A former US intelligence official who served under the Bush
administration in the build-up to the Iraq war accused the White
House yesterday of lying about the threat posed by Saddam Hussein.
This administration has had a faith-based intelligence
attitude ... 'We know the answers - give us the intelligence
to support those answers'.
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Gregory Thielmann, served as a director in the State
Department's Bureau of
Intelligence |
The claims
came as the Bush administration was fighting to shore up its
credibility among a series of anonymous government leaks over its
distortion of US intelligence to manufacture a case against Saddam.
This was the first time an administration official has put his
name to specific claims. The whistleblower, Gregory Thielmann,
served as a director in the State Department's Bureau of
Intelligence until his retirement in September, and had access to
the classified reports which formed the basis for the US case
against Saddam, spelled out by President Bush and his aides.
Mr Thielmann said yesterday: "I believe the Bush administration
did not provide an accurate picture to the American people of the
military threat posed by Iraq."
He conceded that part of the problem lay with US intelligence,
but added: "Most of it lies with the way senior officials misused
the information they were provided."
As Democrats demanded a congressional enquiry, the administration
sharply changed tack. The defense secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, told
the Senate the US had not gone to war against Iraq because of fresh
evidence of weapons of mass destruction but because Washington saw
what evidence there was prior to 2001 "in a dramatic new light"
after September 11.
At a press conference yesterday, Mr Thielmann said that, as of
March 2003, when the US began military operations, "Iraq posed no
imminent threat to either its neighbors or to the United States".
In one example, Mr Thielmann said a fierce debate inside the
White House about the purpose of aluminum tubes bought by Baghdad
had been "cloaked in ambiguity".
While some CIA analysts thought they could be used for gas
centrifuges to enrich uranium, the best experts at the energy
department disagreed. But the national security advisor, Condoleezza
Rice, said publicly that they could only be used for centrifuges.
Mr Thielmann also said there was no significant pattern of
cooperation between Iraq and al-Qaida. He added: "This
administration has had a faith-based intelligence attitude ... 'We
know the answers - give us the intelligence to support those
answers'."
Responding to claims of deliberate distortions, Mr Bush accused
his critics of "trying to rewrite history" and insisted "there is no
doubt in my mind" that Saddam "was a threat to world peace".
© Guardian Newspapers Limited
2003
