.  While three animals died over the next two months from suspected ricin poisoning, most showed no effect, according to the Journal.

Soon after the 1991 test, the ricin program was discontinued, al-Akidy said.  The ricin Iraq had been able to produce was either used up in testing or destroyed, he said.

“Ricin is very difficult to isolate,” al-Akidy said.  “What we made was very crude, not useful for military applications.  We threw everything away and that was the end,” he said (David Cloud, Wall Street Journal, July 18).

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U.S. Response:  Senate Passes $369 Billion Defense Spending Bill

The U.S. Senate passed a $368.6 billion defense spending bill last night, but the measure did not include any funding for military operations in Iraq or Afghanistan, the Associated Press reported (see GSN, June 27).

The bill falls $3.1 billion short of U.S. President George W. Bush’s request, but the president is likely to seek more money for operations in the Middle East from later bills.

The U.S. Defense Department spends $3.9 billion each month on operations in Iraq and about $950 million monthly on Afghanistan.

Senator Robert Byrd (D-W.Va.), the top ranking Democrat on the Appropriations Committee, said Bush was trying to mislead the public by not including “one thin dime in the budget” for Iraq or Afghanistan (Ken Guggenheim, Associated Press/Philadelphia Inquirer, July 18).

“We should put an end to this shell game of allowing the administration to hide the cost of occupation by using supplemental appropriations bills,” Byrd said (Carl Hulse, New York Times, July 18).

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