NB: It will be recalled that even after Saddam showed up on TV a few hours after this strike, the CIA continued to maintain that he was dead. Another US strike followed some days later, and the CIA once again pronounced Saddam dead. Indeed, as late as July, George Tenet was telling people that Saddam was dead.
Inside the Ring By Bill Gertz and Rowan Scarborough http://www.washtimes.com/national/inring.htm CIA Fooled? Military officials tell us the CIA was snookered by an agent who fed false information on the location of Saddam Hussein on the opening night of the Iraq war. The bogus intelligence was passed on to the U.S. Central Command, which then launched Tomahawk cruise missile and Stealth fighter strikes on a small palace facility near Baghdad known as Dora Farms. The March 19 raid was the opening salvo in the war, which sought to kill the Iraqi dictator before the start of military operations in the hope that all opposition to the advancing U.S. and allied forces would collapse. One official tells us the bad intelligence came from "a bogus Humint source," intelligence-speak for a human agent. Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said two days after the bombing that "there's no question but that the strike on that leadership headquarters was successful. The question is: What was in there?" The intelligence stated that the facility had bunkers underneath but a later search failed to uncover bunkers or tunnels. CIA officials claim the intelligence that Saddam was in the palace was accurate, but the bombing raid missed hitting the Iraqi leader. The Dora Farms site in southern Baghdad now houses a major U.S. military base and is sealed off from the public.
