Deutch Sees Consequences in Failed Search for Arms
By Walter Pincus
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday 25 July 2003
Former CIA director John M. Deutch told Congress yesterday that failure
to find chemical or biological weapons in Iraq would represent "an
intelligence failure . . . of massive proportions."
"It means that . . . leaders of the American public based [their]
support for the most serious foreign policy judgments -- the decision to go
to war -- on an incorrect intelligence judgment," Deutch said during
testimony before the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence.
The impact, he said, would be felt "the next time military intervention
is judged necessary to combat the spread of weapons of mass destruction --
for example in North Korea -- there will be skepticism about the quality of
our intelligence."
The House panel, along with its Senate counterpart, is holding hearings
on the handling of intelligence on Iraq's weapons programs amid complaints
by Democrats that the administration may have exaggerated the threat posed
by the now-toppled government of president Saddam Hussein to justify war.
Deutch said "it seems increasingly likely" that Iraq may have not
continued its chemical and biological weapons programs after the 1991
Persian Gulf War. But Deutch and another former CIA director, R. James
Woolsey, told the panel that they expected U.S. forces eventually would turn
up evidence of chemical and biological weapons production, perhaps along
with stocks of chemical and biological agents or weapons.
Former United Nations weapons inspector David Kay, in Iraq to
coordinate the weapons search for CIA Director George J. Tenet, has been
interviewing lower-level Iraqi scientists and reviewing tons of documents.
He has been pulling together outlines of research and development programs
and references to chemical and biological precursors, according to senior
administration officials.
Kay and Army Maj. Gen. Keith Dayton, deputy director of the Defense
Intelligence Agency who runs the military side of the program, are scheduled
to return next week to brief the Pentagon and appear on Capitol Hill.
At his Senate Armed Services Committee reappointment hearing yesterday,
Gen. Richard B. Myers, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said that
in recent days U.S. teams had discovered artillery shells with a different
type of casings. "Whether or not there were chemicals or biological in
there, we don't know. We have to test that," Myers said.
In a related matter, Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) asked FBI
Director Robert S. Mueller III to investigate whether Bush administration
officials identified the wife of former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson as a
clandestine CIA officer, an allegation published on July 14 in a syndicated
column by Robert Novak.
Wilson, a critic of Bush's decision to invade Iraq, carried out a
CIA-generated mission to Niger in February 2002 to determine the validity of
intelligence reports that Iraq had sought uranium oxide from that country
for its nuclear program. Wilson's report back to the CIA cast strong doubt
about the reports.
In the column, Novak named Wilson's wife as an "agency operative on
weapons of mass destruction," adding: "Two senior administration officials
told me that Wilson's wife suggested sending him to Niger" to carry out the
investigation.
Schumer said the disclosure of the wife's name and CIA relationship
"was part of an apparent attempt to impugn Wilson's credibility and to
intimidate others from speaking out against the administration." He called
for the FBI to investigate Novak's source, because intentionally identifying
a covert CIA officer is a crime.
White House press secretary Scott McClellan has been asked twice this
week about charges the information was deliberately leaked to Novak, and
both times responded that "this is not the way this president or this White
House operates."
McClellan said he has "no idea" who the sources for the information
were, and added that "certainly no one in this White House would have been
given authority to take such a step."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A42718-2003Jul24.html
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