[Senate Hearing 110-232]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
S. Hrg. 110-232
BRIEFING ON THE DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE INSPECTOR GENERAL'S REPORT ON THE
ACTIVITIES OF THE OFFICE OF SPECIAL PLANS PRIOR TO THE WAR IN IRAQ
=======================================================================
HEARING
before the
COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES
UNITED STATES SENATE
ONE HUNDRED TENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
FEBRUARY 9, 2007
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Armed Services
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COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES
CARL LEVIN, Michigan, Chairman
EDWARD M. KENNEDY, Massachusetts JOHN McCAIN, Arizona
ROBERT C. BYRD, West Virginia JOHN WARNER, Virginia,
JOSEPH I. LIEBERMAN, Connecticut JAMES M. INHOFE, Oklahoma
JACK REED, Rhode Island JEFF SESSIONS, Alabama
DANIEL K. AKAKA, Hawaii SUSAN M. COLLINS, Maine
BILL NELSON, Florida JOHN ENSIGN, Nevada
E. BENJAMIN NELSON, Nebraska SAXBY CHAMBLISS, Georgia
EVAN BAYH, Indiana LINDSEY O. GRAHAM, South Carolina
HILLARY RODHAM CLINTON, New York ELIZABETH DOLE, North Carolina
MARK L. PRYOR, Arkansas JOHN CORNYN, Texas
JIM WEBB, Virginia JOHN THUNE, South Dakota
CLAIRE McCASKILL, Missouri MEL MARTINEZ, Florida
Richard D. DeBobes, Staff Director
Michael V. Kostiw, Replublican Staff Director
(ii)
C O N T E N T S
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CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OF WITNESSES
Briefing on the Department of Defense Inspector General's Report on the
Activities of the Office of Special Plans Prior to the War in Iraq
february 9, 2007
Page
Gimble, Thomas F., Acting Inspector General, Department of
Defense; Accompanied by Commander Tamara Harstad, USN, Office
of the Inspector General, Department of Defense................ 6
(iii)
BRIEFING ON THE DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE INSPECTOR GENERAL'S REPORT ON THE
ACTIVITIES OF THE OFFICE OF SPECIAL PLANS PRIOR TO THE WAR IN IRAQ
----------
FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 9, 2007
U.S. Senate,
Committee on Armed Services,
Washington, DC.
The committee met, pursuant to notice, at 9:34 a.m. in room
SR-222, Russell Senate Office Building, Senator Carl Levin
(chairman) presiding.
Committee members present: Senators Levin, Reed, Pryor,
Webb, McCaskill, Warner, Inhofe, Sessions, and Chambliss.
Committee staff members present: Richard D. DeBobes, staff
director; Leah C. Brewer, nominations and hearings clerk; and
John H. Quirk V, security clerk.
Majority staff members present: Richard W. Fieldhouse,
professional staff member; Peter K. Levine, general counsel;
and Michael J. McCord, professional staff member.
Minority staff members present: William M. Caniano,
professional staff member; Pablo E. Carrillo, minority
investigative counsel; Derek J. Maurer, minority counsel; David
M. Morriss, minority counsel; Lynn F. Rusten, professional
staff member; Robert M. Soofer, professional staff member; and
Sean G. Stackley, professional staff member.
Staff assistant present: David G. Collins.
Committee members' assistants present: Joseph Axelrad and
Sharon L. Waxman, assistants to Senator Kennedy; Elizabeth
King, assistant to Senator Reed; Elizabeth Brinkerhoff,
assistant to Senator Bayh; Lauren Henry, assistant to Senator
Pryor; Nichole M. Distefano, assistant to Senator McCaskill;
and Clyde A. Taylor IV, assistant to Senator Chambliss.
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR CARL LEVIN, CHAIRMAN
Chairman Levin. Good morning, everybody.
First let me welcome Tom Gimble, the acting Inspector
General (IG) of the Department of Defense (DOD). Thank you for
coming this morning to brief us on a matter which you have been
looking into for some time.
More than 2 years ago, in October 2004, I issued a report
on the alternative analysis of the Iraq-al Qaeda relationship
which was prepared and disseminated by the Office of the Under
Secretary of Defense for Policy under the leadership of Douglas
Feith. My report documented a number of actions taken by Under
Secretary Feith and his staff to produce an alternative
intelligence analysis of the alleged relationship between Iraq
and al Qaeda in order to help make the case to go to war
against Iraq.
My report concluded the following back in 2004, ``An
alternative intelligence assessment process was established in
the Office of Under Secretary for Policy, Douglas Feith, that
was predisposed to find a significant relationship between Iraq
and al Qaeda. His staff then conducted its own review of raw
intelligence reports, including reporting of dubious quality or
reliability. Drawing upon both reliable and unreliable
reporting, they arrived at an `alternative' interpretation of
the Iraq-al Qaeda relationship that was much stronger than that
assessed by the Intelligence Community and more in accord with
the policy views of senior officials in the administration.''
For example, the Feith office promoted the view that a
meeting allegedly took place in Prague in April 2001--5 months
before September 11--between the lead September 11 hijacker,
Mohammed Atta, and an Iraqi intelligence officer. The Feith
office took the position that this alleged meeting was `key'
evidence of Iraqi involvement in the September 11 attacks,
despite the fact that the Intelligence Community was skeptical
that the meeting ever happened, and reported its skepticism in
intelligence reports prepared for the highest officials in our
Government.
This morning the DOD IG will deliver both a classified
report and an unclassified executive summary on the pre-Iraqi
war activities of the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy.
The executive summary confirms what I alleged about the Feith
office 2 years ago. The IG's report this morning states, ``The
Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy developed,
produced, and then disseminated alternative intelligence
assessments on the Iraq and al Qaeda relationship which
included some conclusions that were inconsistent with the
consensus of the Intelligence Community to senior
decisionmakers.''
The IG also finds that the Office of the Under Secretary of
Defense for Policy, ``was inappropriately performing
intelligence activities of developing, producing, and
disseminating that should be performed by the Intelligence
Community.''
In response to some of my specific questions, the IG
confirms today the following:
One, ``the Feith office produced its own intelligence
analysis of the relationship between Iraq and al Qaeda
and presented its analysis to other offices in the
executive branch, including the Secretary of Defense
and the staffs of the National Security Council and the
Office of the Vice President.''
Two, ``the intelligence analysis produced by the
Feith office differed from the Intelligence Community
analysis on the relationship between Iraq and al
Qaeda.''
Three, ``the Feith office presented a briefing on the
Iraq-al Qaeda relationship to the White House on
September 2, 2002, unbeknownst to the Director of
Central Intelligence (DCI), containing information that
was different from the briefing presented to the DCI,
not vetted by the Intelligence Community, and that was
not supported by the available intelligence (for
example, concerning the alleged Atta meeting) without
providing the Intelligence Community notice of the
briefing or an opportunity to comment.''
Four, the briefing drew ``conclusions--or
`findings'--that were not supported by the available
intelligence, such as the conclusion `intelligence
indicates cooperation in all categories, mature
symbiotic relationship,' or that there were multiple
areas of cooperation and shared interest in and pursuit
of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and some
indications of possible Iraqi coordination with al
Qaeda specifically related to September 11.''
The IG finds that these ``inappropriate activities'' of the
Feith office were authorized by the Secretary of Defense, or
the Deputy Secretary of Defense.
These findings of the IG reinforce the conclusion that I
reached in my report more than 2 years ago, that the Office of
the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy generated its own
intelligence analysis, inconsistent with the views of the
Intelligence Community, in order to support the policy goals of
the administration.
Two recently confirmed senior administration officials have
publicly expressed their concerns about these activities of the
Feith office. On May 18, 2006, General Michael Hayden, now the
Director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), testified at
his nomination hearing that he was not comfortable with the
Feith office approach to intelligence analysis. Similarly, on
December 5, 2006, Robert Gates, now Secretary of Defense,
testified at his nomination hearing that he understands that
the Feith office was producing its own intelligence analysis
and, ``I have a problem with that.''
The IG found it unnecessary to make any recommendations in
his report because changed relationships between the DOD and
the Intelligence Community, in his words, ``significantly
reduced the opportunity for the inappropriate conduct of
intelligence activities outside of intelligence channels in the
future.''
Unfortunately, the damage has already been done. Senior
administration officials used the twisted intelligence produced
by the Feith office in making the case for the Iraq war. As I
concluded in my October 2004 report, ``Misleading or inaccurate
statements about the Iraq-al Qaeda relationship made by senior
administration officials were not supported by the Intelligence
Community analyses, but more closely reflected the Feith policy
office views.'' These assessments included, among others,
allegations by the President that Iraq was an ally of al Qaeda,
assertions by National Security Adviser Rice and others that
Iraq, ``had provided training in WMD to al Qaeda,'' and
continued representations by Vice President Cheney that
Mohammed Atta may have met with an Iraqi intelligence officer
before the September 11 attacks when the CIA did not believe
the meeting took place.
In November 2003, a top secret report of the Feith office
was leaked to the Weekly Standard. Shortly thereafter, Vice
President Cheney said publicly that the article in the Weekly
Standard was the ``best source'' of information about the
relationship between Iraq and al Qaeda.
The bottom line is that intelligence relating to the Iraq-
al Qaeda relationship was manipulated by high-ranking officials
in the DOD to support the administration's decision to invade
Iraq when the intelligence assessments of the professional
analysts of the Intelligence Community did not provide the
desired compelling case. The IG's report is a devastating
condemnation of inappropriate activities by the DOD policy
office that helped take this Nation to war.
I want to thank the IG for his report and completing this
review, and his independence. I am concerned, however, that
only a two-page executive summary of the IG's report is
available in unclassified form, and I plan to work with the IG
and others to obtain declassification of this report.
Senator Inhofe.
Senator Inhofe. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
First of all, you can read the same report and come up with
different conclusions, which is quite obvious and will be
obvious. I think that we of course want to hear from Mr. Gimble
on the report so we can come to our own conclusions. I do not
think in any way that his report could be interpreted as a
devastating condemnation, as you point out, Mr. Chairman.
I have talked to the chairman of the Senate Select
Committee on Intelligence (SSCI), Senator Pat Roberts, on
numerous occasions about this and they have gone over it and
over it and over it. He has had the SSCI, which is bipartisan,
the bipartisan WMD Committee by Silverman, and our former
colleague Chuck Robb separately examine these matters in
detail. Each concluded unanimously that no intelligence
analysts were pressured.
The SSCI also found that there was no basis for any
allegations that had been made against the Under Secretary.
Senator Roberts wrote the DOD IG, he was the first one to make
this request and he did so for this reason. This is his quote
now: ``The committee is concerned about persistent and to date
unsubstantiated allegations that there was something unlawful
or improper about the activities of the Office of Special Plans
with the Office of the Under Secretary. I have not discovered
any credible evidence or unlawful or improper activity and yet
the allegations persist.''
In an attempt to stop these allegations once and for all,
he had made the request to the IG's office.
Now, I would have to say also, Mr. Chairman, that these
matters have been scrutinized at least three times in the last
3 years by bipartisan, nonpartisan groups. The SSCI unanimously
reported that it found that this process, the policymakers'
probing questions, actually improved the CIA's process. In
other words, what they were doing in getting into this thing,
and bringing these issues up, caused the Intelligence Community
to go back and relook, and to reexamine, and to do a better job
than they were going to do otherwise.
Some intelligence analysts even told the committee that
policymakers' questions had--and I am quoting now--``questions
had forced them to go back and review the intelligence
reporting,'' and that during this exercise they came across
information that they had overlooked in the initial readings.
In other words, they actually provided a service by bringing
these things up.
As I mentioned to you, Mr. Chairman, I will be leaving in
20 minutes to catch a plane, so I will not be bothering you too
long here. Thank you very much.
Chairman Levin. Thank you very much, Senator Inhofe.
We will make part of the record at this time the SSCI's
decision that the Feith investigation would be left to phase
two. They have not completed their investigation or yet
undertaken their investigation of the Doug Feith operation
because by its own decision that was left to a future
investigation called phase two. We will make that decision of
the SSCI part of the record.
[The information referred to follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Chairman Levin. Mr. Gimble.
STATEMENT OF THOMAS F. GIMBLE, ACTING INSPECTOR GENERAL,
DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE; ACCOMPANIED BY COMMANDER TAMARA HARSTAD,
USN, OFFICE OF THE INSPECTOR GENERAL, DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE
Mr. Gimble. Mr. Chairman, thank you for the opportunity to
come before you today to brief the results of our review.
On September 9, 2005, Senator Pat Roberts, chairman of the
Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, requested that my
office review whether the Office of Special Plans (OSP) ``at
any time conducted unauthorized, unlawful, or inappropriate
intelligence activities.'' Later that month on September 22,
2005, Mr. Chairman, you requested that my office also review
the activities of the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense
for Policy, including the Policy Counterterrorism Evaluation
Group (PCTEG) and the Policy Support Office, to determine
whether any of their activities were either inappropriate or
improper, and if so, provide recommendations for remedial
action, and also you provided a list of 10 questions.
Our objective in this review was to determine whether the
Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy and
activities of any of the former OSP or PCTEG organizations at
any time conducted unauthorized, unlawful, or inappropriate
intelligence activities from the time of 2001 through June
2003.
We performed this review from November 2005 through
November 2006 in accordance with the ``quality Standards for
Federal Offices of Inspectors General.'' To achieve the
objective, we interviewed 72 current or former personnel. We
reviewed unclassified and classified documentation produced and
available from September 2001 through June 2003. That included
DOD directives, testimony, guidance, procedures, reports,
studies, briefings, message traffic, e-mails, firsthand
accounts, memoranda, and other official data on pre-war
intelligence and the specific areas of inquiry posed by
Congress.
We assessed information from the SSCI and documents also
from the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy.
We found that the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense
for Policy developed, produced, and then disseminated
alternative intelligence assessments on Iraq and al Qaeda
relations, which included conclusions that were inconsistent
with the consensus of the Intelligence Community, and these
were presented to senior decisionmakers.
While such actions are not illegal or unauthorized, the
actions in our opinion were inappropriate, given that all the
products did not clearly show the variance with the consensus
of the Intelligence Community and in some cases were shown as
intelligence products. The condition occurred because the role
of the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy was
expanded from the mission of doing defense policy to analyzing
and disseminating alternative intelligence. As a result, the
office did not provide the ``most accurate analysis of
intelligence'' to the senior decisionmakers.
I would at this point like to just briefly, in an
unclassified version, give a response to the 10 questions that
you proposed to us, the first being: Did the Office of Under
Secretary Feith produce its own intelligence analysis of the
relationship between Iraq and al Qaeda and present its analysis
to other offices in the executive branch, including the Office
of the Secretary of Defense (OSD), and the staffs of the
National Security Council and the Office of the Vice President?
Yes. In our report we discussed that members of Under Secretary
of Defense for Policy produced a briefing on terrorism based on
intelligence reports and provided such report to the executive
branch.
The second question: Did the intelligence analysis produced
by Under Secretary Feith's office differ from the Intelligence
Community analysis on the relationship between Iraq and al
Qaeda? Yes. The Under Secretary's office analysis included some
conclusions that differed from those of the Intelligence
Community.
The third question was: Was the alternative OSD-Policy
intelligence analysis supported by underlying intelligence? We
concluded: Partially. Alternative intelligence analyses that
the policy office produced were not fully supported by
underlying intelligence.
The fourth question: Did Under Secretary Feith send CIA
Originator Controlled (ORCON) material to the SSCI in October
2003 without CIA approval to release it, even though such
approval is required by Executive order? Yes. However, both CIA
and the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy believed that CIA
had approved the ORCON material before sending it to the SSCI
in October 2003.
The fifth question: Did Secretary Feith mislead Congress
when he sent several congressional committees in January 2004
revised ORCON materials that were represented as containing
CIA's requested changes to the October 2003 document, but did
not fully and accurately reflect CIA's requested changes? No,
the Under Secretary did not mislead Congress when he sent the
revised ORCON material to the congressional committees in
January 2004.
The sixth question was: Did the Office of the Under
Secretary of Defense prepare and present briefing charts
concerning the relationship between Iraq and al Qaeda that went
beyond available intelligence by asserting that an alleged
meeting between lead September 11 hijacker Mohammed Atta and
the Iraqi intelligence officer in Prague in April 2001 was a
``known contact?'' Yes, the policy office produced a briefing
``Assessing the Relationship between Iraq and al Qaeda,'' in
which one slide discussed the alleged meeting in Prague between
Mohammed and the Iraqi intelligence officer as a ``known
contact.''
The seventh question: Did the staff of the Under Secretary
present a briefing on the al Qaeda relationship to the White
House in September 2002 unbeknownst to the DCI, containing
information that was different from the briefing presented to
the DCI, not vetted by the Intelligence Community, and that was
not supported by available intelligence for example, the
alleged Atta meeting, without providing the Intelligence
Community notice of the briefing or an opportunity to comment?
Yes. The Under Secretary presented three different versions of
the same briefing, of which some of the information was
supported by available intelligence, to the Secretary of
Defense, to the DCI, the Deputy National Security Adviser, and
the Chief of Staff of the Office of the Vice President.
The eighth question: Did the staff of the Under Secretary
of Defense for Policy undercut the Intelligence Community in
its briefing to the White House staff with a slide that said
there were ``fundamental problems'' with the way the
Intelligence Community was assessing information concerning the
relationship between Iraq and al Qaeda and inaccurately
suggesting that the Intelligence Community was requiring legal
evidence to support a finding, while not providing the
Intelligence Community a notice of the briefing or an
opportunity to comment? Yes, we believe that the slide
undercuts the Intelligence Community by indicating to the
recipient of the briefing that there were fundamental problems
with the way that the Intelligence Community was assessing the
information.
The ninth question you proposed was: Did the Office of the
Under Secretary of Defense for Policy briefing to the White
House draw conclusions, or ``findings'' that were not supported
by available intelligence, such as that the ``intelligence
indicates cooperation in all categories, a mature symbiotic
relationship,'' or that there were ``multiple areas of
cooperation,'' shared interests, and pursuit of WMD, and some
indications of possible Iraqi coordination with al Qaeda
specifically related to September 11? Yes, the briefing did
draw conclusions that were not fully supported by available
intelligence.
The final question was: Did the Under Secretary of Defense
for Policy staff prepare and did Under Secretary Feith send to
the Secretary of Defense and the Deputy Secretary of Defense a
written critique of a report titled ``Iraq and al Qaeda,
Interpreting a Murky Relationship'' that was prepared by the
DCI Counterterrorism Center, stating that the ``CIA's
interpretation ought to be ignored,'' without providing CIA
notice or opportunity to respond? Yes. However, there is no
requirement to provide an internal OSD document to CIA for
their review.
That concludes my statement and I would, subject to
classification, be willing to entertain any questions that I
could.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Gimble follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Chairman Levin. Thank you, Mr. Gimble.
We will start with 6-minute rounds and we will have more
than one round, but this is to accommodate a number of members
who I believe have to leave immediately.
Mr. Gimble, in my letter of September 2005 I asked you to
look into whether the alternative intelligence assessments of
the Feith office differed from the Intelligence Community
analysis which was provided to the Office of the Vice President
and to the National Security Council and whether it differed on
the relationship between Iraq and al Qaeda.
Your report says that it did differ and I want to ask you
about a few specifics. Did the Intelligence Community agree
with the following Feith conclusions: one, that it was known
that Mohammed Atta, the lead hijacker, and an Iraq intelligence
agency met in Prague in April 2001?
Mr. Gimble. There was a difference. The Intelligence
Community thought that it was not a verifiable meeting and
subsequently it was proven that it did not occur. But prior to
that there were questions as to whether it did or did not. It
was not as presented.
Chairman Levin. It was not a known contact?
Mr. Gimble. Right.
Chairman Levin. Did the Intelligence Community agree with
the following Feith conclusion: that the relationship between
Iraq and al Qaeda was a mature, symbiotic relationship?
Mr. Gimble. It did conclude that.
Chairman Levin. Sorry?
Mr. Gimble. It did conclude that.
Chairman Levin. The Intelligence Community did agree with
that or did not?
Mr. Gimble. It did not agree with that.
Chairman Levin. Did the Intelligence Community agree with
the following Feith conclusion: that intelligence indicates
cooperation in all categories between Iraq and al Qaeda? Did
they agree?
Mr. Gimble. Did the Intelligence Community agree? No, they
did not.
Chairman Levin. Did the Intelligence Community agree that
Iraq and al Qaeda had a shared interest in pursuit of WMD?
Mr. Gimble. The answer is no.
Chairman Levin. The answer is no, you said?
Mr. Gimble. Correct.
Chairman Levin. So on four critical issues your report has
found that the Intelligence Community did not agree with the
Feith finding in its alternative intelligence assessment
presented to the highest policymakers in this country, that it
was known that Atta--the lead hijacker--met with Iraqi
intelligence agency, that there was a symbiotic relationship
between Iraq and al Qaeda, that intelligence indicates
cooperation in all categories between Iraq and al Qaeda, that
Iraq and al Qaeda had a shared interest in pursuit of WMD.
I cannot think of a much more devastating commentary on an
analysis which was presented to the highest levels of this
government, than what you have found. I will stand by the
statement that this is devastating, because without the
knowledge of the Intelligence Community we have an alternative
intelligence analysis being presented on war or no-war issues,
whether or not the people who attacked us on September 11 had a
connection to Saddam Hussein.
These issues are as critical as any issues I have ever seen
in the Intelligence Community. These issues and these
assessments that were provided to the highest level
policymakers backed a decision to go to war. What is more
important than that, I cannot think of anything. What is more
devastating than a commentary that we had this second route of
intelligence assessments going to the Vice President of the
United States and the National Security Council? What
commentary can be more essential to the life of this Nation and
to our citizens than that? I cannot think of many things.
Then when you track the statements made by the
policymakers, which made out a greater connection between al
Qaeda and Saddam Hussein than was supported by the Intelligence
Community, and when the American people were told that there
was a likely meeting between the lead hijacker and Iraqi secret
service in Prague, when the Intelligence Community did not
believe that meeting took place, had grave doubts that that
meeting took place and always did, this is as serious a matter
I believe as this committee has considered.
I know the SSCI has before it yet undone a phase two
investigation of the operations of the Feith office. That phase
two investigation by the SSCI lies ahead of it. But these
matters it seems to me are of the utmost seriousness to this
Nation and we are very, very grateful for your decision to look
into these and to give us your own independent assessment.
Now, I said there was to be a 6-minute round. I do not want
to overdo it because I know Senator Inhofe has to leave. So,
Senator Inhofe.
Senator Inhofe. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Gimble, as I understand it the routing that took place
of the information that Secretary Feith had went from him to
Wolfowitz and Rumsfeld at DOD, and it went from them to Tenet
and Jacoby, the DCI and Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), and
then it went on to Hadley; is this the routing that you believe
took place?
Mr. Gimble. Yes, sir. If you would like some dates I can
probably provide some of that.
Senator Inhofe. All right. If this routing, instead of
going from Feith to DOD and then to DCI, DIA, if it had gone to
DCI, DIA first, then to DOD, and then to Hadley, would that
have been more appropriate?
Mr. Gimble. Let me explain what happened based on the
documentation that we see. There was a tasking put out in
January 2002 from the Deputy Secretary to Under Secretary Feith
to assess the links between al Qaeda and Iraq. Then the next
point where there was a decision point was in July 25, 2002,
there was a group of detailees in the policy shop, intelligence
analysts that were detailed over, that compiled a position
paper that was later translated into a briefing.
That briefing was on August 8 presented to the Secretary
and at that time, he gave direction to give it to DCI Tenet.
But in the timeframe of August 9 through 14, the Intelligence
Community players that included DIA, CIA, and a number of other
Intelligence Community people, looked at that July 25 memo and
critiqued it and they had significant disagreement. There was
some agreement, but there was significant disagreement. There
was like 26 points.
Essentially, they disagreed with more than 50 percent of it
and either agreed or partially agreed with the remainder. I can
get into that in the closed session.
[Additional information provided for the record follows:]
Clarification on the July 25, 2002 OUSD(P) ``Iraq and al Qaeda:
Making the Case'' memorandum.
On July 25, 2002 a DIA analyst detailed to OUSD(P) wrote a paper
titled, ``Iraq and al Qaeda: Making the Case,'' in which she outlined
an intelligence finding that Iraq was supporting al Qaeda's terrorist
activities. On August 14, 2002, a senior analyst from the DIA's JITF-CT
addressed every point (there were 26) asserted in the memorandum. We
found that of the 26 points, DIA disagreed with more than half.
Senator Inhofe. All right. That is not necessary. I am just
trying to get----
Mr. Gimble. Here is the other part of the flow of the
information. When they had the August 15 briefing with the DCI,
there was reported in some cases where the DCI agreed with the
thing and said this is a useful presentation, and he did, in
fact, do that. He said it was useful. In our interviews with
him, he later said that he only said that it was useful because
he did not agree with it and he was just trying to nicely end
the meeting.
As a result of that meeting, he called together all the
analysts, which on August 20, the Intelligence Community and
the policy group all met together and they debated the
agreements and disagreements. What happened at that roundtable
was the CIA did do some changes on their report, some minor
changes as I understand it. The other part of it was that they
offered to footnote those disagreements. Our issue in our
report is, you can have different opinions, but you need, if
there are differences you should--if you do not vet them, you
should at least identify them to the decisionmakers.
Then the next thing was that, after that they chose not to
footnote, the policy group went and did the final briefing to
the National Security Deputy Advisor of the National Security
Council, and they did not make the changes that were talked
about in that August 20 meeting.
So that is my view of the flow of information.
[Additional information provided for the record follows:]
Clarification on OUSD(P) footnoting Intelligence Community (IC)
products.
The August 20, 2002, IC/OUSD(P) meeting was a workshop to discuss a
common assessment for a CIA report discussing Iraq and terrorism.
Members from the OUSD(P) staff declined to footnote this product
because they knew it was inappropriate for OUSD(P) to footnote an IC
product. The DIA detailee acknowledged that analysts from her parent
agency were in attendance at this meeting and were the appropriate
people to discuss and comment on terrorism issues from DIA's point of
view.
Senator Inhofe. All right. As I read this material, and I
have been around long enough to recognize this when I see it, I
see a lot of turf battle taking place here. On July 9, 2004,
Senator Rockefeller insinuated that Mr. Feith may have been
executing intelligence activities which are not lawful. He said
that they were not lawful.
Did you have any evidence that Mr. Feith did anything
illegal?
Mr. Gimble. We had no evidence that he did anything
illegal, nor did he do anything that was not authorized.
Senator Inhofe. That was in your report.
Real quickly, my feeling in my opening statement as I
stated is that these things have been scrutinized many, many
times over the past few years. But the interesting thing that I
found is that the SSCI unanimously reported that it found that
the process, the policymakers' probing questions, actually
improved the CIA's process.
Now, what they are saying is that there are some things
that were improved as a result of being forced to go back and
look as a result of, whether this is improper or proper, the
activities of Mr. Feith. Do you think that that individual is
right when he makes that statement?
Mr. Gimble. I think the statement is right in this respect,
I think they did go back but they did not necessarily change
the process. They went back and looked at some of the
information.
Senator Inhofe. That they would not have otherwise looked
at perhaps?
Mr. Gimble. Probably not. They did make some adjustments,
and I understand those adjustments were minor, but I have no
opinion on that.
Senator Inhofe. It says some analysts even told the
committee that the policymakers' questions had forced them to
go back and review the intelligence reporting, and that during
this exercise they came across information that they had
overlooked in the initial findings. Is that what you are saying
also?
Mr. Gimble. I am saying that they went back--it did cause
them to go back and look, as I understand, and there were some
adjustments made.
Senator Inhofe. Your report says that this was not illegal,
that in fact it is rather benign, the way it characterized the
actions of Mr. Feith. Would you say that his actions were--or
that your report is a devastating condemnation against
Secretary Feith?
Mr. Gimble. My report is, what I view it as is a flat,
fact-based report of the events that occurred. I do not have an
opinion as to whether it is devastating or not devastating.
Senator Inhofe. Thank you, Mr. Gimble.
Thank you very much.
Chairman Levin. Thank you very much, Senator Inhofe.
Senator Webb.
Senator Webb. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you, Mr.
Gimble, for being here, and also for your service, not only in
the Pentagon but in Vietnam. I think it should be noted you
were wounded as a soldier in Vietnam. I have a great respect
for your service.
I would like to strongly associate myself with the comments
of the chairman. I think this is an issue that is vitally
important, not only in retrospect, but also today in terms of
how it relates to the health of our society and the functioning
of our government. I was one of those many people outside
government as this process was going on, but as someone who had
5 years in the Pentagon and watching these assessments come
out, I and a number of people were actively skeptical and
troubled by some of the information that was coming out.
When you indicate in here that these actions were not
illegal or unauthorized--and I want to get to the
``unauthorized'' part in a minute--but that were inappropriate,
you made the point here this morning--I am going to quote you--
as saying that in some cases they were shown as ``intelligence
products.'' That seems to be your demarcation on the
appropriateness of the level.
I would say that was extremely damaging, not only to the
process of government but to the public's understanding of the
stakes in the invasion of Iraq, and that is a misunderstanding
that persists to this day and affects the debates that are
going on right now. So, I thoroughly agree with the chairman
here that this is something that we need to continue to look at
in terms of accountability and the health of the process.
I was reading through lists of follow-on questions and
answers. If the chairman does not mind, these came from the
chairman, but there are a couple here that I would like to ask
you a question about. The first is, when we talk about the
notion of being authorized or unauthorized, your answer here
was that, in terms of these actions being unauthorized, is that
you said in your written answer: ``Many of the activities were
authorized by the Secretary or Deputy Secretary. Therefore the
activities were not unauthorized.''
What does that mean for the ones that were not authorized
by the Secretary or Deputy Secretary?
Mr. Gimble. The ones that we looked at, we concluded that
they were authorized. It was a broad, ``go forward and do an
alternate intelligence assessment,'' even though they did not
use that term. We thought the Secretary and the Deputy
Secretary had the authority under DOD Directive 51-11.1, other
duties as assigned, essentially.
If you go back to the January 22 memorandum that went from
Dr. Wolfowitz to Under Secretary Feith, it was interesting to
us that, if you do analyzing and establishing links, that in
our opinion is an intelligence activity. It was interesting
that that was directed to the policy shop and not back through
either, at the time, Assistant Secretary of Defense for
Command, Control, Communication, and Intelligence (C\3\I),
which is the intelligence group, or through the Director of
Intelligence in DIA. It went down a policy channel. It was
taken out of the intelligence channels, and it appeared to be
for us an alternative intelligence assessment.
We think that was authorized, we think it is legal. The
issue for us, the reason we said it was inappropriate, was we
think when you have differing views of unvetted information it
is the responsibility of the presenter to present both sides of
it. That's where we come with our determination that this was
inappropriate.
Senator Webb. So just so I can understand this, you are
saying that there were activities that had not been authorized
by the Secretary or Deputy Secretary, but in your view had been
authorized by other portions of the----
Mr. Gimble. No, sir. We think that what they did was
authorized by the Department.
Senator Webb. All?
Mr. Gimble. I am not aware of any offhand. The major
thrust, it was all authorized. There may be one or two that the
Secretary did not, or Deputy Secretary----
Senator Webb. In your answer you say ``many'' rather than
``all.''
Mr. Gimble. I really think that is an imprecise answer on
my part in the written report.
Senator Webb. Okay. You also at another place here,
question 4, state that there were a number of documents--being
loyal to my chairman here--that were denied access, and that
three of these documents were relevant to the review, but none
were relevant to the finding. But your finding essentially
seems to say that the overall problem has been fixed with the
new sophistication in the process.
But how were they relevant to the review and not to the
finding?
Mr. Gimble. There were 58 documents that were in question.
We had access to all 58 documents. When we look at the specific
question that we are dealing with on this particular report, 55
of them did not deal with these issues. Three of them did deal
with them, but they were kind of background, related, but at
the end of the day they did not have any impact on our
assessment or finding.
Senator Webb. But would they have an impact, in your view,
on the public's understanding of how we got into this?
Mr. Gimble. No, sir, I do not believe they would. Otherwise
we would have incorporated the results of them into our review.
Senator Webb. I thank you.
Chairman Levin. Thank you, Senator Webb.
Senator Chambliss.
Senator Chambliss. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Let me just say, after listening to everything I have heard
this morning, I am trying to figure out why we are here. We are
beating this horse one more time.
But let me see if I can, Mr. Gimble, get the record
straight. Did the OSP at the DOD gather any intelligence?
Mr. Gimble. They had access to intelligence databases and--
--
Senator Chambliss. Did they gather any intelligence?
Mr. Gimble. You mean like a source----
Senator Chambliss. Mr. Gimble, did they gather any
intelligence? It is a simple question.
Mr. Gimble. No, they did not go out and do first source
gathering.
Senator Chambliss. So they did not gather intelligence.
They analyzed intelligence that had been gathered by the CIA,
the DIA, our Intelligence Community; is that correct?
Mr. Gimble. That is correct.
Senator Chambliss. All right. Now, there were a lot of
people doing analysis of that information, is that correct,
within the CIA, within the DIA, and the other aspects of the
Intelligence Community?
Mr. Gimble. Yes, sir.
Senator Chambliss. Part of the information that was
obtained by the Intelligence Community was a report with
respect to contact between Atta and the al Qaeda, is that
correct?
Mr. Gimble. Correct.
Senator Chambliss. Now, where did that come from?
Mr. Gimble. I need to go back and do that in closed
session. That would be classified. If we could defer that I
would be more than happy to answer.
Chairman Levin. We will have a closed session immediately
after this.
Senator Chambliss. I do not believe that is classified. It
has been pretty public that it came from the Czech service. Is
that correct?
Mr. Gimble. That is one place, yes.
Senator Chambliss. That is one place? So it came from more
than one place?
Mr. Gimble. It came from the Czech service. Basically, the
position of the Intelligence Community is it was not verifiable
and there was some question about the validity of the source.
Senator Chambliss. There was a question. There was a
question in the analysis as to whether it was right or not, is
that not correct?
Mr. Gimble. Yes.
Senator Chambliss. Some people in the Intelligence
Community thought it was correct, others thought it was
incorrect?
Mr. Gimble. The consensus----
Senator Chambliss. Okay.
Chairman Levin. Excuse me. What was the answer?
Mr. Gimble. The consensus of the Intelligence Community
thought it was not verifiable.
Senator Chambliss. The Czech service was pretty confident
about their source, were they not?
Mr. Gimble. They were.
Senator Chambliss. Can you tell me when the Czech service
finally said that they thought their source was not correct?
Mr. Gimble. 2006.
Senator Chambliss. January 2006. So some, I do not know, 6
years after the fact. My point being that the Intelligence
Community is not exact science. There are differences of
opinion. In our report that the SSCI made, of which Senator
Levin was a member of at the same point in time that I was, we
had what I think is a correct conclusion that Senator Levin and
I agreed on that the intelligence provided by the Intelligence
Community to policymakers and decision makers pre the conflict
in Iraq was flawed, and one of the reasons it was flawed is
because there were folks at the State Department who had access
to information that was different from the information that the
CIA had and the DIA had. Do you recall that?
Mr. Gimble. Not the State Department----
Senator Chambliss. Suffice it to say that is correct. It is
in the report. There was a disagreement within the Intelligence
Community as to what the reliability of the sources were. I'll
mention Curveball because everybody has read about Curveball
now, and that source at the end of the day turned out to be
unreliable. But at the time the information was taken by the
CIA they thought he was reliable, but it turns out he was
unreliable. So again my point is that this is not an exact
science.
Now, the IG report that you issued cites as evidence
Senator Levin's ``Report of an Inquiry into the Alternative
Analysis of the Issue of Iraq-al Qaeda Relationship.'' That
report claims that administration officials made statements
which did not accurately reflect the intelligence assessments
that were provided by the Intelligence Community.
Now, the community provided to the SSCI over 40,000
intelligence assessments on Iraq from the Intelligence
Community which support the administration's statements. Did
you examine the full scope of the Intelligence Community
documents to enable you to conclude that public statements made
included information which did not come from the Intelligence
Community?
Mr. Gimble. What our issue was, and I think we are getting
a little off point here, is that the briefing was--for example,
the meeting you are talking about was a briefing that was
provided without the caveats. In other words, all we are saying
is, we do not have a conclusion which side is right or which is
wrong. What we are concluding is if you have disagreements,
significant disagreements, it is the responsibility of the
presenter to make those aware, make the people they are
presenting to aware of those disagreements.
Senator Chambliss. Which is exactly the point that Senator
Levin and I made in our report of the intelligence leading up
to the conflict in Iraq.
Now, the most famous comment that came out of the issue of
WMD in Iraq was ``slam-dunk.'' Director Tenet, when asked by
the President as to whether or not there were WMD in Iraq, he
said it is a slam-dunk. Do you recall that?
Mr. Gimble. I saw that on TV, yes.
Senator Chambliss. Is there anything in your investigation
that indicates that statement by Director Tenet was made based
upon information obtained from Mr. Feith?
Mr. Gimble. We did not look at that, WMD. We looked at the
relationship between Iraq and al Qaeda.
Senator Chambliss. At the time that Mr. Feith made his
investigation and gave a briefing, who did he give the briefing
to first?
Mr. Gimble. The first briefing of the series of three was
to the Secretary and Deputy Secretary. As I was saying earlier,
the Secretary told them to go brief the DCI, which they did,
and then----
Senator Chambliss. Wait a minute. He briefed the Secretary
of Defense and the Secretary of Defense said: This is
interesting; go brief George Tenet, the head of the CIA.
Mr. Gimble. Correct.
Senator Chambliss. Did he go brief George Tenet?
Mr. Gimble. He went and briefed--yes, he did.
Senator Chambliss. Did Director Tenet make any comment
after the briefing?
Mr. Gimble. The comment that we had in the subsequent
interview was that he told them, he dismissed the meeting
saying, this is useful, and that he immediately got back the
intelligence group, to include Admiral Jacoby, and put together
the meeting that came up on August 20, to get the analysts
together to vet out the differences or disagreements. He
thought his position and the CIA's position was that they did
not agree with the Under Secretary's position.
Senator Chambliss. So once again we had a disagreement in
the community over issues of interest, is that correct?
Mr. Gimble. That is correct.
[Additional information provided for the record follows:]
OUSD (Policy) is not a member of the Intelligence Community; it is
a consumer.
Senator Chambliss. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Levin. Thank you, Senator Chambliss.
Senator Reed.
Senator Reed. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
The opinion of the Intelligence Community in the fall of
2002 with respect to the meeting, the alleged meeting, with
Atta in Prague was that it was not substantiated; is that fair
to say?
Mr. Gimble. That is correct.
Senator Reed. Mr. Feith was aware of that?
Mr. Gimble. They were aware of that.
Senator Reed. His conclusion in his briefing was that this
was known, it was a fact; is that correct?
Mr. Gimble. That is correct.
Senator Reed. So that was a significant departure from the
conclusion of the Intelligence Community, deliberately made by
Secretary Feith?
Mr. Gimble. It was a difference between the consensus
opinion of the Intelligence Community.
Senator Reed. Now, in the series of briefings that Mr.
Faith gave, did he provide identical information at every
briefing?
Mr. Gimble. There were some variations of the briefing.
Senator Reed. What are the most significant variations?
Mr. Gimble. Let me get that, capture this correctly.
Senator Reed. Can you please bring the microphone up?
Mr. Gimble. Let me get this. I need to make sure what is
not classified. [Pause.]
Senator, this is marked ``SECRET.'' I understand the----
Senator Reed. I do not want to go into SECRET matters here
because that is inappropriate. But in a general sense, he
changed the briefing for his audience; is that correct?
Mr. Gimble. Yes, he did.
Chairman Levin. Sorry?
Senator Reed. He changed the briefing for his audience?
Mr. Gimble. There were adjustments made depending on the
audience.
Senator Reed. Why would he do that? Why would he change
significant--without going into details, this is not just
paragraph and grammatical changes. Why would he make changes
based on the audience?
Mr. Gimble. I do not think I am in a position to make a
comment on why he would do what he did.
Senator Reed. Did you interview Mr. Feith under oath?
Mr. Gimble. We interviewed Mr. Feith. It was not under
oath.
Senator Reed. Why would you not interview him under oath?
Mr. Gimble. Because this was a review, not an
investigation. We typically do not, unless we are doing either
an administrative or criminal investigations, we typically do
not swear people in.
Senator Reed. So, Mr. Feith has never under oath responded
to any of these questions. You specifically have not asked him
why he would change briefings for different audiences; is that
correct?
Mr. Gimble. Not under oath.
Senator Reed. Not under oath. Did you ask him in terms of
an interview, why he changed his briefing?
Mr. Gimble. One of the changes was they took a slide out of
the briefing to the DCI, to Mr. Tenet, because it was critical
of the intelligence process, and according to Secretary Feith,
that is the reason they took it out.
Senator Reed. Now, some of my colleagues have been talking
about improving the process. How do you improve the process
when you have a chance to talk to the DCI and you specifically
do not criticize what he is doing?
Mr. Gimble. Again, I think the process is pretty good.
There is a vetting. There is a process in place by regulation,
when you have differences of opinion you stand the analysts--
stand those interpretations of their positions up and they
either stand or fall on their own merit. If you still have
significant disagreements at the end of that, it is that
responsibility, I think, to identify those and document them.
That is actually what was not done in this case.
Senator Reed. I understand, and you might have more
specificity, that Mr. Feith briefed the White House in 2002,
but Director Tenet was not aware of that briefing until
approximately 2 years later; is that correct?
Mr. Gimble. That is my understanding.
Senator Reed. That is your understanding. So, when Mr.
Feith briefs the DCI, my presumption--and your advice would be
appreciated--is that they would consider this as an ongoing
process of trying to reconcile different viewpoints on
intelligence. But unbeknownst to the DCI, a briefing which he
might agree with or disagree with has already been given to the
White House in a manner that suggests it is authoritative and
accurate. Is that a fair assessment?
Mr. Gimble. Let me clarify a couple of points in this.
First of all, the briefing that was done at the National
Security Council that was attended by the chief of staff of the
Vice President; Secretary Feith was not present at that
briefing. It was staff that gave that briefing. From looking at
the charts, it appears that it was briefed, and I do not know
the discussion that went on, but it was briefed and it was
authoritative, in my view, as ``these are the facts.''
Senator Reed. Your subsequent conclusion suggested that
some of those facts were in serious doubt at that time?
Mr. Gimble. The Intelligence Community had some serious
issues with some of the facts.
Again, I need to just remind everyone, we did not make an
assessment on the validity of either side of this issue. We are
just merely saying that there was a discrepancy out there and
we do not think it was reconciled and presented, both sides of
it, as the briefings went on.
Senator Reed. I must say I am very troubled about this. I
think everyone around here understands that intelligence is
sometimes an art, not a science. But when you change the
picture for your audience, it is deeply suspicious of your
motives and your intentions.
Thank you.
Chairman Levin. Thank you, Senator Reed.
Senator Sessions.
Senator Sessions. I am not a part of the Intelligence
Community and have not tried to master this brouhaha that has
been going on, blame somebody about all our intelligence
issues, and have not tried to fully master it. I know my
feeling about the Iraq war was based on my belief that Iraq was
violating the resolutions of the United Nations, the agreements
they made after the first Iraq war, and that they were
breaching the embargo. We were flying aircraft over them and
dropping bombs on them, they were shooting missiles at us, on a
weekly, almost daily basis. We either had to get that brought
to a conclusion or not. I think my remarks at the time indicate
that that was my primary concern, and I think it was the main
concern of our foreign policy.
But these were matters of importance. So I ask, Mr. Gimble,
is it not true that some staffers in Mr. Feith's shop found
some information in the intelligence gathered by our
intelligence-gathering agencies that indicated on the surface
that there was a connection between Iraq and al Qaeda?
Mr. Gimble. They did find information that they concluded
that there was.
Senator Sessions. This had not been even referred to in
some of the intelligence--in the Intelligence Community
assessments of Iraq and al Qaeda, is that not right? Even to
dismiss it?
Mr. Gimble. There was a lot of information out there.
Specifically, if you have a specific point we can go look.
Senator Sessions. This is the point. I am just trying to
put myself in Mr. Feith's shop. His staffers come to him and
say: ``We found some references to connections between Iraq and
al Qaeda that is not in the CIA report.'' Is that not basically
what they briefed the Secretary of Defense about, and pointed
out some other things that had not been brought forth in the
Intelligence Community summary of the facts?
If I am mistaken, correct me.
Mr. Gimble. I think what happened there is that they have
information. There are a lot of reports out there. As someone
said earlier, there is something like 40,000 pages that you on
the SSCI reviewed. I do not know what is in each of those
40,000 pages, but what our position is, what my report says, is
that there was a known disagreement between the Intelligence
Community and the policy shop----
Senator Sessions. No, no. If you cannot answer this
question, just tell me. But my impression is that they found
things that showed a connection that was not referred to in the
Intelligence Community summary and that they felt at least
should have been referred to, and they shared that with the
Secretary of Defense, and the Secretary of Defense said: ``Why
do you not go over and talk to the CIA and talk to them about
it, and find out what the facts are.'' Is that not basically
what happened in those two steps?
Mr. Gimble. They did. They went over----
Senator Sessions. All right.
Mr. Gimble.--and the intelligence agencies disagreed with
them.
Senator Sessions. All right. Then they went and gave a
briefing to the National Security Director, Assistant Director,
Mr. Hadley, and Mr. Libby, right?
Mr. Gimble. They did.
Senator Sessions. They showed some of the things they had
found that had not been referred to in these reports?
Mr. Gimble. They showed some conclusions that disagreed
with----
Senator Sessions. Now, you--go ahead. Excuse me. I do not
want to interrupt you. I think that is important, what you are
saying right here.
Mr. Gimble. I think the information was all out there. It
is just how you interpret it. Intelligence is not an art and I
think that was said earlier. So it is not an art, but the
process of evaluating it should be a pretty good science. You
need to have a rigid process to go through. When you have
disagreements between legitimate people--and these were
legitimate people, they are hard-working people--you have
disagreements between them, the vetting should occur. If there
still cannot be agreement on it, it is the responsible thing to
let the decisionmakers know both sides of the equation. That is
all we are saying.
Senator Sessions. I would assume that is what Mr. Feith's
staff did when they briefed the National Security Council.
Mr. Gimble. They did not show the other, dissenting side.
That is the issue that we have.
Senator Sessions. Mr. Gimble, the National Security Council
had already been given the Intelligence Community's consensus
opinion, had they not?
Mr. Gimble. We did not look at that. I am sure that----
Senator Sessions. I am sure they had.
Mr. Gimble. But the point is, if you are making a point you
probably need to say, what we conclude is different from the
people that are engaged to do intelligence collection and
analysis. All we are saying is give the full picture of it.
Senator Sessions. I am just trying to follow this through.
I just want to get to the bottom of it. So they go there to the
National Security Assistants, Mr. Hadley and Mr. Libby, and
they present their little presentation that Director Tenet had
already said was useful, right?
Mr. Gimble. He later said the reason he said it was useful
is because he just wanted to courteously dismiss the thing, and
later said to us that he disagreed with it.
Senator Sessions. But in the mind----
Chairman Levin. I am sorry. I did not hear the end of his
answer. You said it was useful and then--what was the end of
the answer?
Mr. Gimble. He said the term ``useful'' for the briefing,
he said it was ``useful.'' This was our interview with Mr.
Tenet, that it was a courteous way of ending the meeting; he
did not agree with the position, nor did CIA, is what he told
us. He immediately kept Admiral Jacoby back in there and he
told him to get this back into analytical channels and get the
analysts talking.
Immediately after that, they called a meeting at which they
had the intelligence analysts and Secretary Feith's policy
analysts, and they had a meeting to discuss the differences.
They did that. The CIA made some changes that were categorized
to us as somewhat minor. They made the changes in the report,
and they offered to footnote the remaining differences of
opinion that the policy folks had. The policy folks said they
did not think that was appropriate for them, because they were
policymakers, not intelligencemakers.
Then when they did not do that, approximately 3 weeks later
the policy group went up and briefed their story and did not
put in the discussion about what happened at that forum on
August 20, to put the other side of the story to get a balanced
picture.
I go back. The only thing we have said in our report is
this, is that it is legitimate to have disagreements, there is
a vetting process in the Intelligence Community to work those
disagreements, and you may still have disagreements at the end
of the day; but it is probably responsible--in my own personal
opinion, it is responsible for someone, if you have differences
of opinion, that you show both sides of it where the
decisionmakers know that that disagreement is out there and
they can do their own assessment.
Senator Sessions. I would just take a minute, Mr. Chairman.
I would like to complete this line of thought.
So after they shared this with Mr. Tenet, they went over
and shared the same findings that they had with the National
Security Assistant, Mr. Hadley, now the National Security
Advisor, and shared that. You say they presented an
authoritative statement that these are the facts, I believe is
what you said just a few moments ago. Is that the way you
understood they presented it?
Mr. Gimble. That is the way I understood they presented it.
Senator Sessions. Did you talk to Mr. Hadley?
Mr. Gimble. He was interviewed as part of our process.
Senator Sessions. What about Mr. Libby?
Mr. Gimble. I stand corrected: He was not interviewed.
Senator Sessions. Mr. Hadley was not interviewed?
Mr. Gimble. Mr. Hadley was not interviewed.
Senator Sessions. So are you aware what was on the slides
there that he presented to Mr. Hadley? This is what I see, I
have been told, and I do not know--this is what I am told: He
had on a slide when he made the presentation, ``Fundamental
problems with how Intelligence Community is assessing
information.''
Mr. Gimble. I believe that is correct.
Senator Sessions. So it seems to me that the essence of it
is that he was raising with the National Security Advisor that
their staff--and only the staffers went over, not even Mr.
Feith--that they had found information they thought was
important relating to the al Qaeda-Iraq connection, that had
not been put in the Intelligence Community summary. Is that not
correct?
Mr. Gimble. The correct version in my view is that there
was a meeting to reconcile differences on August 20th before
that meeting occurred. There were some changes on the
intelligence side. It is my understanding that those briefing
charts went over. There were a couple of additions that were
not provided to Mr. Tenet and they were presented.
There were 26 points in the underlying buildup to the----
Senator Sessions. My time is up. I would just----
Chairman Levin. He can complete his answer.
Senator Sessions. All right. All right, go ahead.
Mr. Gimble. There were 26 underlying points that were in
the underlying premise of the briefing, and there was over half
of them that the Intelligence Community, the consensus of the
Intelligence Community did not agree with. That does not, in my
view, reflect in the charts that were presented.
Senator Sessions. But the Intelligence Community, after
having been confronted with information that had not been
previously included in their report, went back at Mr. Tenet's
direction and made some changes that were positive and more
accurate, did they not?
Mr. Gimble. I think there was probably some positive
changes made.
Senator Sessions. My only conclusion is that these guys
found some things they were concerned about, they shared it
with the Secretary of Defense, they shared it with the CIA,
they shared it with the National Security Advisor, and I do not
think there was any confusion that they were trying to present
themselves as authoritative intelligence officers based on this
slide that they were using, which indicated they were just
providing a critique about total reliance on those assessments.
As the Senator said, sometimes there is a little turf
battle going on there perhaps. Finally, we know that the CIA is
not always perfect because we did not find the WMD.
Chairman Levin. Thank you, Senator Sessions.
Senator McCaskill.
Senator McCaskill. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Gimble, to someone on this committee it may be beating
a dead horse, but I am new and I have been out there watching
this from afar over the last couple of years, and I am very
interested in an important part of your report and that is the
responses on the part of DOD. Whenever you do either a review
as an auditor, or an audit, one of the most instructive things
that you can learn, having done hundreds and hundreds of these
things, is how the agency responds to your report.
It is interesting to me that their first response is what
is very common when you get a report that is uncomfortable for
you if you are being looked at, is that you ought not enter
opinions. I have looked at your report and there is no opinion
in your report. It is a factual recitation of what did and did
not occur, regardless of who was right or wrong on either side.
The other thing that is really interesting in their
response is they are quick to say that they have nothing to do
with intelligence activities. In fact, in their response they
actually say by definition they have nothing to do with
intelligence activities. As has been pointed out, accurately,
by Senator Chambliss, this group did not gather intelligence,
and this group in fact was supposed to be directing policy, and
as part of their policy they were trying to learn about
intelligence.
It would seem to me that the better people to know about
what is right and wrong about intelligence is in fact the
Intelligence Community that has gathered the intelligence. Does
that not seem pretty basic?
Mr. Gimble. Yes, ma'am.
Senator McCaskill. So if I understand the time line here,
this information is given to the head of the CIA, he then calls
the Intelligence Community together, the gatherers of
intelligence information, the people in our government that are
responsible for intelligence. They have a meeting and say: 50
percent of what you are going to say we believe is wrong.
Mr. Gimble. That is correct.
[Additional information provided for the record follows:]
The Intelligence Community did not agree with 50 percent of the
information forming the basis of the presentation.
Senator McCaskill. At that point in time, when the
intelligence gatherers and the Intelligence Community tell what
is admitted in this response, the policy people, 50 percent of
what you are saying is wrong, they then did not share that with
the National Security Council; is that what your report says?
Mr. Gimble. It does say that in this respect, is that the
counterbalance of the full picture, they did not identify that.
So they just presented what they had and they did not recognize
that there was significant disagreement with the consensus
within the Intelligence Community on most of the 26 points that
they raised.
Senator McCaskill. They were, in fact, reporting to the
National Security Council about intelligence matters, correct?
Mr. Gimble. I would characterize it as an alternative
intelligence product. They characterize it as a critique of
intelligence. It seems to me like there was a statement of:
these are the issues we have and this is the connection, the
analysis of the links, which run counter in many respects to
the consensus in the Intelligence Community.
I do not think that is altogether bad. I think that can be
useful. However, I think the problem that we had with it, as we
say in the report, if you do that you need to present both
sides of the issue to give a balanced presentation.
Senator McCaskill. Particularly if both sides are going to,
in fact, include disagreements from the intelligence gatherers;
is that a fair statement?
Mr. Gimble. I think that when you do a presentation on
intelligence, you should give the full picture. If there are
agreements and disagreements, you should identify them.
Senator McCaskill. Lay them out.
Mr. Gimble. Just lay them out on the table.
Senator McCaskill. As we move forward, because clearly in
some respects there are mistakes that have been made, but the
purpose of these hearings obviously is to try to make sure we
do not make them again. Is there anything in the response from
the policy folks at DOD that this report involves, is there
anything in their response that would indicate to you as the IG
that they acknowledge that this was not done correctly, that
they acknowledge that in the future whenever there are
differing opinions about an intelligence assessment when it
relates to whether or not we go to war, that in the future they
should always include both sides of the issue when it is given
to the ultimate policymakers in terms of a recommendation of us
going to war or not going to war?
Mr. Gimble. I think the proper way to look at that is there
are policies and procedures in place in the Intelligence
Community where you can identify and have disagreements,
because it is a perfectly good thing to have disagreements and
vet those out. The policies and procedures have been there for
a number of years, that you vet those and then you move forward
to get the best possible intelligence.
As the Senator pointed out, this is not----
Senator McCaskill. It is not a science.
Mr. Gimble. It is not a science; it is an art. So you get
the best possible position. In my opinion, I think the
processes are in place. These guys have to sign a tasking and
they did it and they did it in my view as best they could. We
do not argue with the fact they did it nor how they did it.
What we are only pointing out is this, is that they come to a
hugely different conclusion than what the consensus of the
Intelligence Community was. That should have been, as you move
that forward, expressly explained. Even though the people may
have had information and should have had, we do not know that.
The point is is that when you have something of this importance
we think it is responsible to have both sides of the picture
out there when there are disagreements if they cannot be vetted
and come to a common agreement.
Senator McCaskill. My question to you, Mr. Gimble, is there
anything in their responses that would indicate to you that
they understand that that is an important part of this process
that was not followed here and that should be followed in the
future?
Mr. Gimble. No. They view that I have the wrong
interpretation of what constitutes intelligence products. We
just have a disagreement on that. I think the system will take,
if properly followed--and I think it is being properly followed
now--you would not have that.
Senator McCaskill. Do you believe that this would not
happen now?
Mr. Gimble. I do not think it would, but this is a single
incident in a universe of many, many decisions and intelligence
reports and so forth that go forward. I do not have a crystal
ball and I cannot tell you that everything is perfect. I think
there is a system in place that will allow us to get the best
intelligence information if it is followed in each and every
case.
Senator McCaskill. I would be a lot more comfortable if
their responses reflected that.
Thank you, Mr. Gimble.
Chairman Levin. Just to be clear, when you say the system
is in place you mean now in place?
Mr. Gimble. It is in place. There has always been a vetting
procedure. If you have it in the intelligence channels, the
executive orders call it out. The DOD directives call it out.
There is a process that you vet and can have legitimate
discussion and disagreement. Also there is a legitimate way to
bring that forward and say, okay, here is our best estimate,
and it is based on if you have a disagreement, you lay those
out. I think there is a process in place to do that, yes, sir.
Chairman Levin. Was that process then not followed?
Mr. Gimble. The part that we thought was inappropriate, we
thought it was not followed because we thought there should
have been a full reporting of both sides of the issue. Again,
it goes back to we did not think there was anything illegal or
unauthorized. We can clearly see that it was authorized by
people in authority to authorize it and so we do not have an
issue with that.
Chairman Levin. Thank you.
Senator Warner.
Senator Warner. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Your work product is of no greater value than the
thoroughness with which you perform the buildup to reach your
conclusions, and I want to direct my questions to the process
by which you reached your conclusions. You have indicated you
did brief, debrief, Tenet and you did debrief Feith. Did you
determine from those debriefings that there were a level of
individuals beneath those two principals who may have had a
diversity of opinion and that they then failed to disclose that
diversity in such presentations that Feith made? Is that
correct?
Mr. Gimble. There was a group of individuals under both. I
believe that Secretary Feith knew what the position was. I
think he knew both sides of the argument. I think the DCI, Mr.
Tenet, knew both sides of it.
Senator Warner. But we are focusing on Feith, though.
Mr. Gimble. Okay.
Senator Warner. It was his failure to disclose evidence
that you believe you now have that there was an honest
difference of opinion on several or more significant issues
leading to the conclusions that Feith presented; is that
correct?
Mr. Gimble. That is correct.
Senator Warner. Now, I am struck that you did not interview
or debrief Hadley. First you said you did, which I assume is
such an integral, important part of your presentation this
morning that you did it. Then you had to reverse that. I find
that somewhat troubling because Hadley is a very significant
and pivotal role player in this.
Can you explain how you made that mistake this morning?
Mr. Gimble. Sir, I would not categorize that as a mistake--
--
Senator Warner. I beg your pardon. You have to speak a
little more slowly and directly for me. Thank you.
Mr. Gimble. Senator, we requested an interview with Mr.
Hadley. The lawyers at the National Security Council did not
let us interview him. So we requested, and were unable to.
Frankly, he is not a member of our Department, so we do not
have any authority to interview.
[Additional information provided for the record follows:]
As a non-DOD organization, the NSC does not fall under our
jurisdiction. We did not request an interview with Stephen
Hadley during our review. We contacted Dr. Michele Malvesti,
the Senior Director for Combating Terrorism, in hopes of
interviewing her to obtain details on the NSC level
decisionmaking processes. On June 7, 2006, we faxed a letter to
NSC/OGC (Him Das) referencing the details of the review and our
request to interview Dr. Malvesti. On June 23, 2006, Mr. Das
informed us that after reviewing the information we sent, Dr.
Malvesti said that she wouldn't have any pertinent information
to add to our review. Mr. Das was also under the impression
that our review was somehow related to GAO's review and
declined based on the fact that NSC does not fall under GAO
jurisdiction. We attempted to contact Mr. Das's supervisor,
Brad Wiegman, however, we received no return call. On June 29,
2006, we spoke with Mr. Das again and were told that he did not
think that Dr. Malvesti would participate in an interview with
our office. No further action was taken after this phone call.
Based on this incident with the NSC, we did not request an
interview with Mr. Hadley.
Senator Warner. I understand that, but the simple fact is
you made a request. For whatever reason, on counsel's advice he
declined. But this morning you said you did.
Mr. Gimble. That was my mistake.
Senator Warner. A rather serious mistake about a very
pivotal member of this administration. Anyway, you will accept
that. You admit the mistake.
Now, my understanding is that Feith had pulled together in
the DOD a cadre of presumably career civilians and military
officers, some of whom were detailed to his staff from DIA; is
that correct?
Mr. Gimble. That is correct.
Senator Warner. Now, having had some significant experience
for many years as Navy Secretary, I know how these things work
in that Department. I have a high degree of confidence in the
professionalism of those level of workers, be they military or
civilian. Did you interview a wide cross-section of Feith's
staff? I know in the report you gave a figure here.
Do you have any personal knowledge yourself of the degree
or do you--shall we have this staff member testify?
Mr. Gimble. I am just getting a list of the people that we
interviewed. [Pause.]
Senator Warner. Can I be allowed a little additional time,
given that it is taking the witness a period to get his
testimony?
Chairman Levin. We will surely add that time. If it takes
more than another minute, I will add 2 minutes.
Mr. Gimble. We did interview the members of Mr. Feith's
staff.
Senator Warner. How many were there?
Mr. Gimble. There was----
Senator Warner. Perhaps, Mr. Chairman, we need to bring to
the dais those persons that have this knowledge so that we can
directly cross-examine them. Obviously the witness is not in
possession of the facts that I----
Mr. Gimble. We have 72 names that I am trying to get to,
Senator, and they are not all in the employ of Mr. Feith.
Chairman Levin. We will be happy to interview the people
that have not been interviewed if you will give us the list. We
have the list of the people who have been interviewed, so that
we can check it out, and if there is any that have not been
interviewed we will interview them. We are going to be
interviewing a lot of folks, including, I hope, by the way,
people who have refused to talk to you, because I think we will
indeed want to talk to Mr. Hadley. We will indeed want to talk
to the chief of staff of the Vice President. We will indeed
want to talk to people who you have not been allowed to
interview, or who you failed to interview. So those interviews
will take place.
Senator Warner, we agree with you that if those names are
submitted to us, we will check them out; and if there are any
there that are missing, we will add those to the list.
Senator Warner. Mr. Chairman, the point I am trying to make
is that these are serious allegations and I want to have a
better understanding, and I think this committee does, of the
process and the thoroughness with which the investigation was
conducted to reach these important conclusions.
Now, again, in the interviews of those staff members, did
any of them indicate that they gave their work or performed it
under pressure contrary to the exercise of their own free will?
Mr. Gimble. They did not, Senator.
Senator Warner. They did not what?
Mr. Gimble. Were not pressured to perform or come to any
preconceived conclusion, and that comes across the consensus of
the interviews that I have looked at.
Senator Warner. They were able to give their best
professional advice to Secretary Feith and his principal
assistant; is that correct?
Mr. Gimble. That is correct.
Senator Warner. Now, you have allegations to the effect
that when presentations were made, either by Feith or his
senior staff, that you find fault in that they did not provide
the opinions which were somewhat contradictory or at variance
to the principal points they were stressing; is that correct?
Mr. Gimble. That is correct.
Senator Warner. Now, at that point in time did any of these
subordinate staff members, whom I accept for the moment as
being people of integrity, try to bring to anyone's attention
that they felt that their work product was being inaccurately
portrayed to principals, by their principals to others?
Mr. Gimble. We did not see evidence of that.
Senator Warner. Did you inquire, because I have to believe,
given the number of presentations that were made by either
Feith or his staff, that sooner or later the subordinates were
of the opinion that the whole story was not being told. Did you
make that inquiry?
Mr. Gimble. We made the inquiry to see--we believe that all
the staff that was assigned to Mr. Feith did in good conscience
do what they thought was right, and they had a position and
they probably disagreed with the counterposition. All we are
pointing out is there are two groups of people that are
professional and well-intentioned and hard-working servants of
the government and they had differing conclusions.
The process for intelligence, though, is you should marry
those differences up and reconcile them and vet them, and that
is what we think did not occur here.
Senator Warner. I cannot believe that these persons, a
number of them--there is what, 30 or 40 of them?
Mr. Gimble. We interviewed 72.
Senator Warner. 72. That someone within that group or some
individuals would not say----
Mr. Gimble. 72 is----
Senator Warner. Beg your pardon?
Mr. Gimble. 75 was the total interviews. They did not all
work for Mr. Feith.
Senator Warner. All right. But do you get my point? I am
trying to suggest that people with good intentions at those
levels, they have their own self-respect and their own interest
in America to see that things are being handled right.
Now, you said that some of those staff or some members of
Feith's staff did some of the briefing as opposed to Feith,
which means that staff were involved, and they intentionally, I
presume, did not bring forward the dissenting opinions.
Mr. Gimble. The briefings, I think you have all seen the
three sets of charts. They speak for themselves. They made
their position. All we are saying is there were other positions
behind the underlying analysis, that there was considerable
disagreement with the very community that were charged with
providing intelligence.
This is not to say that alternative intelligence is not a
viable thing to do. We certainly agree that it is. However,
when you have a disagreement, our position was it should be put
into the briefing when you make the presentation.
Senator Warner. I understand that, but someone or some
several people made a decision not to include the dissenting
opinions. Was that done by Feith personally or was it done by
subordinates or some of these professionals, the structure that
worked with him?
Mr. Gimble. There is a memo out that we can provide to you.
It says that we do not have to have a consensus.
Senator Warner. All right, this is new evidence. Where is
this memo and who issued it and what is the date-time group of
it? It is obviously not classified?
Mr. Gimble. It is not classified. It is dated August 8,
2002.
Senator Warner. August what?
Mr. Gimble. August 8, 2002. ``Today's Briefing'' is the
subject, a memo from Paul Wolfowitz, to Tina Shelton, Jim
Thomas, Chris Carney, Abe Shulsky, cc: Doug Feith:
``This was an excellent briefing. The Secretary was
very impressed. He asked us to think about some next
possible steps to see if we can illuminate the
differences between us and the CIA. The goal is not to
produce a consensus product, but rather to scrub one
another's arguments.''
``One possibility would be to present this briefing
to senior CIA people with their Middle East analysts
present. Another possibility would be for the Secretary
and the DCI to agree on setting up a small group with
our people combined with their people to work through
those points on which we agree and those points on
which we disagree, and then have a session in which
each side might make the case for their assessment.
``Those are just suggestions. I would very much like
to get some ideas from you when I get back sometime
after August 19.''
Senator Warner. We will need to have that, Mr. Chairman.
You are reading from a book marked ``SECRET,'' are you not,
on the top?
Mr. Gimble. We have it bookmarked.
Senator Warner. I beg your pardon? We are very careful
about classified material on this committee.
Mr. Gimble. We have SECRET material in here, but that
particular document----
Senator Warner. It is commingled classified and
unclassified?
Mr. Gimble. We have classified and unclassified.
Chairman Levin. We will make that part of the record.
Thank you.
[The information referred to follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Senator Warner. Are there other pertinent parts of this
briefing book which the committee does not have at this time?
Mr. Gimble. I am not sure what you have. But I would be
more than happy, we can go back in closed session and let you
review it.
Senator Warner. If you will see that that is done, Mr.
Chairman.
Chairman Levin. What we will do is also, we are going to
ask you to provide us all of the unclassified material that is
in your report in a single document or to give us the report
redacting the classified material, one or the other, because
most of that report that you have marked ``Classified'' is
unclassified.
[See ANNEX A]
Senator Warner. Now, back to the witness again----
Chairman Levin. I think we have to go back to our time
here, Senator Warner.
Senator Warner. Could I just ask one single additional
question, Mr. Chairman, because I had quite a few
interruptions?
Your conclusions are reached on the basis of a number of
briefings given either by Feith or his staff to principals
within our executive branch, correct?
Mr. Gimble. Right.
Senator Warner. Do you know whether or not you have had the
opportunity to examine all the briefings or, if not, how many
of the briefings, and for what reason did you not if you did
not do all of the briefings?
Mr. Gimble. We examined each of the three briefings in
question.
Senator Warner. Are there only three briefings in question?
Mr. Gimble. The three briefings that--we have all the
underlying data that builds up to that, but that is the three--
--
Senator Warner. Let me--I am having difficulty listening to
what you say. What again?
Mr. Gimble. The basic issue and thrust of our report deals
with the events that were captured in three briefings that
went, one to the Secretary of Defense; to the DCI, Mr. Tenet;
and then subsequently to the National Security----
Senator Warner. Were there other briefings?
Mr. Gimble. We have a lot of documentation, but these are
the briefings that we were focused in on.
Senator Warner. But if we are going to judge three, it
seems to me in fairness you might judge other briefings so that
you have the full context and spectrum of the briefings?
Mr. Gimble. These are the briefings that when we did the
tasking of this particular task it evolved out to be these
three briefings, and there's a host of other reports,
memorandums. We have many, many pages of documentation that we
went through. But when it all boiled out to where you were
pushing things forward, it was captured in three briefings.
Senator Warner. In any of this other documentation or to
the extent you examined other briefings, did you find a similar
pattern of what you characterize as intentional deception by
virtue of not including contradictory views?
Mr. Gimble. We did not classify anything as intentional
deception. What we just said is there was an omission that we
thought should have been in there to give the balance.
Senator Warner. So it was an error of judgment, then, by
the principals, a good faith error of judgment?
Mr. Gimble. One could categorize----
Senator Warner. Or an intentional deception?
Mr. Gimble. I would not--I do not know whether it was
intentional or whether it was good faith judgment. That is not
my position that I would have a thought on that. All I can tell
you is that at the end of the day when those things went
forward there were two sets of facts out there. One of them got
passed over and it happened to be the one that is in the very
community that we look to to have this kind of information.
Senator Warner. I know my time is up. I thank the chair.
But I do have serious reservations about the manner in which it
was conducted and the thoroughness, and I do hope that----
Chairman Levin. The manner in which what was conducted?
Senator Warner. The manner in which this investigation was
conducted and the thoroughness of it. I do hope----
Chairman Levin. We will make up for any shortfalls. You can
be very sure we will take up your suggestion that any
shortfalls in this investigation will be made up for by this
committee.
Mr. Gimble, you talked about three different presentations.
There were three versions, three different versions of the same
presentation, is that correct?
Mr. Gimble. That is what I was referring to.
Chairman Levin. All right. So instead of telling the CIA
when this assessment was given to the CIA that the Feith
operation had ``fundamental problems with how the Intelligence
Community is assessing information''--that is the title of a
slide which was presented to the White House--that slide was
left out, was it not, when this assessment was given to the
CIA?
Mr. Gimble. It was left out.
Chairman Levin. Now, you can say that was a matter of
judgment. You can say that was unintentional. It is damn
suspicious to me that if you are giving them an assessment that
disagrees in a number of respects with theirs, but leave out a
slide that says you have fundamental problems with how the
Intelligence Community is assessing information and you remove
it when you are talking to the CIA, and then you reinsert it
when you present the same assessment to the White House, that
is mighty bloody suspicious.
Now, I know, that is not your job, to assess suspicion.
Senator Sessions. Suspicion of what?
Chairman Levin. Suspicion of intent.
Senator Warner. But it was his job to determine under what
circumstances and who made the decision.
Chairman Levin. I agree. I could not agree with you more,
and we are going to talk to Mr.--if you have not asked Mr.
Feith why that was left out--have you?
Mr. Gimble. We did.
Chairman Levin. You did?
Mr. Gimble. We did, yes, sir.
Chairman Levin. What did he say?
Mr. Gimble. He said it was left out because it was critical
of the Intelligence Community.
Chairman Levin. Oh, he intentionally left it out. There you
go. How is that for intention? That is not----
Senator Warner. Wait a minute. Can we allow the witness?
Chairman Levin. He intentionally left out this slide.
Senator Warner. Well, anyway----
Chairman Levin. Wait a minute.
Senator Warner. Can we have order?
Chairman Levin. Yes, we are going to have order here.
Mr. Gimble, did Mr. Feith say he intentionally left out
this slide when presenting this to the CIA?
Senator Warner. Can we have the witness that interviewed
Feith address us?
Chairman Levin. No, I will first ask Mr. Gimble and then he
can refer to her if he wishes, and we will ask her to identify
herself.
Mr. Gimble, did Mr. Feith tell you or your staff that he
intentionally left this slide out because it was critical of
the CIA?
Mr. Gimble. He said it was left out because it was critical
of the Intelligence Community.
Chairman Levin. Okay. That is all I said.
Senator Sessions. Of course.
Chairman Levin. Now it is ``of course.'' Before there was a
question of what is the relevance as to whether it was
intentional or not intentional. The point is it was
intentional.
Now, Mr. Gimble, was this slide reinserted when this
assessment was given to the White House?
Mr. Gimble. It was reinserted.
Chairman Levin. Next question: When this assessment was
made, one of the statements that was made about the meeting in
Prague, was it not, in something called ``Summary of Known''--
``Known''--``Iraq-al Qaeda Contacts,'' that ``2001, Prague,
IIS''--that is the intelligence service--``Chief al-Ani meets
with Mohammed Atta in April''? Flat-out statement, right; is
that correct? Am I reading correctly from that slide?
Mr. Gimble. Yes, sir.
Chairman Levin. Now, at the same time--this is not 2006;
this is September 2002, the exact same time when this slide
show was being presented to the White House--was it not true
that the Intelligence Community in its report called ``Iraqi
Support for Terrorism,'' they had assessed that--excuse me, I
am sorry. In January 2003, January 2003, that the CIA assessed
that ``The most reliable reporting to date casts doubt on this
possibility''?
Mr. Gimble. Yes, sir.
Chairman Levin. Pardon?
Mr. Gimble. Yes, sir.
Chairman Levin. Thank you.
We are going to have a 6-minute round here, by the way.
Now, the reason we are here--and that question was raised,
why are we here--is it not true that we are here because the
then-chairman of the SSCI, Senator Roberts, asked you to
undertake this investigation? Is that correct?
Mr. Gimble. He asked me--at that time the IG--it was not
me. But he asked our office to undertake----
Chairman Levin. I mean your office.
Mr. Gimble. Yes, sir.
Chairman Levin. Your office was asked to undertake this
investigation by the SSCI chairman, is that correct?
Mr. Gimble. That is correct.
Senator Warner. Might the record show he was at that time
also a member of this committee. Senator Roberts was a member
of both committees.
Chairman Levin. The record will show that.
Senator Warner. As chairman I was aware and supported his
inquiry on this matter.
Chairman Levin. The record will reflect that statement.
Now, we asked--I asked you to investigate whether the
policy office undercut the Intelligence Community in its
briefing to the White House with a slide that said there were
fundamental problems with the way the Intelligence Community
was assessing the relationship between Iraq and al Qaeda. Is it
true that your report on page 33 confirms that in fact it did
in that manner undercut the Intelligence Community?
Mr. Gimble. Yes, sir, that is what our report says.
Chairman Levin. Now, the 9/11 Commission report--this goes
to a different report--discusses a meeting of what they call
the President's war council that took place at Camp David on
September 15-16, 2001, just days after the September 11
attacks. The report states that a DOD paper produced for that
meeting ``argued that Iraq posed a strategic threat to the
United States. Iraq's longstanding involvement in terrorism was
cited.''
Now, a footnote in that September 11 report cites a
September 14, 2001, DOD memo from the Feith office titled ``War
on Terrorism, Strategic Concept.'' That report, according to
the 9/11 Commission, was presented to the President at Camp
David 4 days after September 11.
Did you review the September 14, 2001, DOD memo prepared by
Secretary Feith?
Mr. Gimble. I do not believe we reviewed that.
Chairman Levin. Did you try to review that?
Mr. Gimble. I am just not familiar with that document,
Senator.
Chairman Levin. We will ask the Secretary of Defense for a
copy of the September 14, 2001, Feith memo which,
according to the 9/11 Commission report, was discussed at
Camp David on September 15 and 16, 2001. We will ask that, not
of you, but of the Secretary of Defense.
My time is up.
Senator Warner. Mr. Chairman, could the chair ask that this
memorandum which is in question, and that was read by the
witness, now be duplicated and given to the members of the
committee so that in our next round we might have the benefit
of that?
Chairman Levin. Absolutely.
Senator Warner. I think it would be helpful.
Chairman Levin. You know exactly what document Senator
Warner is talking about?
Mr. Gimble. Yes, sir.
Chairman Levin. Senator Chambliss.
Senator Chambliss. Mr. Gimble, let us go back to this
infamous slide here. You said that it was omitted from the DCI
briefing because it was critical of the Intelligence Community.
Is that correct?
Mr. Gimble. That is what Secretary Feith provided us in
writing, yes, sir.
Senator Chambliss. So he admitted that was the case. Now,
even without that omitted slide, did you form a conclusion that
it was very clear from the overall content that the draft
briefing was suggesting insufficient attention and analysis by
the Intelligence Community to a number of intelligence reports
on contacts between Iraq and al Qaeda? Is it not also correct
that you concluded that that point was explicitly made at a
subsequent meeting at the CIA on August 20, 2002?
Mr. Gimble. I kind of got lost in your question.
Senator Chambliss. Did you make any conclusion about the
content of the briefing as it related to contacts between al
Qaeda and Iraq even without the slide that was left out of the
briefing of the DCI?
Mr. Gimble. Senator, we did not conclude one way or the
other. The only thing we concluded, that there were differences
of opinion that were not reported and not reconciled, and our
position was that those differing opinions with the consensus
of the Intelligence Community should have been included and
they were not included.
Senator Chambliss. Okay. Now, with all due respect to my
colleague from Missouri, you do have opinions in this report.
Did you conclude that there was anything illegal about what Mr.
Feith's office did?
Mr. Gimble. We concluded there was nothing illegal. We also
concluded there was nothing unauthorized.
Senator Chambliss. You then went on to conclude that it was
inappropriate, and as I understand what you have said is that
it was inappropriate because alternative views within the
Intelligence Community were not included?
Mr. Gimble. That is correct.
Senator Chambliss. Now, Mr. Gimble, can you tell this
committee that every time the DCI gets a briefing that every
alternative view on the issue that he is being briefed on is
presented to him?
Mr. Gimble. No, sir. I usually do not deal much with the
DCI. I am a DOD person. So I cannot tell you that.
Senator Chambliss. Let us go to DOD. Can you tell this
committee that every time the Secretary of Defense is briefed
on an issue that every possible alternative view is given to
him?
Mr. Gimble. I certainly cannot.
Senator Chambliss. You could criticize every single
briefing that is given to the Secretary of Defense if that is
not the case, could you not?
Mr. Gimble. We only looked at this one set of briefings,
this one briefing that was presented in three versions, and we
are reporting what happened on that briefing. There were
significant disagreements. The disagreements were not posed and
presented at the same time. We thought that was inappropriate,
and you are right, I do have an opinion, and that was my
opinion.
Senator Chambliss. Lastly, it has been communicated to me
that one of the members of your staff told a person that was
being interviewed during the course of this investigation that
because of the political nature of this inquiry that your
office was going to have to balance the results and that the
final report was going to have something for everyone.
Are you aware of those comments?
Mr. Gimble. No, sir, I am not aware of those comments and I
would be very interested in who made them and who they made
them to.
Senator Chambliss. Is it appropriate for your staff to take
political sensitivities into account when drafting a report?
Mr. Gimble. No, sir. We take the facts and we try to bring
them down to an objective conclusion, and that is what we did
in this report.
Senator Chambliss. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Levin. Thank you very much, Senator Chambliss.
Senator Webb.
Senator Webb. Mr. Gimble, I want to clarify something that
goes to the exchange that Senator McCaskill had with you and
that Senator Chambliss just mentioned to you. My understanding
from reading your summary here is that when there was a finding
of the inappropriate nature of this activity it was not simply
that it failed to mention alternate views, that it was
specifically and as you said--and I quoted you in the earlier
round--that in some cases--I think you were being very careful
how you answered that--in some cases this information was being
shown as intelligence products from an office that is a policy
office, rather than an evaluation, an assessment of
intelligence products. Was that correct?
Mr. Gimble. That is correct.
Senator Webb. So it is something more than simply not
presenting both sides. It is a policy office that is not an
intelligence office presenting information as an intelligence
product.
I want to say something else, too, in defense of your
report to the extent that it now exists. There has been a lot
of conversation here about Mr. Feith, but you specifically said
in a comment to the chairman here that, although Mr. Feith is
mentioned in the review, he is not the subject of the review;
the review is focused on the organization. I think that is very
important for us to continue to understand here.
This is not a report that was directed specifically at Mr.
Feith. It was directed at the office, the total office, and in
fact how DOD at this level was evaluating information and
presenting it in the run-up to the Iraq war. Would you agree
with that?
Mr. Gimble. Senator, yes, I would agree with that. It was
not directed at any one individual. It was a review of the
facts surrounding an issue, a fairly narrow-scoped issue, and
it is how intelligence is----
Senator Webb. I think that is important from my perspective
here, too. I am not sitting here in direct condemnation of one
individual. I have concerns, as I mentioned, about how this
information was presented, and Mr. Feith will have to accept
accountability for his part in this, but this is not directed
at him personally.
It would seem to me, just from listening to the exchange,
obviously not having been on this committee in the preceding
years, that the two agreed-upon--perhaps there are others; my
esteemed senior Senator from Virginia might raise others--but
the two most glaring weaknesses in this report seem to be that
Mr. Feith was not interviewed under oath, given some
inconsistencies, and that people such as Mr. Hadley declined to
be interviewed at all. Neither of those omissions would seem to
argue in favor of a report that further excused the conduct in
this office.
Mr. Chairman, that is all I have to say.
Chairman Levin. Thank you.
Senator Sessions.
Senator Sessions. It seems to me that the only thing that
would justify a conclusion that you have made would be the
briefing to the National Security Assistant, Mr. Hadley,
because surely there is nothing wrong with a group of people in
DOD going to the Secretary of Defense and saying that they are
concerned about the CIA product because it left out some things
that they have discovered in their evaluation of the supporting
data.
Would you agree?
Mr. Gimble. I think internally in the DOD it is okay to
have dissenting views and have discussion. When you disseminate
those, when you take it out, and I would say that when you take
an alternate intelligence assessment outside the Department----
Senator Sessions. You answered my question.
Chairman Levin. Can he just finish?
Senator Sessions. No, he is going on to something else I
did not ask, Mr. Chairman. I asked him was it wrong to share it
and he said there was not anything wrong to share that with the
Secretary of Defense.
Now my next question is, if you have a complaint with the
CIA and you go and meet with the Director of the CIA and his
staff and you raise those same complaints, is there anything
wrong with that briefing?
Mr. Gimble. The next part of that is, though, is when he
calls together the community to vet this out and then you vet
it out and then you carry the briefing further and----
Senator Sessions. Then you are answering my question. There
is nothing wrong with saying that to the CIA Director. The
result of that----
Chairman Levin. Why don't you allow him to finish the
answer to that question?
Senator Sessions. You can interpret it as you want to, Mr.
Chairman. I see it as a defensive answer, not responsive to a
plain and simple question.
Go ahead. Yes or no, is it okay to brief the CIA on the
problems you have with their work product?
Mr. Gimble. It is okay to brief, but remember he took the
chart out saying they had a problem.
Senator Sessions. We are getting to that.
Now, the next briefing is the one you complain about,
right? That is the one to the National Security Advisor. You
contend that in that briefing he did not give a full analysis
of the CIA's competing views.
Mr. Gimble. That is correct.
Senator Sessions. Forgive me if I think that is pretty
weak. Here Mr. Wolfowitz, Assistant Secretary of Defense, right
after the briefing to the Secretary of Defense said, we need to
meet with the ``senior CIA people with their Middle East
analysts present. Another possibility would be for the
Secretary and the DCI to agree on setting up a small group with
our people combined with their people to work through those
points on which we agree and those we disagree.''
Is that not a responsible way to deal with a problem of a
very important issue?
Mr. Gimble. It is absolutely a very responsible way, and
when they did that and then when they had the meeting on August
20, the next line of briefing they chose to ignore those things
that were discussed. Then the points that were made of
disagreement, I think it would have been responsible to provide
the decisionmakers with that alternate position.
Senator Sessions. All right. Now, so the next event that
occurred was that they were asked, these staffers--as Senator
Warner has pointed out, these are professionals; you have not
doubted their integrity or their honest belief in what they
discovered. They were asked to go and share this information
with Mr. Hadley and Mr. Libby and they presented their
information on a slide titled ``Fundamental Problems with How
the Intelligence Community Is Assessing Information.''
Now, that seems to me that they are sharing some concerns
that they have with the National Security Advisor that he may
not be getting full and complete information from CIA. One of
these little turf battles, but in an important matter
sometimes.
Mr. Gimble. I do not disagree with that. It would seem to
me, though, that if you were going to make that presentation
you do a full-blown, this is one side, this is the other side.
Senator Sessions. He was presenting the problems, it seems
to me if you read this. Surely Mr. Hadley was not unaware that
the CIA's consensus report presumably was different, else he
would not be pointing out what the differences were.
Mr. Gimble. I am not aware what Mr. Hadley knew or did not
know.
Senator Sessions. This is important because is it not true
that Mr. Feith, he did not even go to this briefing with Mr.
Hadley? His professionals, these young folks who dug up this
information, made the briefing.
Mr. Feith contends vigorously, does he not, and his staff
that the purpose of that briefing was not to state an
intelligence estimate, but to point out problems with the
analysis they were working from? Is their defense to your
complaint that?
Mr. Gimble. Our interpretation of that was, and it is my
opinion, that----
Senator Sessions. Wait a minute. No, I say isn't their
position? You stated it earlier. Is it not their position that
they were not stating an intelligence estimate; they were
pointing out problems with the CIA product?
Mr. Gimble. One slide made that point.
Senator Sessions. All right, they made that point. They
shared that with you when you asked them about what was going
on, did they not? You said that earlier in your remarks.
Mr. Gimble. We had full access to all information, yes,
sir.
Senator Sessions. Mr. Gimble, in your remarks earlier at
this meeting you indicated that their concern with your report
about whether what they did was appropriate or not was that you
did not seem to understand that they were not presenting an
entirely new work product to the Assistant National Security
Advisor, but they were pointing out problems with the CIA work
product.
Mr. Gimble. The remainder of that comes to some pretty
hard, pretty definitive conclusions about intelligence. So you
can say, yes--if they want to characterize this as a critique,
but it also is characterized as an alternate intelligence
product.
Senator Sessions. You have concluded that. Now, the people
at the briefing did not agree with that, and Mr. Hadley has not
been interviewed. So how have you made that conclusion?
Mr. Gimble. Got a copy of the report, the briefing, and we
have interviewed the people that put it together. We have
looked at the degree of disagreement within the community and
how that was handled. That is really our issue, is the degree
of disagreement and as to how it was handled.
Senator Sessions. I do not see a problem with it. To me it
is right up on top.
Then Senator Levin says that this somehow undercut the
Intelligence Community. I do not see how it is undercutting the
Intelligence Community--correct me if I am wrong--if you point
out things they left out that should have been in their
analysis, and that after they made these references a number of
them were put in that report, including the Atta report. Was
the Atta report from the Czech Republic that he had met with
the Iraqi intelligence group in the CIA report before it was
dug up by Mr. Feith's professional staff?
Mr. Gimble. It has been in a number of reports. The issue
there is that----
Senator Sessions. No, no, no, no, no.
Mr. Gimble. The issue is that briefing came to some
conclusions that were not supported by the underlying
Intelligence Community assessments. That was our point.
Senator Sessions. Is there anything wrong with another
group going in to Mr. Hadley and saying, we have some
disagreements, we have read all these documents, we found
things they left out and we are not in agreement with it?
Mr. Gimble. It was not characterized that way. If you look
at the briefing charts, it was characterized as here are the
conditions and conclusions, and there was no thought about
where the same view is.
Senator Sessions. The whole point was that they were
raising concerns with the CIA's analysis. It is obvious, it is
a given, that they were providing information that was somewhat
in disagreement with parts of the CIA analysis, surely.
Mr. Gimble. We are looking in June. There was a statement
in the CIA reports that says that this was contradictory.
Senator Sessions. I will ask you one more time. I think it
is important. The CIA consensus opinion at the time this all
began to occur did not include reference to the Czech Republic
matter, is that correct? It did not?
Mr. Gimble. It is incorrect.
Senator Warner. Are we getting testimony from a witness who
has not been identified?
Chairman Levin. Let us identify the lady to your left,
please.
Mr. Gimble. This is Commander Tammy Harstad. She is one of
our senior analysts.
Chairman Levin. Do you want to just say whatever you were
saying?
Senator Warner. She could just grab the other microphone
there and then both of you can have a mike.
Thank you. We welcome you, Commander. Obviously, as a naval
person I can see that you have had quite a distinguished
career.
Chairman Levin. Can you give us the answer you were giving
us, Commander?
Commander Harstad. Yes, sir. The reports of the meeting,
the Czech report----
Senator Warner. I am not able to hear.
Chairman Levin. Can you talk a little louder, please?
Commander Harstad. Yes, sir.
The report, the Czech report of the meeting, was in a CIA
product in June 2002, prior to the production of the briefings.
Senator Sessions. Prior to--well, it was, obviously,
because it was found by these people in Mr. Feith's office. But
was it in their consensus analysis, because they had some doubt
about it?
Commander Harstad. It was described as being contradictory
at best.
Senator Sessions. In the analysis that Mr. Hadley would
have had?
Commander Harstad. I do not know, sir, what Mr. Hadley
would have had. That was what was in the CIA product on June
21.
Chairman Levin. Of what year? Sorry. What year?
Commander Harstad. 2002.
Senator Sessions. It is pretty obvious, would not you
agree, that the Feith staff presented to Mr. Hadley information
that came out of either raw reports or CIA summaries and DIA
information, that put a different context on some of the
matters relating to the Iraq-al-Qaeda connection or lack of it?
Commander Harstad. Yes.
Senator Sessions. I do not see how that is inappropriate,
and I do not believe they are required to present the whole CIA
conclusion before you present a contrary conclusion when
people, everyone hearing, would have known that this
represented a divergent view from the CIA. I think not only has
Mr. Feith not violated a law, as you found, that he acted with
authority, but I think he acted appropriately. I do not believe
the CIA has an absolute right and a monopoly on conclusions
about intelligence.
Chairman Levin. Thank you, Senator Sessions.
Senator Warner.
Senator Warner. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Could the witness remain that was testifying. I may have a
question for you. Thank you.
But first, Mr. Gimble, I have the highest respect for the
whole IG system. I collaborated with the preparation of the
various bills and so forth to establish the laws. For the some
many years that I have been on the committee with our
distinguished chairman--we are in our 29th year--we have seen
and dealt with many very able IGs. So in no way am I trying to
discredit in any way your professionalism.
But this is such an important case that we have to bear
down and determine just what procedures you used and so forth.
Would you say, given--and you have had a long career. How
many years in the IG?
Mr. Gimble. In the IG, I was moved over in 1976, and that
was before----
Senator Warner. You have to talk--I am sorry.
Mr. Gimble. I have been with the DOD IG since the day it
was formed and I was in the predecessor organization before
that. So I have over 35 years.
Senator Warner. Thirty-five years, and we have dealt
together in the years past and I have a high respect for your
professionalism.
Would you regard this as one of the most important cases
that you have dealt with?
Mr. Gimble. I would.
Senator Warner. Fine.
Did you personally interview any of the witnesses, the
principal witnesses, given the importance and the criticality
of this?
Mr. Gimble. I did not.
Senator Warner. So you delegated all of that to others?
Mr. Gimble. Right.
Senator Warner. Secretary Rice was then the head of the
Security Council. Were her views sought?
Mr. Gimble. We did not attempt to interview her.
Senator Warner. Beg your pardon?
Mr. Gimble. We did not attempt to interview her.
I just need to make a quick point. When we get outside of
DOD employees, it is if they want to be interviewed we can. We
do not really have any authority to interview anybody outside
the Department. So we would not necessarily have any authority
to interview her.
Senator Warner. Could you go to others to try and see
whether or not they could induce various principals to----
Mr. Gimble. We have had some----
Senator Warner. You could go to the Secretary and say, Mr.
Secretary, you are a part of the Department in which he
operates, I would like to interview some witnesses, but I am
having difficulty; would you assist me in getting those
witnesses?
Mr. Gimble. We interviewed a lot of people outside the
Department and got, we thought, good cooperation. We just did
not attempt to interview Secretary Rice.
Senator Warner. Did you interview Secretary Wolfowitz?
Mr. Gimble. We did.
Senator Warner. Now, this very able commander, your
portfolio, you were detailed to the IG's office, is that
correct?
Commander Harstad. Yes, sir. I transferred there.
Senator Warner. Now, you did a lot of the interviews and
debriefings of these principals yourself?
Commander Harstad. I did several----
Senator Warner. A little louder.
Commander Harstad. Yes, sir, I did participate in----
Senator Warner.--I have a cold and some of the medicine has
impaired the hearing. What is that again?
Commander Harstad. I did participate in some of the
interviews.
Senator Warner. Which ones did you----
Commander Harstad. None of the principals that you would
expect.
Senator Warner. Who did the principals?
Commander Harstad. We had representation from our former
team chief, and also Office of the General Counsel went on
several of those interviews as well.
Senator Warner. So perhaps, Mr. Gimble, you want to
clarify. Who were the principals under your jurisdiction that
did the actual interviews of the principals?
Mr. Gimble. Most of the interviews were done by Lieutenant
Colonel Eddie Edge, who is----
Senator Warner. Is he present today?
Mr. Gimble. He is not.
Senator Warner. Fine. The question that--wait a minute. You
are getting advice from your colleague. Did you want to get
more information? I hear him speaking to you. Did you finish
your answer?
Mr. Gimble. We were just talking about where Eddie was.
Senator Warner. Beg your pardon?
Mr. Gimble. We were just talking about where Lieutenant
Colonel Edge is. He is in the process of retiring. So that is
the reason he is not here.
Senator Warner. I see.
Commander, let me just ask you a question. No one is
questioning any patriotism. It seems to me we are questioning
judgment, and the issue was why did certain individuals make
the decision not to make full disclosure of dissenting
perspectives on these critical intelligence questions. Do you
agree that is the issue before us this morning?
Commander Harstad. Why did certain----
Senator Warner. I guess my question is, having listened
very carefully, and I have seen at least a dozen exchanges
between you and Mr. Gimble, which is fine--I have occupied that
seat in years past when I was Secretary of the Navy and I know
you have to rely on staff. But there was an unusual number of
consultations. Do you have any information with which you could
give this committee to explain why this material was
intentionally withheld in the various briefings we have talked
about?
Commander Harstad. I do not think I know anything that
would answer that question, sir.
Senator Warner. Do you know of any individual within the
staff that might have knowledge, Mr. Gimble's staff, that could
help this committee understand why certain materials were
deleted during these critical briefings?
Commander Harstad. As far as why the fundamental issues
slide was deleted from the DCI brief----
Senator Warner. Yes.
Commander Harstad. --that I am certain, because Mr. Feith
submitted a written statement to us prior to his debrief or his
interview, and in that statement----
Senator Warner. Is that the statement that we are referring
to today?
Commander Harstad. No, sir.
Senator Warner. It is another statement?
Commander Harstad. It is other than what you have in front
of you there, sir.
Senator Warner. This is a document?
Commander Harstad. Yes, sir. It is a----
Senator Warner. Does the committee have possession of this
document?
Commander Harstad. Probably not, but it is unclassified and
can be provided.
Senator Warner. Do you know where it is?
Commander Harstad. Yes, sir. It is in our building.
Senator Warner. But it is not here in the hearing room
today?
Commander Harstad. No, sir.
Senator Warner. Could we have that document?
Chairman Levin. Of course.
Are you able to quote from that document?
Senator Chambliss. We have that document.
[See ANNEX B]
Commander Harstad. Pretty close, sir. Mr. Feith has said in
a number of different letters as well that the reason that
slide was removed is because it was critical in tone and it may
distract from the dialogue between the analysts. He's said that
more than once, in writing.
Senator Warner. We will need to explore that, Mr. Chairman.
I think the chair is anxious to go to the second part of
this hearing; is that correct?
Chairman Levin. We are anxious, but we also have a few
additional questions which we are going to ask. Each of us can
perhaps take a couple minutes.
First of all, you made reference to the fact that the
Czechs reached a conclusion in 2006 that the meeting did not
take place as a matter of conclusion. I would urge you to go
back, look at the classified material, because I think you are
wrong on that. They suggested or reached a conclusion long
before 2006. But it is classified as to when exactly they did
reach it, so we would ask you to review for the record the time
at which, the point at which the Czechs concluded that the
meeting did not exist. This is just a statement and a request.
[The information referred to follows:]
Our response to the request from Chairman Levin is classified
(Secret/NOFORN) and has been provided to the committee as an attachment
to the question for the record (submitted by Chairman Levin) regarding
the Feith briefing on the Atta meeting.
Chairman Levin. Second, you indicated that at the meeting
following the slide presentation that there then was, I
believe--the date where the 26 points were identified, the date
of that meeting with the CIA personnel, what was the date of
that?
Mr. Gimble. August 20, 2002.
Chairman Levin. They identified the 26 points where they
disagreed with perhaps half of what the presentation said; is
that correct?
Mr. Gimble. That is correct. But the 26 points were
ferreted out before then. This was the meeting that occurred
after the briefing with Mr. Tenet.
[Additional information provided for the record follows:]
The 26 points were not discussed individually at this meeting. The
26 points formed the basis for the briefing slides presented to Mr.
Tenet and were also the basis for the OUSD(P) discussion with CIA
personnel on August 20, 2002.
Chairman Levin. Then after that meeting they had another
meeting; is that correct?
Mr. Gimble. When he said, let us get this back in the
analytical channels, he had his analysts and the policy folks
from Mr. Feith's shop all gathered up on August 20.
Chairman Levin. August 20, and the Feith shop folks were
there?
Mr. Gimble. Yes, sir.
Chairman Levin. They identified the differences?
Mr. Gimble. My understanding is they discussed the
differences. There were some things they agreed on, things they
did not agree on. There were some adjustments made and then
there were still disagreements at the end of the day.
Chairman Levin. All right. Then were those disagreements
identified presented in any way that you know of in the slide
show that was presented to the National Security Council?
Mr. Gimble. No, sir.
Chairman Levin. Now, when you answered my question that the
slide undercuts the Intelligence Community by indicating to the
recipient of the briefing that there are fundamental problems
with the way the Intelligence Community was assessing
information, you gave as evidence of the fact that that slide
undercut the Intelligence Community, you said, ``by observing
the Vice President's words during an interview in which he
describes a memorandum that was obtained and published by the
Weekly Standard.'' There was a memorandum from the Under
Secretary of Defense, Mr. Feith, to members of the SSCI, as
``your best source of information.'' Is that correct, that was
your answer to my question?
Mr. Gimble. Yes, sir.
Chairman Levin. Now, I am going to put in the record at
this time the statement of Vice President Cheney that you make
reference to, and here is what he said: ``With respect to the
general relationship''--he is referring to between, whether
there was one, et cetera, al Qaeda and Saddam--``One place you
ought to go look'' the Vice President said, ``is an article
that Steven Hayes did in the Weekly Standard that goes through
and lays out in some detail, based on an assessment that was
done by the DOD and forwarded to the Senate Intelligence
Committee some weeks ago, that is your best source of
information.''
That is significant for a number of reasons. Number one,
that is what he said was the best source of information. Number
two, it was--he described the report of the Feith operation as
``an assessment.'' The Vice President himself called that ``an
assessment.'' So when there is argument here from some of my
colleagues as to whether you are correct in calling that an
assessment, it seems to me it was understood as an assessment
by as high a personage as the Vice President of the United
States, not just simply a critique of something else, but an
assessment.
[The information referred to follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Chairman Levin. What you have told us here today, Mr.
Gimble, is that intelligence products, intelligence
assessments, are supposed to indicate where there are
disagreements; is that correct?
Mr. Gimble. They are supposed to be vetted and if there are
disagreements----
Chairman Levin. They are supposed to be vetted?
Mr. Gimble. Right, to reconcile and mitigate any
disagreements. But at the end of the day if there are
disagreements, both points should be presented.
Chairman Levin. Thank you.
Could we perhaps each have a few more questions if you
would like.
Senator Chambliss.
Senator Chambliss. Sure. Just very quickly, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Gimble, let me just go back to this slide and your
answer to question number 8 from Senator Levin. Your answer is
that: ``We believe the slide undercuts the Intelligence
Community by indicating to the recipient of the briefing that
there are fundamental problems with the way that the
Intelligence Community was assessing information.''
The fact is, Mr. Gimble, that is a very, very accurate
statement, is it not?
Mr. Gimble. I am sorry, Senator. I was trying to read this.
Senator Chambliss. In your response to question number 8
from Senator Levin, you say that the slide that is referenced
in that question ``undercuts the Intelligence Community by
indicating to the recipient of the briefing that there are
fundamental problems with the way that the Intelligence
Community is assessing information.''
Now we know, because of what happened on September 11 and
because of the intelligence that was given to the
decisionmakers prior to the decision of whether or not to go
into Iraq, that statement is absolutely truthful, is it not?
Mr. Gimble. I think the statement is truthful, yes, sir.
Senator Chambliss. There were fundamental problems with the
way the community was assessing information; is that right?
Mr. Gimble. I do not think that is what our answer says. We
are just saying that the slide was put out there saying that
there were fundamental problems.
Senator Chambliss. But my question is, is that not a very
accurate statement, that there were fundamental problems?
Mr. Gimble. You can find examples of having problems. I am
not sure that I can make an overall assessment of the overall
intelligence processes based on this one review.
Senator Chambliss. Let me go back to your comment in
response to Senator Webb when he asked you as to whether or not
this was an intelligence product. Are you contending that is
actually the case now, Mr. Gimble, that the Feith report was an
intelligence product?
Mr. Gimble. Yes, sir, I am contending that.
Senator Chambliss. Well now, I thought you told us that he
did not gather any intelligence.
Mr. Gimble. But he analyzed--he did not gather
intelligence, but it was analyzed and disseminated, and when
you do the production that results is an intelligence product.
Senator Chambliss. That is what you would consider an
intelligence product?
Mr. Gimble. Yes, sir.
Senator Chambliss. Lastly, the commander and you both
stated that you utilized the Office of General Counsel to
participate in the interview process. Now, OIG has independent
authority. Why would you go to the Office of General Counsel
for assistance?
Mr. Gimble. That is our Office of General Counsel.
Senator Chambliss. I got you, okay.
That is all I have, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Levin. Thank you, Senator Chambliss.
Senator Sessions.
Senator Sessions. It seems to be implicit in your remarks
that there is some sort of sanctity given to the CIA
conclusions and that to criticize those or disagree with those
is improper. You are not saying that, though, are you?
Mr. Gimble. No, we are not saying that at all. It is proper
to criticize. But when you have a vetted intelligence product
and you have somebody that is doing alternate conclusions or an
alternate intelligence product, if there are differences, we
think those should be discussed.
Senator Sessions. All right. Now, so is it not true that
after the policy staffers found some of this information, when
they took it to the CIA, defensive as any agency is--and I have
been in the Federal Government for many years as United States
Attorney and prosecutor and worked with them; I know people are
defensive--they accepted a good deal of what they asked them
and pointed out to them, did they not?
Mr. Gimble. There was common agreement on----
Senator Sessions. They accepted a good deal of what they
suggested that had not been in their previous reports and
estimate?
Mr. Gimble. There were 26 points of discussion and a little
less than half of them were agreed to.
Senator Sessions. Okay, so a little bit less than half of
these 26 they admitted that they could--putting them in would
give a better report, and they accepted that. Some they did not
accept. But some of the guys in the Feith shop disagreed on
that. They thought they should have been accepted, correct?
Mr. Gimble. What happened, there was a paper put together.
The analysts went and looked at it, critiqued it, came up with
26 points that they had either agreement on or disagreement on,
and those, the best I could tell, did not change any of the
Feith briefing.
Senator Sessions. I will just draw my own conclusion. My
own conclusion is that they raised a number of points, and that
the CIA admitted a number of those points were valid and
accepted and it made the report better, and the report would
not have been made better had it not been for Feith's staff
digging into the raw documents and finding this information and
bringing it forward.
Then I do not see anything unusual that they would not want
to, when they talked to the CIA about their disagreements, that
they would not have a slide that says fundamental problems with
how the Intelligence Community is assessing information. I
would say it is just a matter of courtesy that you might not do
that. But I think if you have a concern that CIA is not
properly assessing information you should take it to the
National Security Advisor and maybe be a little bit more
explicit when you make that briefing.
So you have said they have done nothing illegal. You said
they acted with authority. You say that this briefing with the
National Security Advisor, the Assistant, Mr. Hadley, was
inappropriately done in your opinion because they did not give
both sides of all these issues, and that is based on
fundamentally the slides that you had? You do not know the
exact words these staffers used?
Mr. Gimble. Exact words in the briefing?
Senator Sessions. Yes.
Mr. Gimble. I was not there.
Senator Sessions. All you had was the slides?
Mr. Gimble. We have the slides. We have the detail that
underlies the slides. The issue is----
Senator Sessions. Wait a minute now. Wait a minute now. So
but you do not know what they said?
Mr. Gimble. I was not in the room.
Senator Sessions. But they say to you that the nature of
the briefing was not to present a counter-case or a counter-
substantive analysis of these issues, but a fundamental raising
of concerns about the CIA analysis and pointing out some of the
errors they thought the CIA had made. Is that not what they
say?
Mr. Gimble. They say that, they do.
Senator Sessions. That is what they say.
Mr. Gimble. Yes.
Senator Sessions. Okay. So I do not know--surely the
National Security Advisor, Mr. Hadley, the Deputy, was aware
that this by its very nature of the briefing, it was more of a
critique and objection to some of the things in the CIA
analysis. [Audience interruption.]
Chairman Levin. Excuse me. Excuse me. We will not allow any
additional outbreaks. I would ask that you now leave. I am
going to have to ask whoever did that to please leave the room
now.
Senator Sessions. I would just say, Mr. Chairman, thank
you. I guess that is the appropriate thing to do. I think there
is a group of people that think that somehow these staffers
were part of some cabal to start a war for oil or some such
thing as that, and that they were not committed to the decency
of America and trying to make this country better and that they
cooked up all this stuff.
I think your report shows that that is absolutely untrue
and that there were bases for what these issues were raised.
These issues are often in dispute and difficult to know what
the real facts are, and we had an open discussion and the
Secretary of Defense and the Assistant Secretary of Defense
ordered that they get with CIA and work out the differences and
discuss them. I am sure the results of that eventually found
its way to policymakers.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Levin. Thank you, Senator Sessions.
I think we will go back and forth here now. Senator Webb,
do you have additional questions?
Senator Webb. No.
Chairman Levin. Senator Warner?
Senator Warner. Let the record reflect my conversation with
my colleague from Virginia was relating to a State matter, not
this hearing. We have rescheduled a meeting that we have
together here today.
Chairman Levin. The record will so reflect.
Senator Warner. We keep coming back to this very pivotal
phrase. You rendered a professional judgment that the conduct
of certain principals in the administration was inappropriate
with regard to the compilation, preparation, and ultimate
delivery of briefings.
To what extent in your work did you go down into the system
to try and find out why they did this? Because I still
visualize a cadre of very patriotic, very loyal members of
the--I presume most of them professional staff of the DOD,
detailed officers from the DIA; and that that was the team that
brought up the information that came to Secretary Feith's
office.
Did you probe, did they have knowledge that some of their
conclusions was not being delivered? If so, what were their
opinions why their principals were not doing this? In other
words, to support your conclusion it would seem to me you would
have wanted to have gone back into the system to find out why
this occurred.
Mr. Gimble. Let me just characterize it this way. First
off, we were not looking at individuals. We were looking at the
end product, the process. I agree with you, we have no reason
to doubt the professionalism, dedication of all the employees,
because we think they are and they do things with good
intentions. We have no problem with that. That is not an issue
for us.
What we have reported is that when the process came up and
the decision came up, there was a disagreement. There were
known disagreements on both sides, and when it funneled down
the presentation to the policymakers, one side of it did not
appear in these briefings. We are saying in our view that that
was inappropriate. It should have been balanced, because you
had a non-intelligence operation that was doing intelligence
analysis. That is probably okay. We do not have a problem with
that. We thought, because the Secretary or the Deputy Secretary
authorized it, that was fine.
However, you have the professional Intelligence Community,
and you can say that people disagree with what they do or do
not do. That is okay too. We are just saying that when you get
the two fairly different opinions on a number of issues going
forward to a decisionmaker that we think it is important to
have a balance on that and to do less than that would be
considered inappropriate.
Senator Warner. Mr. Gimble, we understand that and you have
presented that in your charts. But take for example the
briefing that was conducted by Mr. Feith's staff. I have to
assume that those who conducted that briefing were out of this
cadre of what I call dedicated career professionals. But they
are equally culpable in the sense that they did not present the
other side.
Did you ask why they did not do it? Were they told not to
do it, or did they draw on their own professional expertise and
decide not to do it? In other words, the wrong, if it is a
wrong, alleged by you was performed by human beings. Why did
they do what they did?
Mr. Gimble. I believe that what they did----
Senator Warner. You believe. Do you know? Do you have facts
to back up?
Mr. Gimble. If you let me just----
Senator Warner. You have a very significant assertion here.
What is the body of fact that gives rise to--I realize
factually it was not done, but what was the reason it was not
done?
Mr. Gimble. The issue for us is that when you have
intelligence-gathering responsibilities and you are an
intelligence operation, you have certain guidelines you have to
follow. The policy shop was directed and authorized by the
Secretary to do that, and we do not believe they followed the
prescribed intelligence vetting processes and they had
information that went up that was not vetted and it was not
shown to be divergent from the other in these briefing charts.
We think that is inappropriate. That is my opinion. Was it
any malintent? I will leave that to the able body up here or
whoever else investigates it. I am not in a position to make a
call on somebody's intent of why they did something. We were
not looking--the question has been why did we not swear people
in. This was not an investigation of people. This was an
investigation of process--or a review of process, not even an
investigation of anything.
Senator Warner. All right. Some of Feith's staff gave one
of these three critical briefings; is that correct?
Mr. Gimble. They did.
Senator Warner. Did your debriefers or interrogators ask
them why they deleted certain material?
Mr. Gimble. You are talking about the changes between
briefing to briefing? There are two issues here. The briefing
got changed three times. For each of the three, there were
differences in that. Okay, that is one issue.
The underlying issue that I am more concerned with is there
was an amount of disagreement on the basic fact of the
presentation, and that is what we think should have been
presented in all three versions, and it simply was not done.
Senator Warner. All right, you have your opinion it should
have been. Did you inquire as to why it was not done from the
individuals that did not do it?
Mr. Gimble. We asked Secretary Feith, as an example, why
that chart did not appear in the briefing to Mr. Tenet.
Senator Warner. Yes, and we have before us his letter,
whatever.
But I am going back to these professional staff people.
Apparently they did one of the briefings. The chart was not
included. My question, did you ask any of these individuals,
not you because you decided not to interview, but your staff.
Did they ask the individuals why did they delete this?
Mr. Gimble. They did not ask that. First, it was not just
deleted. The underlying issue of the 26 points was never in the
presentation to be deleted to start with.
Senator Warner. I think at this point we just best go to
the classified session and see what we can gain.
Chairman Levin. Thank you, Senator Warner.
Senator Webb.
Senator Webb. Just one final comment. Mr. Gimble, I
understand the motivation of your report and I think it is
important for us to reinforce that, that you were asked to
present certain conclusions without getting into political
motivation. I certainly have my political views about why this
was done and I was stating them at the time, that there was a
group of people who wanted very much for this country to get
involved in a unilateral war against a country that was
troublesome but was not directly threatening us. That became
clear very early on after September 11.
That is not the issue that is before us. That is not the
issue that was in the report that you were asked to be giving
us. In terms of staffs in the Pentagon, Senator Warner and I
both have long experience in the Pentagon. I had 5 years in the
Pentagon, as I mentioned earlier, 1 year actually on Senator
Warner's staff when he was Under Secretary and then Secretary
of the Navy. It is important to say that, first of all, these
staffs are comprised of a mix of people in terms of their
backgrounds. Some of them are political appointees, some of
them are career, some of them are military, as we know.
But very often the makeup of a staff is reflected by the
motivations and the character of the leadership on the staff.
They selected people. Even in terms of people who are career,
they interview, they select, and the staff over a period of
time comes to reflect the views of the leadership. I would not
be surprised if that were the case in this staff.
But the most important thing that you have done here is to
provide opinions that are devoid of political judgment, and I
think that is why your report to this extent is so valuable. If
we want more information, if the chairman wants more
information, if Senator Warner and others want more
information--I certainly would like more information on this
because I would like to see some accountability.
But to the extent that you have been able to compile
information, I find it to be credible.
Mr. Gimble. Thank you.
Chairman Levin. We will put in the record the request, if
it is not already in the record, of Chairman Roberts of
September 9 asking you or your predecessor to know whether to
ascertain whether the personnel assigned to OSP, which was part
of the Feith operation, at any time conducted inappropriate
intelligence activities. Your finding is clear that they did.
[The information referred to follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Chairman Levin. As to why they did not do what the process
required them to do in making an intelligence assessment is
something that we will find out, either with the SSCI or on our
own. If they are looking into that aspect of it, we are not
going to duplicate that aspect of it. But why these
inappropriate activities were undertaken is an important
question. It was not the question that you looked at because
that gets into motive. You focused on whether or not the
activities were inappropriate. You reached your conclusion. I
think the evidence is overwhelming that your conclusion is
correct.
We will now do the following. Any of us who have questions
of you will put those questions in writing that can be answered
in the open record. We are now going to go to a closed session.
But we will have a period of 24 hours, let us say 48 hours, to
put together questions for you for the open record.
In addition, we will be talking to witnesses who presented
that slide presentation to the Vice President's office and to
the National Security Council. So if you would supply us with
the names of the people from the Feith office that did make
this presentation, we will be interviewing those folks. We will
also seek interviews with Mr. Hadley and Mr. Libby, and see
whether or not they will be willing to meet with us.
[The information referred to follows:]
The list of individuals who presented the briefing, ``Assessing the
Relationship between Iraq and al Qaeda,'' follows:
Mr. Christopher Carney (OUSD(P))
Ms. Christina Shelton (OUSD(P))
Mr. Jim Thomas (Special Assistant to the Secretary of
Defense)
Chairman Levin. You said that Mr. Hadley declined to meet
with you?
Mr. Gimble. The counsel over there declined to make him
available.
Chairman Levin. Did you seek to talk to Mr. Libby as well?
Mr. Gimble. No, sir, we did not.
Chairman Levin. We will make--since the presentation was to
his staff, we will try to either talk to him or to his staff. I
believe he was, though, at the presentation if I am not--is
that correct, Mr. Libby was there?
Mr. Gimble. He was at the presentation.
Chairman Levin. So we will seek to talk to them both, Mr.
Hadley and Mr. Libby, and we would appreciate your letting us
know who it was on behalf of the Feith office that made this
presentation.
We are now going to move to the classified portion. It will
not take long. I think you have an obligation to be at a
different presentation. At what time is that?
Mr. Gimble. After this hearing.
Chairman Levin. After this hearing.
We will now move. We thank you all for your presence. We
will move to room 236. We are adjourned.
[Questions for the record with answers supplied follow:]
Questions Submitted by Senator Carl Levin
lack of a recommendation
1. Senator Levin. Mr. Gimble, your report doesn't make any
recommendations as to remedial action that should to be taken. Your
report states that the circumstances prevalent in 2002 are no longer
present today and that ``the continuing collaboration between the Under
Secretary of Defense for Intelligence (USD(I)) and the Office of the
Director of National Intelligence will significantly reduce the
opportunity for the inappropriate conduct of intelligence activities
outside of intelligence channels.''
However, the present Under Secretary of Defense for Policy has
submitted 50 pages of comments that disagree with virtually every
aspect of your draft report and, in particular, that the Feith office
was engaged in intelligence activities.
Since the present Under Secretary of Defense for Policy doesn't
believe that what was done in the Feith shop was inappropriate, why
should we believe that such intelligence activities won't be repeated?
Mr. Gimble. As stated in our report, the creation of the USD(I) and
the aggressive efforts of the Director of National Intelligence's
National Intelligence Council and analytic integrity and standards have
contributed to a more favorable operational environment. It should also
be noted that the Office of Special Plans (OSP) and the Policy
Counterterrorism Evaluation Group are no longer a part of the Office of
the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy (OUSD(P)) and elements of the
OUSD(P) moved to the USD(I) with its establishment.
We did not include any recommendations for remedial action because
the conditions that exist today are different from the circumstances
which existed during the months leading up to the invasion of Iraq. Our
conclusion that the environment within the DOD and the Intelligence
Community (IC) has changed is supported by the statements made by
Robert Gates (Secretary of Defense) and Michael McConnell (Director of
National Intelligence) during their confirmation hearings held in
December 2006 and February 2007, respectively.
Mr. Gates stated: ``The one thing I don't like is offline
intelligence organizations, or analytical groups. I would far rather
depend on the professional analysts at Defense Intelligence Agency
(DIA) and at Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and at the other
agencies, and work to ensure their independence than to try and create
some alternative some place. And so I think that relying on those
professionals, and making it clear, from my position, if I'm confirmed,
that I expect then to call the shots as they see them and not try and
shape their answers to meet a policy need.''
Mr. McConnell, when asked what he would do if he became aware that
intelligence was being used inappropriately, stated, ``If I was aware
that anyone was using information inappropriately, then I would make
that known to whoever was using the information inappropriately.'' He
further stated, ``I would tell all those responsible for this process
what the situation was. In the role of this committee (Senate Select
Committee on Intelligence ((SSCI)) for oversight, you would be a part
of that process to be informed.''
alternative analysis briefing
2. Senator Levin. Mr. Gimble, the OUSD(P) alternative analysis
briefing ``Assessing the Relationship Between Iraq and al Qaida'' was
given to the Secretary of Defense, the Director of Central
Intelligence, and to the staffs of the Office of the Vice President and
the National Security Council.
Did you ask, and do you know, if that briefing was given to any
other entities or foreign governments? If so, to whom?
Mr. Gimble. We did not ask, nor are we aware of any foreign
governments or any other entities being briefed this presentation.
czech view of alleged atta meeting
3. Senator Levin. Mr. Gimble, during the briefing there was a
discussion of when the Czech Government first came to doubt that the
alleged Atta meeting with the Iraqi intelligence officer, al Ani, took
place in Prague in April 2001.
Can you review your records and tell us when the Czech Government
first doubted that the meeting took place, and when they first
concluded that it had not taken place?
Mr. Gimble. In the winter of 2001 Czech officials began to retract
some of their statements concerning the Atta/al-Ani meeting. We do not
have documents showing when they first concluded that it had not taken
place.
release of originator controlled material without clearance
4. Senator Levin. Mr. Gimble, is it required that approval must be
granted for a non-originating agency to release originator controlled
(ORCON) material before releasing it?
Mr. Gimble. Yes. Executive Order Number 12958, ``Classified
National Security Information,'' dated March 2003 states:
``An agency shall not disclose information originally
classified by another agency without its authorization.''
The Controlled Access Program Office (CAPCO) describes ORCON in the
IC Classification and Control Markings Implementation Manual as:
``Information bearing this marking may be disseminated within
the headquarters and specified subordinate elements of the
recipient organizations, including their contractors within
government facilities. This information may also be
incorporated in whole or in part into other briefings or
products, provided the briefing or product is presented or
distributed only to original recipients of the information.
Dissemination beyond headquarters and specified subordinate
elements or to agencies other than the original recipients
requires advanced permission from the originator.''
5. Senator Levin. Mr. Gimble, did Under Secretary Feith have that
approval from the CIA before he released the ORCON material to the SSCI
in late October 2003?
Mr. Gimble. No. However, Under Secretary Feith believed that the
CIA had approved the ORCON material before sending it to the SSCI in
October 2003. In Under Secretary Feith's statement to the DOD Inspector
General's (IG) office he stated that he requested permission from the
CIA to release the ORCON material, but lacking a timely response, he
believed that the CIA had granted permission to release the material.
During our review we found no documentation of the ORCON request to CIA
from Under Secretary Feith, however, on November 15, 2003, a Department
of Defense (DOD) news release stated, ``the provision of the classified
annex to the Intelligence Committee was cleared by other agencies and
done with the permission of the Intelligence Community.'' This press
release was sanctioned by the CIA's then Deputy Director Central
Intelligence (DDCI), thus signaling CIA's approval of the information's
release.
6. Senator Levin. Mr. Gimble, your report says that the Feith
office requested approval to release the documents. Did your staff
review the actual letter of request from the Feith office to the CIA?
Mr. Gimble. No, we have no such documentation from Under Secretary
Feith to the CIA. However, the July 2006, ``Memorandum for the
Inspector General, DOD on behalf of The Honorable Douglas J. Feith,''
stated that his staff gave the summary to the CIA for approval on
October 24, 2003. We have no evidence proving otherwise. Eventually the
DDCI approved the release via a joint DOD press release in November
2003.
7. Senator Levin. Mr. Gimble, your report says that the Feith
office ``believed'' it had approval from the CIA before sending the
material to the SSCI. Who told you that the Feith office believed they
had the CIA approval, and what was the basis provided for that belief?
Mr. Gimble. In the July 2006, ``Memorandum for the Inspector
General, DOD on behalf of The Honorable Douglas J. Feith'' and his July
2006 interview with my staff, Under Secretary Feith declared his belief
that his office had obtained CIA approval for the release of ORCON
materials.
8. Senator Levin. Mr. Gimble, do you believe it is appropriate, if
an office does not receive a response providing ORCON release approval,
for it to assume that it has been given such approval?
Mr. Gimble. Executive Order Number 12958, ``Classified National
Security Information,'' dated March 2003 states:
``An agency shall not disclose information originally
classified by another agency without its authorization.''
The CAPCO describes ORCON in the IC Classification and Control
Markings Implementation Manual as:
Information bearing this marking may be disseminated within
the headquarters and specified subordinate elements of the
recipient organizations, including their contractors within
government facilities. This information may also be
incorporated in whole or in part into other briefings or
products, provided the briefing or product is presented or
distributed only to original recipients of the information.
Dissemination beyond headquarters and specified subordinate
elements or to agencies other than the original recipients
requires advanced permission from the originator.''
This guidance clearly states approval for release of classified
information must be cleared through the originating agency and we
believe it is appropriate to wait for specific approval prior to
release of classified information.
9. Senator Levin. Mr. Gimble, your report says: ``The OUSD(P)
requested permission from the CIA to release the ORCON material, but
lacking a timely response, the OUSD(P) believed that the CIA had
granted permission to release the material.'' If the Feith office
believed they had approval to release the original submission to the
SSCI on October 27, 2003, why did they seek approval before sending the
revised annex to the Senate Armed Services Committee in January 2004?
Mr. Gimble. The July 2006. ``Memorandum for the Inspector General,
DOD on behalf of The Honorable Douglas J. Feith'' states ``because the
original ORCON release request applied only to the SSCI, the OUSD(P)
requested CIA ORCON release authority for the other committees.''
revised submission of originator controlled material to congress
10. Senator Levin. Mr. Gimble, in relation to the January 2004
revised ORCON material that Under Secretary Feith sent to the Senate
Armed Services Committee and other congressional committees, did your
staff compare the specific changes requested by the CIA with:
the actual changes that were made by Under Secretary Feith to
the document; and
the changes that were represented by Under Secretary Feith to
have been requested by the CIA?
Mr. Gimble. Yes, my staff examined the original OUSD(P) document
and the amended document with the changes. We also noted that in a
memorandum dated November 1, 2004, the CIA Director of Congressional
Affairs stated ``after a careful comparison between that submission and
what we had requested as our condition for clearance of CIA material, I
believe that you made all of the changes we requested.''
feith briefing on atta meeting
11. Senator Levin. Mr. Gimble, one of the questions I asked you to
investigate was whether the Feith office prepared briefing charts on
the Iraq-al Qaeda relationship that went beyond the available
intelligence by asserting that an alleged meeting between September 11
lead hijacker Mohammed Atta and an Iraqi intelligence agent in Prague
in April 2001 was a ``known contact.'' Your report confirms that the
briefing presented the alleged meeting as a fact.
Was this alleged meeting--which the IC doubted took place--a key
underpinning of the Feith office conclusion that Iraq and al Qaeda had
a cooperative relationship?
Mr. Gimble. The alleged meeting between Mohammed Atta and al-Ani
was indeed a ``key underpinning of the Feith office conclusion,''
however it was one of many. OUSD(P) also believed that there was a
``mature symbiotic relationship'' in other areas such as the pursuit of
weapons of mass destruction, training, and Iraq providing a safe haven
for al Qaeda.
12. Senator Levin. Mr. Gimble, did you find that both the CIA and
DIA had published reports in the summer of 2002, prior to the Feith
office briefing to the White House containing this assertion, that
questioned the single Czech report alleging the meeting?
Mr. Gimble. Yes. In June 2002 the CIA published a report that
downplayed the alleged meeting between Mohammed Atta and an Iraqi
intelligence agent. In July 2002 the DIA Joint Intelligence Task Force-
Combating Terrorism published special analysis that pointed to
significant information gaps in regards to the alleged meeting. I have
included additional classified information in response to this
question.
Czech Message Summary
The following is a classified summary of the CIA message traffic we
reviewed for our report. [Deleted.]
comparison of oral briefing to briefing slides
13. Senator Levin. Mr. Gimble, in its comments on your draft
report, did the current OUSD(P) assert that the slides accompanying the
presentation ``Assessing the Relationship Between Iraq and al Qaeda''
made in 2002 by members of Under Secretary Feith's Office to the
Secretary of Defense, the Director of Central Intelligence, to the
Deputy National Security Advisor, and the Vice President's Chief of
Staff were, in any way, not reflective of the oral briefing that
accompanied them?
Mr. Gimble. In our review of the current Under Secretary of Defense
for Policy's comments on our report we did not find any statement that
quoted him as saying the brief made in 2002 was not reflective of the
oral briefing that accompanied the slides.
14. Senator Levin. Mr. Gimble, did Mr. Feith, or any of those
people who worked on the presentation, assert that the slides were, in
any way, not reflective of the oral briefing that accompanied them?
Mr. Gimble. During our review, my staff did not discover any
evidence that what appeared in OUSD(P) slides (overhead and hardcopy)
differed from what was briefed orally. Our interviews with OUSD(P)
briefers did not reveal that opposing views (the IC's) were
articulated.
any denied documents
15. Senator Levin. Mr. Gimble, were there any documents or
information you requested which you were denied? If so, what was denied
to you, and for what reason or reasons?
Mr. Gimble. No. All documents requested were received.
unclassified and declassified versions of report
16. Senator Levin. Mr. Gimble, a significant portion of your
classified report is actually unclassified text. Your unclassified
briefing material was drawn heavily from the report, which is otherwise
classified. Please provide an unclassified version of the report to the
committee immediately. Then, please review the rest of the report for
declassification to see if classified portions can be declassified and
made public. Please provide a declassified version of the report after
the declassification review.
Mr. Gimble. We are in the process of preparing a declassified
version. On February 22, 2007, we sent letters to the DIA and CIA
requesting declassification assistance. Upon completion, the
declassified version of the report will be provided to the committee.
[See ANNEX A]
document storage
17. Senator Levin. Mr. Gimble, our staff has heard--not from your
office--that Mr. Feith was storing Pentagon documents that were
relevant to your review at places other than the Pentagon, such as the
National War College at Fort McNair.
Is that true? If so, what was Mr. Feith's rationale for doing
so?;
If so, were all applicable rules and procedures followed in
the movement of those documents, and have all documents been
accounted for?; and
If so, do you know whether that removal hindered your inquiry
in any way?
Mr. Gimble. Yes, it is true that Mr. Feith stored documents on a
computer hard drive and computer external drive at the National Defense
University (NDU). Mr. Feith stored these documents for archival
purposes. Mr. Feith is in the process of writing a book on his
experiences. All applicable rules and procedures were not followed
because the staff at NDU informed DOD IG that storage of the computer
at NDU was done without permission of the Office of the Secretary of
Defense (OSD) Records Management Office. The OSD Records Management
Office subsequently removed the computer from NDU. However, this
removal did not hinder DOD IG in any way because the computer hard
drives were imaged by the Defense Criminal Investigative Service prior
to the removal.
information requests
18. Senator Levin. Mr. Gimble, please provide copies of the
following to the committee:
A list of all individuals interviewed for your inquiry;
A list of all individuals you sought to interview, but were
denied an interview;
All documents requested by the committee or promised by the
DOD IG at the briefing, including, but not limited to, the
following:
the August 9, 2002 DIA JTIF-CT document(s) and
subject OUSD(P) document(s) reviewed by JTIF-CT;
the July 25, 2002 OUSD(P) memo related to the OUSD(P)
briefings; and
documents from the period around August 20, 2002,
indicating the 26 points of disagreement between the
OUSD(P) alternative analysis and the IC, and the views
of the IC on those 26 points.
Mr. Gimble. Documents requested by the committee or promised by the
DOD IG at the briefing have been provided as inserts to the record. I
have also included in response to this question a copy of the July 12,
2006, ``Memorandum for the Inspector General, DOD on behalf on The
Honorable Douglas J. Feith, Former Under Secretary of Defense for
Policy.'' [See ANNEX B]
The August 9, 2002 DIA JTIF-CT document(s) and subject OUSD(P)
document(s) reviewed by JTIF-CT; the July 25, 2002, OUSD(P) memo
related to the OUSD(P) briefings are both ORCON CIA and DIA, on
February 21, 2007, we requested declassification reviews from both and
subsequently on March 9, 2007, we initiated a request to release these
two documents to the Senate Armed Services Committee. These 2 documents
also address the issue of the 26 points of disagreement between the
OUSD(P) alternative analysis and the IC, and the views of the IC on
those 26 points.
I have provided, as an insert for the record, a version that has
been redacted to protect privacy under the Privacy Act of 1974, 5
U.S.C. 552a as amended. An unredacted list has been provided to the
committee.
The attached list contains the names of 72 individuals interviewed,
4 individuals declining to be interviewed, and 2 additional names of
importance.
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Questions Submitted by Senator Jack Reed
contacts with foreign intelligence agencies
19. Senator Reed. Mr. Gimble, did the OSP have contacts and talk
with intelligence agencies of other countries? If so, which ones?
Mr. Gimble. No. Our review was of pre-Iraqi war intelligence
activities of the OUSD(P). We focused on analysis, production, and
dissemination of intelligence with regards to the Iraq-al Qaeda
connection. Nothing during the course of our review indicated that
collection of intelligence was occurring particularly with intelligence
agencies of other countries. Existing intelligence products and raw
intelligence were used by the OUSD(P).
ahmed chalabi
20. Senator Reed. Mr. Gimble, did your staff look into activities
of the OUSD(P) related to Ahmed Chalabi? If so, what did you find?
Mr. Gimble. We were tasked to review the pre-Iraqi war activities
of the OUSD(P). We did not review or evaluate any activities concerning
Ahmed Chalabi as part of this effort. The Iraqi National Congress (INC)
review, another ongoing DOD OIG intelligence review, looked at
relationships of DOD personnel with the INC, not exclusively Ahmed
Chalabi. Chalabi was the leader of the INC, but he was not the INC or
the only person DOD dealt with. A classified report is planned for
issuance in April 2007. The final report will be provided to the Senate
Armed Services Committee upon completion.
ANNEX A
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ANNEX B
[Whereupon, at 12:04 p.m., the committee adjourned.]