[Congressional Record Volume 149, Number 104 (Tuesday, July 15, 2003)]
[Senate]
[Pages S9358-S9360]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                         BUILDUP TO WAR ON IRAQ

  Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, last week, CIA Director George Tenet 
accepted responsibility for having gone along with the African uranium 
statement in the President's State of the Union address. His 
acknowledgment that it should not

[[Page S9359]]

have been included in the address and his acceptance of responsibility 
was appropriate. But his explanation of the CIA's acquiescence in 
allowing the use of a clearly misleading statement raises more 
questions than it answers, and statements by other administration 
officials, particularly National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, 
compound the problem.
  Even more troubling, however, is the fact that the uranium statement 
appears to be but one of a number of several questionable statements 
and exaggerations by the intelligence community and administration 
officials that were issued in the buildup to the war. The importance of 
objective and credible intelligence cannot be overstated. It is 
therefore essential that we have a thorough, open and bipartisan 
inquiry into the objectivity, credibility and use of U.S. intelligence 
before the Iraq war.
  First, relative to the uranium issue:

       The President in his State of the Union Message said that 
     the British Government had learned that Iraq recently sought 
     to purchase significant quantities of uranium from Africa. 
     The sole purpose of that statement was to make the American 
     people believe that the American Government believed the 
     statement to be true and that it was strong evidence of 
     Iraq's attempt to obtain nuclear weapons. But the truth was 
     that, at the very time the words were spoken, our Government 
     did not believe it was true. Condoleezza Rice's effort to 
     justify the statement on the grounds that it was 
     ``technically accurate'' doesn't address the heart of the 
     matter, which is that the statement was calculated to create 
     a false impression. It is simply wrong to make a statement 
     whose purpose is to make people believe something when you do 
     not believe it yourself.

  It is all well and good that the CIA has acknowledged its role in 
caving in to pressure from the National Security Council to concur in 
something which it did not believe. But Director Tenet's acknowledgment 
raises further questions of who was pushing the false impression at the 
National Security Council. The NSC should not misuse intelligence that 
way.
  The President's statement that Iraq was attempting to acquire African 
uranium was not a ``mistake.'' It was not inadvertent. It was not a 
slip. It was negotiated between the CIA and the NSC. It was calculated, 
and it was misleading. And what compounds its misleading nature is that 
the CIA not only ``differed with the British dossier on the reliability 
of the uranium reporting,'' to use Director Tenet's words, but the CIA 
had also ``expressed [its] reservations'' to the British in September 
2002, nearly 5 months before the State of the Union Address. 
Furthermore, the CIA pressed the White House to remove a similar 
reference from the President's speech on October 7, 2002, and the White 
House did so--nearly 4 months before the State of the Union Address.
  The uranium issue is not just about sixteen words. It is about the 
conscious decisions that were made, apparently by the NSC and concurred 
in by the CIA, to create a false impression. And it is not an isolated 
example. There is troubling evidence of other dubious statements and 
exaggerations by the intelligence community and administration 
officials.
  Relative to aluminum tubes, in a speech before the U.N. General 
Assembly on September 12, 2002, President Bush said, ``Iraq has made 
several attempts to buy high-strength aluminum tubes used to enrich 
uranium for a nuclear weapon.'' In fact, an unclassified intelligence 
assessment in October acknowledged that some intelligence specialists 
``believe that these tubes are probably intended for conventional 
weapons programs,'' and on February 5, 2003, Secretary of State Colin 
Powell told the U.N. Security Council that ``we all know there are 
differences of opinion,'' and that ``there is controversy about what 
these tubes are for.'' The International Atomic Energy Agency, after 
conducting an inquiry into the aluminum tubes issue, concluded they 
were not for uranium enrichment.
  On the Iraq-al-Qaida connection: On September 27 of last year, 
Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld described the administration's 
search for hard evidence for a connection between Iraq and al-Qaida. He 
said, ``We ended up with five or six sentences that were bullet-proof. 
We could say them, they are factual, they are exactly accurate. They 
demonstrate that there are in fact al-Qaida in Iraq.'' While Secretary 
Rumsfeld later went on to say, ``They are not beyond a reasonable 
doubt,'' he did not say there was considerable uncertainty in the 
intelligence community about the nature and extent of ties between Iraq 
and al-Qaida. It was certainly never a ``bullet- proof'' case.
  On nuclear reconstitution, last Sunday, Ms. Rice said, ``We have 
never said that we thought he [Saddam] had nuclear weapons.'' But Vice 
President Cheney said on March 16, ``We believe he [Saddam] has, in 
fact, reconstituted nuclear weapons.''
  On the question of certainty that Iraq possesses chemical and 
biological weapons, on August 26, 2002, Vice President Cheney said: 
``Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons 
of mass destruction. There is no doubt he is amassing them to use 
against our friends, against our allies, and against us.'' On September 
26, 2002, President Bush said, ``The Iraqi regime possesses biological 
and chemical weapons.'' On March 17, 2003, President Bush told the 
Nation that ``intelligence gathered by this and other governments 
leaves no doubt that the Iraq regime continues to possess and conceal 
some of the most lethal weapons ever devised.'' And on March 30, 2003, 
Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld said, ``We know where they 
[weapons of mass destruction] are. They're in the area around Tikrit 
and Baghdad and east, west, south and north somewhat.'' The fruitless 
search to date for Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction during 
and after our entry into Iraq suggests that our intelligence was either 
way off the mark or seriously stretched.

  As to mobile biological warfare labs, on May 28, 2003, the CIA posted 
on its Web site a document it prepared with the Defense Intelligence 
Agency entitled, ``Iraqi Mobile Biological Warfare Agent Production 
Plants.'' This report, which is still on the CIA Web site, concluded 
that the two trailers found in Iraq were for biological warfare agent 
production, even though other experts and intelligence community 
members do not agree with that conclusion, or believe there is not 
enough evidence to reach such a conclusion. None of these alternative 
views have been posted on the CIA's Web page.
  On White House Web site photos, on October 8, 2002, the White House 
placed three sets of satellite photos on its Web site, with the 
headline, ``Construction at three Iraqi nuclear weapons-related 
facilities.'' Although one of the facilities was not nuclear-related, 
the captions of the photos gave the impression that Iraq was proceeding 
with work on weapons of mass destruction at these facilities, although 
UNMOVIC and IAEA inspections at these facilities found no prohibited 
activities or weapons. For instances, related to the Al Furat 
manufacturing facility, the caption notes that ``the building was 
originally intended to house a centrifuge enrichment cascade operation 
supporting Iraq's uranium enrichment efforts'' and that after 
construction resumed in 2001, ``the building appears operational.''
  So the misleading statement about African uranium is not an isolated 
issue. There is a significant amount of troubling evidence that it was 
part of a pattern of exaggeration and misleading statements. That is 
what a thorough, open and bipartisan investigation should examine.
  Finally, again relative to the uranium statement, I am deeply 
troubled by Ms. Rice's continuing justification of the use of the 
statement in the President's State of the Union Address. She repeatedly 
says it was ``accurate,'' despite the fact that its clear aim was to 
create a false impression. Her statement and Director Tenet's statement 
raise more questions than they answer. Here are some of those 
questions:
  One, who in the administration was pressing the CIA to concur in a 
statement that the CIA did not believe was true, and why did they do so 
even after the CIA objected to the text?
  Two, who at the CIA was involved in pressing the White House to 
remove the similar reference from the October 7 speech, and what 
reasons did they give for removing it?
  Three, who in the White House was involved in removing a similar 
reference from the President's speech on October 7, nearly 4 months 
before the State of the Union speech?
  Four, who at the CIA knew about the decision to tell the British 
intelligence

[[Page S9360]]

service in September, 2002 of CIA's ``reservations'' about the 
inclusion of references to Iraqi efforts to obtain uranium from Africa 
in the British intelligence service's September 24 dossier?
  Five, given the doubts of the U.S. Intelligence Community, why didn't 
the President say in his State of the Union speech not only that ``The 
British Government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought 
significant quantities of uranium from Africa'' but that ``our U.S. 
intelligence community has serious doubts about such reporting''?
  Six, how and when did the U.S. Government receive the forged 
documents on Niger, and when did it become aware that they might be 
bogus?
  And, seven, what role did the Office of the Vice President have in 
bringing about an inquiry into Iraq's purported efforts to obtain 
uranium from Niger? Was the Vice President's staff briefed on the 
results of Ambassador Wilson's trip to Niger?
  These and many other questions underscore the critical importance of 
a bipartisan, open, and thorough inquiry into the objectivity and 
credibility of intelligence concerning the presence of weapons of mass 
destruction in Iraq immediately before the war and the alleged Iraq al-
Qaida connection, and the use of such intelligence by the Department of 
Defense in policy decisions, military planning and the conduct of 
operations in Iraq.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Alaska is recognized.
  Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, I ask that the Chair lay before the 
Senate the Defense appropriations bill.

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