[Congressional Record Volume 150, Number 33 (Tuesday, March 16, 2004)]
[House]
[Pages H1101-H1109]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




             THE HIGH COST OF EMPLOYEE HEALTH CARE COVERAGE

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 7, 2003, the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Conyers) is 
recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the minority leader.
  (Mr. CONYERS asked and was given permission to revise and extend his 
remarks.)
  Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker and Members of the House, I was visited by 
the Michigan floral shop owners, small business people who were telling 
me they can hardly afford the private health insurance coverage for 
their employees. And many of them are going to have to give up the 
practice of insuring for health purposes their employees because the 
costs are just too enormous.
  I am reminded of a discussion I had with the esteemed president of 
the United Automobile Workers, Mr. Ron Gettelfinger, who indicated that 
we have just about run out of how much unions in collective bargaining 
agreements can continue to give up in terms of the health care, 
employer-based health care that the United Automobile Workers have been 
working on for decades because the demands of the corporations, the 
automobile corporations, continue and insist at every round of 
collective bargaining to require more and more give-backs, higher 
premiums, and fewer services to be provided under the employer-employee 
health plan.
  It is also my duty to report to you that I have been advised that 
DaimlerChrysler Corporation is examining something different from the 
plan that the Chrysler Corporation, who they succeeded, has been 
engaged in with the United Automobile Workers in terms of their 
employee health coverage. It is getting too high, it is costing too 
much.
  And so I am here to continue a discussion that has been going on for 
many years. And I would like to recommend to my colleagues a few of the 
things I have been reading about this subject matter and see where it 
takes it. I had the pleasure of meeting Dr. Ron Mueller, the author of 
a book entitled ``As Sick As It Gets: The Shocking Reality of America's 
Health Care, a Diagnosis and Treatment Plan,'' which he prescribes in 
this book.

[[Page H1102]]

  Here is what he said: Some of the patients had to tell him about 
their health coverage. One said that, ``When my wife dies I can slow 
down, I will not need to work so hard to pay for her medications.'' 
Another said, ``I borrowed my sister's insulin, she has insurance.'' 
Another, ``I don't have insurance. Actually I do, but I have a $5,000 
per year deductible.'' Another, all of his Social Security goes for his 
medications and his medical bills. ``I am trapped. You work all your 
life and look forward to retirement and it will not come. I got to work 
to pay for the pills and the bills.'' Another, ``It was only after my 
lawyer got involved that they agreed to cover my surgery.''
  ``Those (expletive deleted) are a bunch of thieves. I called Medicare 
and they told me not to pay another dime. Then the (expletive deleted) 
threatened me.''
  Another, ``I have a history of using cocaine but I have been drug 
free for 3 years. Unfortunately, I have had thoughts of using it again 
and I am afraid I might relapse. So I called my insurance company to 
see if counseling was covered. The insurance company said I was not 
covered unless I tested positive. So I have to go out and use the drugs 
before I am covered. Makes sense, does not it?''
  And the final comment, ``The letter said we have covered all your 
medical bills except $384,000.''
  And so it is an important subject that we begin to examine more and 
more closely as we move forward.
  Dr. David Himmelstein, Dr. Steffie Woolhandler, and Dr. Ida Hellander 
have a book that deals with the consequences of corporate health care. 
And they make the following points, and I quote: ``Centuries ago, 
doctors practiced phlebotomy by applying incisions and leaches to their 
patients. Doctors acted on the misguided belief that illnesses could be 
cured by bleeding them away. Some patients lost so much blood that it 
killed them. Today we wonder how they got it so wrong. One day our 
grandchildren will look back on the damage wrought by corporate health 
care with an equal sense of bewilderment. They will learn that early in 
the 21st century, 45 percent of all bankruptcies involved a medical 
reason or a large medical debt; that 47 percent of those denied 
authorization for emergency room care by their HMOs had unstable vital 
signs or other high-risk indicators; the death rates and patient 
expenses are higher at the for-profit hospitals than at nonprofit 
facilities; that doctors are actually paid money to withhold medical 
services; that in a solid economy, infant mortality rates for African 
Americans are more than twice those for whites. And perhaps most 
baffling is the continued existence of a corporate system when 77 
percent of Americans believe the government should provide quality 
medical coverage to all adults.''
  And so their book, with extraordinary detail, is a compelling 
argument in favor of a national health care program, a program that 
would cover everyone and provide better care for less than what we 
spend today.
  I want to emphasize that. We could spend less with a reorganized 
national health care system than we are spending today. How could that 
be? How could we get better care for less money?
  Well, one simple answer would be to take the incredible profit taking 
that goes on within the health care industry. It is amazing; 47 
percent, or 45.6 percent to be precise, of all bankruptcies involve a 
medical reason or a large medical debt; 326,441 families identified 
illness as the main reason for bankruptcy in the year 1999. An 
additional 269,757 had large medical debts at the time of bankruptcy. 
And that 7 per 1,000 single women and 5 per 1,000 men suffered a 
medical-related bankruptcy in the year 1999.
  This is from the Norton's Bankruptcy Advisor, which is the source of 
those statistics.

                              {time}  2015

  So we could do a lot for our Nation's citizens by revisiting health 
care.
  We have some other issues that relate to this subject that I think 
are pretty important. We have here another interesting book, soft 
cover, put together by the staff of the New York Times. It is called 
``Solving America's Health-Care Crisis, A Guide to Understanding the 
Greatest Threat to Your Family's Economic Security,'' and so they point 
out to us that this great problem is the biggest one that confronts the 
most Americans.
  ``The labyrinth of issues involved in understanding this crisis is 
daunting,'' and so they provide for a primer that will help all of us 
make judgments about the complicated health care issues now plaguing 
the country. This New York Times staff provides searching reportage and 
penetrating analysis and tells what works and what does not, who 
profits and who loses and what might or might not be done to fix a 
health care industry on the brink of collapse.
  What is done in this book that is most interesting is to examine how 
high technology and high medical costs both save lives and at the same 
time hurt growing numbers of Americans, how other countries, for 
example, handle health care better than we do. As a matter of fact, all 
of the industrialized nations of the world have a national health care 
plan that does not turn on whether a person has the right insurance 
company or carries the right provisions within the health care plan 
before it can be covered, whether or not a person can independently 
afford to pay for it.
  This book, ``Solving America's Health-Care Crisis,'' examines how 
some doctors profit from patients by becoming high-tech entrepreneurs; 
and so it seems to many of us that it is correct to say that the key to 
America's economic fate lies in health care reform, and so I would like 
to thank Mr. Eric Eckholm, who led the team that put this very 
interesting discussion together.
  We are forced now to examine whether, with the hundreds and hundreds 
of proposals of bills in both the House and the Senate relating to 
health care and health care delivery, to Medicare and Medicaid, to 
Social Security, how we are going to more quickly improve the system 
that we are working on; and I look forward to discussions with my 
colleagues, informally, about what we must do to deal with this 
subject.
  I would like now to turn to a very interesting statement that has 
been put forward by my friend, the Secretary of State, Colin Powell, in 
which he asserted that 130 nations backed us in the war against Iraq. 
There are 191 countries in the United Nations. There are some 40 or 
more that are not in the United Nations, and there may be as much as a 
dozen who are neither in the United Nations nor are formally organized 
and recognized as nation states. We are talking about a lot of people, 
6.4 billion people in the world, more than 250 countries, and 130 of 
them backed us up.
  I have sent a note, and I will include it in the Record, asking the 
Secretary to advise me of which of these countries contributed to our 
success in the war in Iraq.

                                         House of Representatives,


                                   Committee on the Judiciary,

                                   Washington, DC, March 16, 2004.
     Hon. Colin Powell,
     Secretary, Department of State, Washington, DC.

     Urgent Attn: Office of the Secretary.

       Dear Secretary Powell: I write to request a specific 
     identification from your office of the countries who support 
     the United States' decision to declare war on Iraq. In your 
     statement regarding the matter, it was your position that 
     approximately 130 countries were behind the U.S. in this war. 
     I would appreciate your urgent assistance in providing a list 
     of these countries at your earliest possible convenience.
       Thank you for your kind assistance in this matter, and if 
     you need any further information relevant to this request, 
     please do not hesitate to contact me directly at 202-225-
     5126.
           Sincerely,
                                                 John Conyers, Jr.
                                                   Ranking Member.

  May I indicate, that it has been brought to the attention of the Roll 
Call newspaper that the question of whether the legality of the 
government-sponsored ads promoting the new Medicare prescription drug 
benefit is appropriate or indeed legal. GAO, of course, the 
investigative arm of the Congress, wants to find out whether this ad 
program launched by the administration violates a Federal law 
prohibiting the government from disseminating ``covert propaganda,'' 
and so we await the examination and report of the General Accounting 
Office.
  It has been commented by the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Brown) that 
there are a number of questions that

[[Page H1103]]

are related to this very important subject.


                                  Iraq

  Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, in connection with Iraq, we had the benefit 
of the Committee on Government Reform, which has had a study done about 
this, which runs some 30 pages, that raises the question of the Bush 
administration's public statements on Iraq. It is called ``Iraq on the 
Record,'' and there have been questions raised in several areas. I will 
include this report in the Record, which was prepared at the request of 
the distinguished ranking member of the Committee on Government Reform, 
the gentleman from California (Mr. Waxman); but this table of contents, 
and this has been released today, special investigations division, 
raises the question of the number and timing of misleading statements 
on the part of the administration.

Iraq on the Record--The Bush Administration's Public Statements on Iraq

                           Executive Summary

       On March 19, 2003, U.S. forces began military operations in 
     Iraq. Addressing the nation about the purpose of the war on 
     the day the bombing began, President Bush stated: ``The 
     people of the United States and our friends and allies will 
     not live at the mercy of an outlaw regime that threatens the 
     peace with weapons of mass murder.''
       One year later, many doubts have been raised regarding the 
     Administration's assertions about the threat posed by Iraq. 
     Prior to the war in Iraq, the President and his advisors 
     repeatedly claimed that Iraq possessed weapons of mass 
     destruction that jeopardized the security of the United 
     States. The failure to discover these weapons after the war 
     has led to questions about whether the President and his 
     advisors were candid in describing Iraq's threat.
       This report, which was prepared at the request of Rep. 
     Henry A. Waxman, is a comprehensive examination of the 
     statements made by the five Administration officials most 
     responsible for providing public information and shaping 
     public opinion on Iraq: President George Bush, Vice President 
     Richard Cheney, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary 
     of State Colin Powell, and National Security Advisor 
     Condoleezza Rice. It finds that the five officials made 
     misleading statements about the threat posed by Iraq in 125 
     public appearances. The report and an accompanying database 
     identify 237 specific misleading statements by the five 
     officials.


                              methodology

       The Special Investigations Division compiled a database of 
     statements about Iraq made by President Bush, Vice President 
     Cheney, Secretary Rumsfeld, Secretary Powell, and National 
     Security Advisor Rice. All of the statements in the database 
     were drawn from speeches, press conferences and briefings, 
     interviews, written statements, and testimony by the five 
     officials.
       This Iraq on the Record database contains statements made 
     by the five officials that were misleading at the time they 
     were made. The database does not include statements that 
     appear in hindsight to be erroneous but were accurate 
     reflections of the views of intelligence officials at the 
     time they were made. The entire database is accessible to 
     members of Congress and the public at www.reform.house.gov/
 min.
       This report is a summary of the Iraq on the Record 
     database. Because the officials' statements have been 
     compiled into a searchable database, the report can make new 
     observations about the topics that were the subject of 
     misleading claims, the timing of these claims, and the 
     officials who were responsible. To ensure objectivity, the 
     report was peer reviewed for fairness and accuracy by two 
     leading experts: Joseph Cirincione, senior associate and 
     director of the Non-Proliferation Project at the Carnegie 
     Endowment for International Peace, and Greg Thielmann, former 
     acting director of the Office of Strategic, Proliferation, 
     and Military Affairs in the Department of State's Bureau of 
     Intelligence and Research.


                                findings

       Number of Misleading Statements. The Iraq on the Record 
     database contains 237 misleading statements about the threat 
     posed by Iraq that were made by President Bush, Vice 
     President Cheney, Secretary Rumsfeld, Secretary Powell, and 
     National Security Advisor Rice. These statements were made in 
     125 separate appearances, consisting of 40 speeches, 26 press 
     conferences and briefings, 53 interviews, 4 written 
     statements, and 2 congressional testimonies. Most of the 
     statements in the database were misleading because they 
     expressed certainty where none existed or failed to 
     acknowledge the doubts of intelligence officials. Ten of the 
     statements were simply false.
       Timing of the Statements. The statements began at least a 
     year before the commencement of hostilities in Iraq, when 
     Vice President Cheney stated on March 17, 2002: ``We know 
     they have biological and chemical weapons.'' The 
     Administration's misleading statements continued through 
     January 22, 2004, when Vice President Cheney insisted: 
     ``There's overwhelming evidence that there was a connection 
     between al-Qaeda and the Iraqi government.'' Most of the 
     misleading statements about Iraq--161 statements--were made 
     prior to the start of the war. But 76 misleading statements 
     were made by the five Administration officials after the 
     start of the war to justify the decision to go to war.
       The 30-day period with the greatest number of misleading 
     statements was the period before the congressional vote on 
     the Iraq war resolution. Congress voted on the measure on 
     October 10 and October 11, 2002. From September 8 through 
     October 8, 2002, the five officials made 64 misleading 
     statements in 16 public appearances. A large number of 
     misleading statements were also made during the two months 
     before the war began. Between January 19 and March 19, 2003, 
     the five officials made 48 misleading statements in 26 public 
     appearances.
       Topics of the Statements. The 237 misleading statements can 
     be divided into four categories. The five officials made 11 
     statements that claimed that Iraq posed an urgent threat; 81 
     statements that exaggerated Iraq's nuclear activities; 84 
     statements that overstated Iraq's chemical and biological 
     weapons capabilities; and 61 statements that misrepresented 
     Iraq's ties to al Qaeda.
       Statements by President Bush. Between September 12, 2002, 
     and July 17, 2003, President Bush made 55 misleading 
     statements about the threat posed by Iraq in 27 separate 
     public appearances. On October 7, 2002, three days before 
     the congressional votes on the Iraqi war resolution, 
     President Bush gave a speech in Cincinnati, Ohio, with 11 
     misleading statements, the most by any of the five 
     officials in a single appearance.
       Some of the misleading statements by President Bush include 
     his statement in the January 28, 2003, State of the Union 
     address that ``the British government has learned that Saddam 
     Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium 
     from Africa''; his statement on October 2, 2002, that ``the 
     Iraqi regime is a threat of unique urgency''; and his 
     statement on May 1, 2003, that ``the liberation of Iraq . . . 
     removed an ally of al Qaeda.''
       Statements by Vice President Cheney. Between March 17, 
     2002, and January 22, 2004, Vice President Cheney made 51 
     misleading statements about the threat posed by Iraq in 25 
     separate public appearances.
       Some of the misleading statements by Vice President Cheney 
     include his statement on September 8, 2002, that ``we do 
     know, with absolute certainty, that he is using his 
     procurement system to acquire the equipment he needs . . . to 
     build a nuclear weapon''; his statement on March 16, 2003, 
     that ``we believe he has, in fact, reconstituted nuclear 
     weapons''; and his statement on October 10, 2003, that Saddam 
     Hussein ``had an established relationship with al Qaeda.''
       Statements by Secretary Rumsfeld. Between May 22, 2002, and 
     November 2, 2003, Secretary Rumsfeld made 52 misleading 
     statements about the threat posed by Iraq in 23 separate 
     public appearances.
       Some of the misleading statements by Secretary Rumsfeld 
     include his statement on November 14, 2002, that within ``a 
     week, or a month'' Saddam Hussein could give his weapons of 
     mass destruction to al Qaeda, which could use them to attack 
     the United States and kill ``30,000, or 100,000 . . . human 
     beings''; his statement on January 29, 2003, that Saddam 
     Hussein's regime ``recently was discovered seeking 
     significant quantities of uranium from Africa''; and his 
     statement on July 13, 2003, that there ``was never any 
     debate'' about whether Iraq had a nuclear program.
       Statements by Secretary Powell. Between April 3, 2003, and 
     October 3, 2003, Secretary Powell made 50 misleading 
     statements about the threat posed by Iraq in 34 separate 
     public appearances.
       Secretary Powell sometimes used caveats and qualifying 
     language in his public statements. His statements that 
     contained such cautions or limitations were not included in 
     the database. Nonetheless, many of Secretary Powell's 
     statements did not include these qualifiers and were 
     misleading in their expression of certainty, such as his 
     statement on May 22, 2003, that ``there is no doubt in our 
     minds now that those vans were designed for only one purpose, 
     and that was to make biological weapons.''
       Statements by National Security Advisor Rice. Between 
     September 8, 2002, and September 28, 2003, National Security 
     Advisor Rice made 29 misleading statements about the threat 
     posed by Iraq in 16 separate public appearances.
       Although Ms. Rice had the fewest public appearances and the 
     fewest misleading statements, she had the highest number of 
     statements--8--that were false. These false statements 
     included several categorical assertions that no one in the 
     White House knew of the intelligence community's doubts about 
     the President's assertion that Iraq sought to import uranium 
     from Africa.

                            I. Introduction

       The President and his senior advisors have a special 
     obligation to describe accurately the national security 
     threats facing the Nation. This special obligation derives in 
     part from the nature of the subject. There is no decision 
     that is more grave than sending our armed forces to battle. 
     The special obligation also derives in part from the unique 
     access that the President and his advisors have to classified 
     information. On matters of national security, only the 
     President and his advisors have full access to the relevant 
     classified information. Members of Congress and the public 
     see only a partial picture based on the information the 
     President and his advisors decide to release.

[[Page H1104]]

       Recently, serious questions have been raised regarding 
     whether President Bush and his Administration met this 
     special obligation. Numerous news reports and columns have 
     questioned the accuracy of specific statements by President 
     Bush and other Administration officials. The White House 
     maintains that any misstatements were ``only a small part of 
     an `overwhelming' case that Iraqi President Saddam Hussein 
     posed a threat to the United States.'' Other observers, 
     though, have detected a pattern of consistent 
     misrepresentation.
       The one-year anniversary of the beginning of military 
     operations in Iraq marks an occasion for comprehensively 
     assessing whether the President and his senior advisors met 
     their obligation to accurately present intelligence to the 
     American public. For this reason, Rep. Waxman asked the 
     Special Investigations Division to assemble in a single 
     database any misleading statements made by President Bush, 
     Vice President Cheney, and other senior Administration 
     officials about the threat posed by Iraq. This report 
     summarizes key findings from this Iraq on the Record 
     database. The database itself is available to members of 
     Congress and the public at www.reform.house.gov/min.

                            II. Methodology

       The Iraq on the Record database contains statements from 
     the five Administration officials most responsible for 
     providing public information and shaping public opinion on 
     the Iraq war: President George Bush; Vice President Richard 
     Cheney; Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld; Secretary of 
     State Colin Powell; and National Security Advisor Condoleezza 
     Rice.
       The statements in the database are drawn from 125 public 
     statements or appearances in which the five officials 
     discussed the threat posed by Iraq. The sources of the 
     statements are 40 speeches, 26 press conferences and 
     briefings, 53 interviews, 4 written statements and 
     articles, and 2 appearances before congressional 
     committees. Quotes from the officials in newspaper 
     articles or other similar secondary sources were not 
     included in the database because of the difficulty of 
     discerning the context of such quotes and ensuring their 
     accuracy. Statements made by the officials before March 
     2002, one year before the commencement of hostilities in 
     Iraq, were also not included.
       The database contains statements that were misleading based 
     on what was known to the Administration at the time the 
     statements were made. In compiling the database, the Special 
     Investigations Division did not assess whether 
     ``subjectively'' the officials believed a specific statement 
     to be misleading. Instead, the investigators used an 
     ``objective'' standard. For purposes of the database, a 
     statement is considered ``misleading'' if it conflicted with 
     what intelligence officials knew at the time or involved the 
     selective use of intelligence or the failure to include 
     essential qualifiers or caveats.
       The database does not include statements that appear 
     mistaken only in hindsight. If a statement was an accurate 
     reflection of U.S. intelligence at the time it was made, the 
     statement is excluded from the database even if it now 
     appears erroneous.
       To determine whether a statement was misleading, the 
     Special Investigations Division examined the statement in 
     light of intelligence known to the Administration at the time 
     of the statement. The primary sources for determining the 
     intelligence available to the Administration were (1) the 
     portions of the October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate 
     that have been released to the public, (2) the February 5, 
     2004, statement by Director of Central Intelligence George 
     Tenet entitled Iraq and Weapons of Mass Destruction, (3) the 
     recent report of the nonpartisan Carnegie Endowment for 
     International Peace entitled WMD in Iraq: Evidence and 
     Implications, and (4) news and other reports quoting U.S. 
     officials regarding the intelligence available to the 
     administration on Iraq.
       In general, hypothetical and implied statements about 
     threats posed by Iraq were not included in the database of 
     misleading statements. A few such statements were included, 
     however, where they implied a threat in evocative and 
     frightening language. These statements were misleading 
     because the effect was to instill in the public the 
     perception that the threat actually existed.
       To be conservative, the Special Investigations Division 
     excluded hundreds of statements by the five officials that 
     many observers would consider misleading. For example, the 
     five officials made numerous claims that Iraq ``had'' 
     stockpiles of chemical weapons. Many of these statements were 
     misleading in that they implied that Iraq possessed these 
     stockpiles currently and did not acknowledge the doubts of 
     intelligence experts. Nevertheless, these statements were not 
     included in the database when they were expressed in the past 
     tense because Iraq did possess chemical weapons at least as 
     late as the early 1990s and used them during the 1980s.
       Investigators also excluded scores of statements of 
     certainty that Iraq possessed ``weapons of mass destruction'' 
     prior to the war. To many observers, these statements would 
     be misleading because they implied that Iraq possessed 
     nuclear weapons without acknowledging the division among 
     intelligence officials about whether this was the case. The 
     Special Investigations Division excluded these general 
     ``weapons of mass destruction'' assertions, however, because 
     of the ambiguity inherent in the phrase.
       The Special Investigations Division asked two leading 
     independent experts to peer review this report for fairness 
     and accuracy. These two independent experts are: Joseph 
     Cirincione, senior associate and director of the Non-
     Proliferation Project at the Carnegie Endowment for 
     International Peace, and Greg Thielmann, former acting 
     director of the Office of Strategic, Proliferation, and 
     Military Affairs in the Department of State's Bureau of 
     Intelligence and Research. These experts judged that this 
     report is a fair and accurate depiction of the 
     administration's statements.

            III. Number and Timing of Misleading Statements

       President Bush, Vice President Cheney, Secretary Rumsfeld, 
     Secretary Powell, and National Security Advisor Rice 
     repeatedly made misleading statements about the threat posed 
     by Iraq. They made these statements in 125 separate public 
     appearances. The total number of misleading statements made 
     by the five officials is 237.
       The 237 misleading statements were made in a variety of 
     forums. On 53 occasions, the five officials gave interviews 
     in which they made claims that were misleading. They also 
     made misleading statements in 40 speeches, 26 press 
     conferences and briefings, 4 written statements and articles, 
     and 2 appearances before Congress.
       The misleading statements began at least one year before 
     the start of the war in Iraq, when Vice President Cheney 
     stated on March 17, 2002: ``The President's made it clear 
     that we are concerned about nations such as Iraq developing 
     weapons of mass destruction. We know the Iraqis have been 
     engaged in such efforts over the years. We know they 
     have biological and chemical weapons. . . . And we also 
     have reason to believe they're pursuing the acquisition of 
     nuclear weapons.''
       These misleading statements have continued through at least 
     January 2004. On January 22, 2004, Vice President Cheney said 
     in a National Public Radio interview, ``I think there's 
     overwhelming evidence that there was a connection between al-
     Qaeda and the Iraqi government. . . . I'm very confident that 
     there was an established relationship there.'' He also said 
     in the same interview, ``we know . . . that prior to our 
     going in that he had spent time and effort acquiring mobile 
     biological weapons labs, and we're quite confident he did, in 
     fact, have such a program. We've found a couple of semi 
     trailers at this point which we believe were, in fact, part 
     of that program.'' As described below, both of these 
     assertions were misleading in that they failed to disclose 
     the serious doubts held by intelligence officials.
       The majority of the misleading statements--161--were made 
     in the buildup to the war in Iraq. The volume of misleading 
     statements by the five officials peaked before key decision 
     points in the buildup to the war. Congress began debate on 
     the Iraq war resolution in early October 2002 and voted on 
     the measure on October 10 and October 11, 2002. During the 30 
     days between September 8 and October 8, 2002, the five 
     officials made 64 misleading statements in 16 public 
     appearances. This was the highest number of misleading 
     statements for any 30-day period.
       There were also a large number of misleading statements in 
     the two months before hostilities began on March 19, 2003, 
     when the five officials made 48 misleading statements in 26 
     public appearances.
       Most of the misleading statements in the Iraq on the Record 
     database involve the selective use of intelligence or the 
     failure to include essential qualifiers or caveats. For 
     example, statements of certainty that Iraq was close to 
     possessing nuclear weapons were misleading because they 
     ignored significant doubts and disagreement in the U.S. 
     intelligence community regarding whether Iraq was actively 
     pursuing a nuclear program.
       In 10 instances, however, the statements included in the 
     database were false statements that directly contradicted 
     facts known at the time by the Administration. For example, 
     on July 11, 2003, Ms. Rice stated with respect to the claim 
     that Iraq was seeking uranium in Africa: ``Now, if there were 
     doubts about the underlying intelligence . . . those doubts 
     were not communicated to the President, to the Vice 
     President, or to me.'' This statement is false because, as 
     Ms. Rice's deputy Stephen Hadley subsequently acknowledged, 
     the CIA sent Ms. Rice and Mr. Hadley memos in October 2002 
     warning against the use of this claim.

                IV. Categories of Misleading Statements

       The misleading statements by President Bush, Vice President 
     Cheney, Secretary Rumsfeld, Secretary Powell, and National 
     Security Advisor Rice fall into four general categories: (1) 
     statements suggesting that Iraq posed an urgent threat, (2) 
     statements regarding Iraq's nuclear activities, (3) 
     statements regarding Iraq's biological and chemical weapons 
     capabilities, and (4) statements regarding Iraq's support of 
     al Qaeda.


             a. statements that iraq posed an urgent threat

       On February 5, 2004, Director of Central Intelligence 
     George Tenet categorically stated that the U.S. intelligence 
     community ``never said there was an `imminent' threat.'' Yet 
     this was not the impression conveyed by President Bush, Vice 
     President Cheney, Secretary Rumsfeld, Secretary Powell, and 
     National Security Advisor Rice in their public statements on 
     Iraq. In 10 different appearances, these five officials made 
     11 statements claiming that Iraq posed an urgent threat.
       For example: President Bush stated on October 2, 2002: 
     ``The Iraqi regime is a threat of

[[Page H1105]]

     unique urgency. . . . [I[t has developed weapons of mass 
     death.'' President Bush stated on November 20, 2002: 
     ``Today the world is . . . uniting to answer the unique 
     and urgent threat posed by Iraq.'' Vice President Cheney 
     stated on August 26, 2002: ``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.''
       In one instance, Secretary Rumsfeld said that Iraq could 
     give weapons of mass destruction to al Qaeda in ``a week, or 
     a month,'' resulting in the deaths of up to 100,000 people. 
     On November 14, 2002, Secretary Rumsfeld stated: ``Now, 
     transport yourself forward a year, two years, or a week, or a 
     month, and if Saddam Hussein were to take his weapons of mass 
     destruction and transfer them, either use them himself, or 
     transfer them to the Al-Qaeda, and somehow the Al-Qaeda, and 
     somehow the Al-Qaeda were to engage in an attack on the 
     United States, or an attack on U.S. forces overseas, with a 
     weapon of mass destruction you're not talking about 300, or 
     3,000 people potentially being killed, but 30,000, or 100,000 
     . . . human beings.''


            b. statements about iraq's nuclear capabilities

       In their potential for destruction and their ability to 
     evoke horror, nuclear weapons are in a class by themselves. 
     As Dr. David Kay, former special advisor to the Iraq Survey 
     Group, testified on January 28, 2004: ``All of us have and 
     would continue to put the nuclear weapons in a different 
     category. It's a single weapon that can do tremendous damage, 
     as opposed to multiple weapons that can do the same order of 
     damage. . . . I think we should politically treat nuclear as 
     a difference.''
       For precisely this reason, the Administration's statements 
     about Iraq's nuclear capabilities had a large impact on 
     congressional and public perceptions about the threat posed 
     by Iraq. Many members of Congress were more influenced by the 
     Administration's nuclear assertions than by any other piece 
     of evidence. Rep. Waxman, for example, wrote to President 
     Bush in June 2003 that in voting for the Iraq war resolution: 
     ``Like other members, I was particularly influenced by your 
     views about Iraq's nuclear intentions. Although chemical and 
     biological weapons can inflict casualties, no threat is 
     greater than the threat of nuclear weapons.'' Numerous 
     members of Congress stressed Iraq's nuclear threat in their 
     floor statements explaining their support of the resolution.
       Despite the significance of the nuclear issue, President 
     Bush, Vice President Cheney, Secretary Powell, Secretary 
     Rumsfeld, and National Security Advisor Rice repeatedly 
     misrepresented the nuclear threat posed by Iraq. The five 
     officials made 49 separate public appearances in which they 
     made misleading statements about Iraq's nuclear threat. In 
     these appearances, they made a total of 81 misleading 
     statements regarding Iraq's nuclear activities.
       These misleading statements generally fall into one of 
     three categories: (1) misleading statements about the status 
     of Iraq's nuclear program, (2) misleading statements about 
     the purpose of aluminum tubes sought by Iraq, and (3) 
     misleading statements about Iraq's attempts to obtain uranium 
     from Africa.
     1. Claims about the Status of Iraq's Nuclear Program
       Prior to the war, there were significant divisions within 
     the intelligence community about whether Iraq had resumed 
     efforts to make nuclear weapons. In his speech on February 5, 
     2004, Mr. Tenet explained that there was not unanimity on 
     whether Iraq had reconstituted its nuclear program and that 
     these differences were described in the National Intelligence 
     Estimate (NIE): ``Let me be clear, where there were 
     differences, the Estimate laid out the disputes clearly.'' In 
     particular, the State department's Bureau of Intelligence and 
     Research (INR) concluded in the NIE that ``[t]he activities 
     we have detected do not, however, add up to a compelling case 
     that Iraq is currently pursuing what INR would consider to be 
     an integrated and comprehensive approach to acquire nuclear 
     weapons.'' INR added: ``Lacking persuasive evidence that 
     Baghdad has launched a coherent effort to reconstitute its 
     nuclear weapons program, INR is unwilling to speculate that 
     such an effort began soon after the departure of UN 
     inspectors.'' The INR position was similar to the 
     conclusions of the International Atomic Energy Agency 
     (IAEA), which concluded that there was ``no indication of 
     resumed nuclear activities . . . nor any indication of 
     nuclear-related prohibited activities.''
       These doubts and qualifications, however, were not 
     communicated to the public. Instead, the five Administration 
     officials repeatedly made unequivocal comments about Iraq's 
     nuclear program. For example, President Bush said in October 
     2002 that ``[t]he regime has the scientists and facilities to 
     build nuclear weapons and is seeking the materials required 
     to do so.'' Several days later, President Bush asserted that 
     Saddam Hussein ``is moving ever closer to developing a 
     nuclear weapon.''
       Vice President Cheney made perhaps the single most 
     egregious statement about Iraq's nuclear capabilities, 
     claiming: ``we know he has been absolutely devoted to trying 
     to acquire nuclear weapons. And we believe he has, in fact, 
     reconstituted nuclear weapons.'' He made this statement just 
     three days before the war. He did not admit until September 
     14, 2003, that his statement was wrong and that he ``did 
     misspeak.''
       President Bush and others portrayed the threat of Saddam 
     Hussein waging nuclear war against the United States or its 
     allies as one of the most urgent reasons for preemptively 
     attacking Iraq. Administration officials used evocative 
     language and images. On the eve of congressional votes on the 
     Iraq war resolution, for example, President Bush stated: 
     ``Knowing these realities, America must not ignore the threat 
     gathering against us. Facing clear evidence or peril, we 
     cannot wait for the final proof--the smoking gun--that could 
     come in the form of a mushroom cloud.''
       Following the commencement of military operations in Iraq, 
     Administration officials continued to make misleading 
     statements regarding Iraq's nuclear program. For example, 
     Secretary Rumsfeld denied on July 13, 2003, that there was 
     ``any debate'' about Iraq's nuclear capabilities within the 
     Administration, stating: ``We said they had a nuclear 
     program. That was never any debate.''
       Since the war ended, the Iraq Survey Group has been unable 
     to find evidence of the nuclear program described by the five 
     officials. On October 2, 2003, David Kay reported that ``we 
     have not uncovered evidence that Iraq undertook significant 
     post-1998 steps to actually build nuclear weapons or produce 
     fissile material.'' In his January 28, 2004, testimony, Dr. 
     Kay reported that ``[i]t was not a reconstituted, full-blown 
     nuclear program.'' He added, ``As best as has been determined 
     . . . in 2000 they had decided that their nuclear 
     establishment had deteriorated to such point that it was 
     totally useless.'' His conclusion was that there was ``no 
     doubt at all'' that Iraq had less of an ability to produce 
     fissile material in 2001 than in 1991. According to Dr. Kay, 
     the nuclear program had been ``seriously degraded'' and the 
     ``activities of the inspectors in the early '90s did a 
     tremendous amount.''
     2. Claims about the Aluminum Tubes
       In 2001 and 2002, shipments of aluminum tubes to Iraq were 
     intercepted. This discovery led to an active debate within 
     intelligence agencies about the intended use of the tubes.
       Numerous experts believed the tubes were for conventional 
     rockets rather than a nuclear development program. In his 
     February 5, 2004, speech, Mr. Tenet explained that 
     disagreement over the purpose of the aluminum tubes was 
     ``a debate laid out extensively in the estimate and one 
     that experts still argue over.'' The agency with the most 
     technical expertise in this area, the Department of 
     Energy, believed that the tubes likely were not part of a 
     nuclear enrichment program, stating in the NIE that ``the 
     tubes probably are not part of the program.'' The 
     International Atomic Energy Agency agreed, concluding: 
     ``There is no indication that Iraq has attempted to import 
     aluminum tubes for use in centrifuge enrichment.''
       In addition to dissent from the Energy Department and 
     international inspectors, the State Department also expressed 
     formal reservations, stating in the NIE that ``INR is not 
     persuaded that the tubes in question are intended for use as 
     centrifuge rotors.'' Instead, the State Department accepted 
     the ``judgment of technical experts at the U.S. Department of 
     Energy (DOE) who have concluded that the tubes Iraq seeks to 
     acquire are poorly suited for use in gas centrifuges.'' The 
     State Department explained its position in detail: The very 
     large quantities being sought, the way the tubes were tested 
     by the Iraqis, and the atypical lack of attention to 
     operational security in the procurement efforts are among the 
     factors, in addition to the DOE assessment, that led INR to 
     conclude that the tubes are not intended for use in Iraq's 
     nuclear weapon program.
       According to the NIE, ``INR considers it far more likely 
     that the tubes are intended for another purpose, most likely 
     the production of artillery rockets.''
       These doubts about the use of the aluminum tubes were not 
     conveyed by Administration officials, however. Instead, the 
     aluminum tubes became one of the two principal pieces of 
     information cited by the Administration to support the claim 
     that Iraq was reconstituting its nuclear weapons program. 
     President Bush, Vice President Cheney, Secretary Powell, and 
     National Security Advisor Rice made 10 misleading statements 
     in 9 public appearances about the significance of the 
     aluminum tubes.
       For example, Ms. Rice stated on September 8, 2002: ``We do 
     know that there have been shipments going into . . . Iraq . . 
     . of aluminum tubes that . . . are only really suited for 
     nuclear weapons programs, centrifuge programs.'' Similarly, 
     Vice President Cheney said on September 8, 2002: ``[Saddam 
     Hussein] now is trying, through his illicit procurement 
     network, to acquire the equipment he needs to be able to 
     enrich uranium to make the bombs . . . [s]pecifically 
     aluminum tubes.'' These statements were misleading because 
     they did not present the possibility that the tubes were 
     suitable or intended for another purpose, or acknowledge that 
     key U.S. experts doubted that the tubes were intended to make 
     nuclear bombs.
       In one instance, Secretary Powell did acknowledge that some 
     experts disputed that the aluminum tubes were intended for 
     nuclear uses. In his February 5, 2003, address before the 
     United Nations, Secretary Powell stated, ``By now, just about 
     everyone has heard of these tubes and we all know that there 
     are differences of opinion. There is

[[Page H1106]]

     controversy about what these tubes are for. Most U.S. experts 
     think they are intended to serve as rotors in centrifuges 
     used to enrich uranium.'' Even in that statement, however, 
     Secretary Powell did not make clear that experts from the 
     Department of Energy and the State Department's own 
     intelligence division played a significant role in the 
     analysis of this issue and in formal and deliberate dissents 
     had disputed the view that the tubes would likely be used to 
     enrich uranium.
       On another occasion, Secretary Powell cited the tubes as 
     evidence of pursuit of nuclear weapons, without noting that 
     the intended use of the tubes was under dispute, asserting: 
     ``We also know that Iraq has tried to obtain high-strength 
     aluminum tubes, which can be used to enrich uranium in 
     centrifuges for a nuclear weapons program.''
       By January 27, 2003, the International Atomic Energy Agency 
     had reached the tentative conclusion that the aluminum tubes 
     ``would be consistent with the purpose stated by Iraq and, 
     unless modified, would not be suitable for manufacturing 
     centrifuges.'' Following the occupation of Iraq, the Iraq 
     Survey Group did not find evidence indicating that the tubes 
     were intended for nuclear use. In his January 28, 2004, 
     testimony, Dr. Kay announced: ``It is my judgment, based 
     on the evidence that was collected . . . that it's more 
     probable that those tubes were intended for use in a 
     conventional missile program, rather than in a centrifuge 
     program.''
     3. Claims about Uranium from Africa
       Another significant component of the Administration's 
     nuclear claims was the assertion that Iraq had sought to 
     import uranium from Africa. As one of few new pieces of 
     intelligence, this claim was repeated multiple times by 
     Administration officials as proof that Iraq had reconstituted 
     its nuclear weapons program. In total, the five 
     Administration officials made misleading assertions about 
     Iraq's attempts to obtain uranium from Africa in 7 statements 
     in 6 public appearances.
       In his State of the Union address on January 28, 2003, 
     President Bush stated: ``The British government has learned 
     that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of 
     uranium from Africa. . . . Saddam Hussein has not credibly 
     explained these activities. He clearly has much to hide.''
       Other officials echoed this statement. In a January 23, 
     2003, New York Times op-ed piece, Ms. Rice argued that Iraq 
     had lied in its December 2002 declaration, noting: ``the 
     declaration fails to account for or explain Iraq's efforts to 
     get uranium from abroad.'' In his opening remarks in his 
     televised press conference on January 29, 2003, Secretary 
     Rumsfeld stated, ``[Saddam Hussein's] regime . . . recently 
     was discovered seeking significant quantities of uranium from 
     Africa.''
       These claims that Iraq was seeking to import uranium were 
     misleading. The documentary evidence behind the assertions 
     was declared to be ``not authentic'' by the International 
     Atomic Energy Agency. An envoy, former Ambassador Joseph 
     Wilson, was sent by the CIA to investigate the alleged 
     purchase. Ambassador Wilson concluded that it was ``highly 
     doubtful that any such transaction had ever taken place,'' 
     and on his return, he provided detailed briefings to the CIA 
     and to the State Department African Affairs Bureau.
       When evidence emerged that the importation claim was false, 
     Ms. Rice claimed that the White House had no knowledge of 
     these doubts. She asserted unequivocally that no senior White 
     House officials were informed about questions about the 
     uranium claim prior to its use in the State of the Union 
     address. She stated that ``[t]he intelligence community did 
     not know at that time, or at levels that got to us . . . that 
     there was serious questions about this report.'' As she put 
     it on another occasion: ``[H]ad there been even a peep that 
     the agency did not want that sentence in or that George Tenet 
     did not want that sentence in, that the Director of Central 
     Intelligence did not want it in, it would have been gone.''
       Ms. Rice's claims were simply false. The CIA sent two memos 
     to the National Security Council--one of which was addressed 
     to Ms. Rice personally--warning against including the claim 
     in a speech by the President. Director of Central 
     Intelligence George Tenet also ``argued personally'' to Ms. 
     Rice's deputy national security adviser, Stephen Hadley, 
     ``that the allegation should not be used'' by the President. 
     Further, in the October 2002 NIE provided to top White House 
     officials, the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and 
     Research had stated that claims that Iraq sought to acquire 
     uranium in Africa were ``highly dubious.''
       Ultimately, the White House was forced to admit its error. 
     On July 9, 2003, White House spokesperson Ari Fleischer said 
     that the statement about importing uranium from Africa 
     ``should not have risen to the level of a presidential 
     speech.'' The White House minimized the significance of the 
     Administration's use of the Niger claim, arguing that it was 
     ``only a small part of an `overwhelming' case that Iraqi 
     President Saddam Hussein posed a threat to the United 
     States.''


  C. STATEMENTS ABOUT IRAQ's CHEMICAL AND BIOLOGICAL WEAPONS PROGRAMS

       President Bush, Vice President Cheney, Secretary Rumsfeld, 
     Secretary Powell, and National Security Advisor Rice made 
     misleading statements regarding Iraq's chemical and 
     biological weapons programs in 61 public appearances. In 
     these appearances, the five officials made 84 different 
     misleading statements. These statements addressed three 
     general topics: (1) Iraq's chemical and biological weapons, 
     (2) Iraq's efforts to build unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), 
     and (3) Iraq's mobile biological laboratories.
     1. Claims about Chemical and Biological Weapons
       Prior to the war, there were questions within the 
     intelligence community about whether Iraq in fact possessed 
     stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons. Because Iraq 
     previously had such stockpiles, had used them in the past, 
     and had not adequately demonstrated that all previously 
     produced stockpiles had been destroyed, the intelligence 
     community made an assessment in the October NIE that it was 
     likely that Iraq continued to possess them. Because 
     intelligence agencies had no direct evidence of such 
     stockpiles, however, the conclusions in the October NIE were 
     cast in the context of an intelligence ``estimate.'' The NIE 
     began its sections on chemical and biological weapons with 
     the phrases ``we assess'' and ``we judge.'' The NIE concluded 
     that Iraq ``probably'' had stockpiled chemicals and 
     ``probably'' had genetically engineered biological agents. 
     The NIE also included major qualifiers, such as: ``We lack 
     specific information on many key aspects of Iraq's WMD 
     programs.''
       Other intelligence assessments specifically cited the 
     uncertainty surrounding Iraq's possession of such stockpiles. 
     In September 2002, the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) 
     issued a report that concluded: ``There is no reliable 
     information on whether Iraq is producing and stockpiling 
     chemical weapons or where Iraq has--or will--establish its 
     chemical warfare agent production facilities.'' The report 
     also observed that ``[a] substantial amount of Iraq's 
     chemical warfare agents, precursors, munitions, and 
     production equipment were destroyed between 1991 and 1998 as 
     a result of Operation Desert Storm and UNSCOM (United Nations 
     Special Commission) actions.'' While the report assessed that 
     Iraq ``probably'' retained some ``CW agents,'' it warned that 
     ``we lack any direct information.''
       Despite these uncertainties among the intelligence 
     officials, the five Administration officials made 45 
     misleading statements in 35 appearances about Iraq's 
     possession of chemical or biological weapons. Often these 
     statements were misleading because they projected certainty 
     about their claims. Secretary Powell, for example, claimed, 
     ``there is no doubt in our mind that he still has chemical 
     weapons stocks.'' Secretary Rumsfeld stated: ``He has at this 
     moment stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons.'' Vice 
     President Cheney asserted: ``We know they have biological and 
     chemical weapons.'' And President Bush said bluntly, ``He's 
     got them.''
       Administration officials sometimes claimed to have specific 
     details about stockpile locations and movements. In his 
     speech to the United Nations, for example, Secretary Powell 
     showed photographs of supposed Iraqi chemical stockpiles, 
     stating: ``How do I know that? How can I say that? Let me 
     give you a closer look. Look at the image on the left. On the 
     left is a close-up of one of the four chemical bunkers. The 
     two arrows indicate the presence of sure signs that the 
     bunkers are storing chemical munitions.''
       Secretary Rumsfeld was even more specific, claiming that 
     the Iraqis were ``moving them to different locations as often 
     as every 12 to 24 hours and placing them in residential 
     neighborhoods.'' He also made this statement: ``We know where 
     they are. They're in the area around Tikrit and Baghdad and 
     east, west, south, and north somewhat.''
       The five officials also drew selectively from individual 
     intelligence sources. In 1995, Hussein Kamel, the Iraqi 
     official who had been in charge of Iraq's weapons of mass 
     destruction programs, defected and described how Iraq had 
     violated U.N. resolutions in the early 1990s. Administration 
     officials cited these claims repeatedly. For example, 
     President Bush said: ``In 1995, after several years of deceit 
     by the Iraqi regime, the head of Iraq's military industries 
     defected. It was then that the regime was forced to admit 
     that it had produced more than 30,000 liters of anthrax and 
     other deadly biological agents. . . . This is a massive 
     stockpile of biological weapons that has never been accounted 
     for, and capable of killing millions.''
       President Bush failed to disclose, however, that this same 
     defector reported to U.N. inspectors that Iraq had destroyed 
     all of its chemical and biological weapons stocks.
       Since the war ended, the Iraq Survey Group has reported 
     that it is unlikely that chemical or biological stockpiles 
     existed prior to the war. As Dr. Kay concluded: ``I'm 
     personally convinced that there were not large stockpiles of 
     newly produced weapons of mass destruction. We don't find the 
     people, the documents or the physical plants that you would 
     expect to find if the production was going on.'' Dr. Kay 
     reported in October 2003 that ``Iraq's large-scale capability 
     to develop, produce, and fill new CW munitions was reduced--
     if not entirely destroyed--during Operation Desert Storm and 
     Desert Fox, 13 years of UN sanctions and UN inspections.''
       Director of Central Intelligence George Tenet echoed these 
     findings: ``It also appears that Iraq had the infrastructure 
     and talent to resume production--but we have yet to

[[Page H1107]]

     find that it actually did so, nor have we found weapons.'' 
     His bottom line was that ``we do not know if production took 
     place--and just as clearly--we have not yet found biological 
     weapons.''
     2. Claims about Unmanned Aerial Vehicles
       Prior to the war, Administration officials raised the 
     specter of Iraq using unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) to 
     distribute chemical or biological weapons directly over the 
     United States. Although there was agreement within the 
     intelligence community that Iraq had a UAV program, there was 
     a sharp split over whether these UAVs were designed to 
     deliver chemical or biological weapons. The October NIE 
     concluded that the UAV program was ``probably'' intended to 
     deliver biological weapons. However, the government entity 
     most knowledgeable about UAVs and their potential 
     applications, the Air Force's National Air and Space 
     Intelligence Center, disagreed with this conclusion. 
     According to the NIE, the U.S. Air Force ``does not agree 
     that Iraq is developing UAVs primarily intended to be 
     delivery platforms for chemical and biological (CBW) 
     agents.'' Instead, the Air Force experts asserted that 
     ``[t]he small size of Iraq's new UAV strongly suggests a 
     primary role of reconnaissance.''
       The five Administration officials did not acknowledge these 
     doubts in their public statements, however. Instead, they 
     made misleading assertions regarding the purpose of the UAVs 
     in 5 statements in 5 public appearances.
       For example, on October 7, 2002, just days before the 
     October 10 and October 11, 2002, congressional votes on the 
     Iraqi war resolution, President Bush claimed that ``Iraq has 
     a growing fleet of manned and unmanned aerial vehicles that 
     could be used to disperse chemical or biological weapons.'' 
     He did not disclose that experts at the Air Force found such 
     a use improbable. Instead, he highlighted the fear of Iraq's 
     UAVs being used ``for missions targeting the United States.'' 
     Such statements had an impact on members of Congress. For 
     example, Senator Bill Nelson voted for the Iraq war 
     resolution ``precisely because of the administration's UAV 
     evidence.'' He explained: ``I was told not only that [Hussein 
     had weapons of mass destruction] and that he had the means to 
     deliver them through unmanned aerial vehicles, but that he 
     had the capability of transporting those UAVs outside of 
     Iraq and threatening the homeland here in America, 
     specifically by putting them on ships off the eastern 
     seaboard. . . . I thought there was an imminent threat.''
       In his address to the United Nations, Secretary Powell 
     asserted: ``UAVs are well suited for dispensing chemical and 
     biological weapons. There is ample evidence that Iraq has 
     dedicated much effort to developing and testing spray devices 
     that could be adapted for UAVs.'' In making his presentation 
     to the U.N., Secretary Powell showed a photo of an 
     ``illustrative'' UAV, which he suggested was well-suited for 
     spraying chemical or biological weapons over the United 
     States. This presentation affected members of Congress. 
     Senator Dianne Feinstein stated that of the various pieces of 
     evidence presented by Secretary Powell, ``The most compelling 
     to me was the unmanned aerial vehicle and the development of 
     that with spray tanks. And he kind of laid down the fact that 
     this could be in our country and there was a possibility that 
     this might be used against the United States.''
       President Bush later highlighted Secretary Powell's 
     presentation, claiming: ``All the world has now seen the 
     footage of an Iraqi Mirage aircraft with a fuel tank modified 
     to spray biological agents over wide areas. . . . A UAV 
     launched from a vessel off the American coast could reach 
     hundreds of miles inland.''
       The Iraq Survey Group found little to substantiate these 
     claims. According to Dr. Kay's January 28, testimony, Iraq's 
     UAV program ``was not a strong point'' because it was only 
     ``theoretically possible'' to have ``snuck one of those on a 
     ship off the East Coast of the United States that might have 
     been able to deliver a small amount someplace.'' He found 
     only that ``at least one of those families of UAVs'' was a 
     ``descendent'' of another model that once had a ``spray tank 
     on it.'' In his assessment, there was no ``existing 
     deployment capability at that point for any sort of 
     systematic military attack.''

             3. Claims about Mobile Biological Laboratories

       In April and early May 2003, military forces found mobile 
     trailers in Iraq. Although intelligence experts disputed the 
     purpose of the trailers, Administration officials repeatedly 
     asserted that they were mobile biological weapons 
     laboratories. In total, President Bush, Vice President 
     Cheney, Secretary Rumsfeld, Secretary Powell, and National 
     Security Advisor Rice made 34 misleading statements about the 
     trailers in 27 separate public appearances.
       Shortly after the trailers were found, the CIA and DIA 
     issued an unclassified white paper evaluating the trailers. 
     The white paper was released without coordination with other 
     members of the intelligence community, however. It was 
     disclosed later that engineers from DIA who examined the 
     trailers concluded that they were most likely used to produce 
     hydrogen for artillery weather balloons. A former senior 
     intelligence official reported that ``only one of 15 
     intelligence analysts assembled from three agencies to 
     discuss the issue in June endorsed the white paper 
     conclusion.''
       Despite these doubts within the intelligence community, the 
     five officials repeatedly misled Congress and the public 
     about the trailers by asserting without qualification that 
     they were proof of Iraq's biological weapons program. 
     President Bush made perhaps the most prominent misleading 
     statement on this matter when he proclaimed: ``We found the 
     weapons of mass destruction. We found biological 
     laboratories. You remember when Colin Powell stood up in 
     front of the world, and he said, Iraq has got laboratories, 
     mobile labs to build biological weapons. They're illegal. 
     They're against the United Nations resolutions, and we've so 
     far discovered two. And we'll find more weapons as time goes 
     on. But for those who say we haven't found the banned 
     manufacturing devices or banned weapons, they're wrong, we 
     found them.''
       Similarly, Secretary Powell's comments about the trailers 
     frequently asserted with certainty that the trailers were 
     biological weapons laboratories. For example:
       On May 21, 2003, Secretary Powell said: ``The intelligence 
     community has really looked hard at these vans, and we can 
     find no other purpose for them. Although you can't find 
     actual germs on them, they have been cleaned and we don't 
     know whether they have been used for that purpose or not, but 
     they were certainly designed and constructed for that 
     purpose. And we have taken our time on this one because we 
     wanted to make sure we got it right. And the intelligence 
     community, I think, is convinced now that that's the purpose 
     they served.''
       On May 22, 2003, Secretary Powell said, ``So far, we have 
     found the biological weapons vans that I spoke about when I 
     presented the case to the United Nations on the 5th of 
     February, and there is no doubt in our minds now that those 
     vans were designed for only one purpose, and that was to make 
     biological weapons.''
       The doubts about the trailers were confirmed by the work of 
     the Iraq Survey Group. According to Dr. Kay's January 28, 
     2004, testimony, ``the consensus opinion is that when you 
     look at those two trailers, while [they] had capabilities in 
     many areas, their actual intended use was not for the 
     production of biological weapons.'' In a separate interview, 
     Dr. Kay explained that the trailers ``were actually designed 
     to produce hydrogen for weather balloons, or perhaps to 
     produce rocket fuel.''


             d. statements about Iraq's support of al qaeda

       Another key component of the case for going to war against 
     Iraq was the claim that Iraq was supporting al Qaeda. As was 
     the case with other featured claims the al Qaeda claims were 
     disputed by intelligence officials within the Administration. 
     Yet President Bush, Vice President Cheney, Secretary 
     Rumsfeld, Secretary Powell, and National Security Advisor 
     Rice regularly failed to acknowledge these doubts or the 
     weaknesses in the case linking Iraq and al Qaeda. They made 
     61 misleading statements about the strength of the Iraq-al 
     Qaeda alliance in 52 public appearances.
       Well before the war of Iraq, the October 2002 National 
     Intelligence Estimate made clear that the U.S. intelligence 
     community had serious doubts about the threat of Iraq arming 
     al Qaeda. In its section on ``Confidence Levels for Selected 
     Key Judgements in This Estimate,'' the NIE gave a ``Low 
     Confidence'' rating to the notion of ``Whether in desperation 
     Saddam would share chemical or biological weapons with Al 
     Qa'ida.'' The discussion of this possibility in the NIE 
     contained highly qualified language: ``Saddam, if 
     sufficiently desperate, might decide that only an 
     organization such as al Qa'ida . . . could perpetuate the 
     type of terrorist attack that he would hope to conduct.'' The 
     NIE also reported that ``Baghdad for now appears to be 
     drawing a line short of conducting terrorist attacks with 
     conventional or CBW against the United States, fearing that 
     exposure of Iraqi involvement would provide Washington a 
     stronger cause for making war.''
       Director of Central Intelligence Tenet stated in an October 
     2002 letter that there were intelligence reports of contacts 
     between al Qaeda and Iraq. At the same time, however, he 
     asserted clear qualifiers for this information: ``Our 
     understanding of the relationship between Iraq and al- Qa'ida 
     is evolving and is based on sources of varying reliability.'' 
     Senators who were briefed by intelligence officials in the 
     fall of 2002 expressed skepticism about the significance of 
     the link. For example, Senator Jeffords on October 8, 2002, 
     stated, ``While there is talk of cooperation between Iraq and 
     al-Qaeda, and I don't doubt that there has been some 
     cooperation, I have not seen any hard evidence of close 
     cooperation.'' According to another account, Sen. Richard J. 
     Durbin  . . . said some classified information he had seen 
     did not support the administration's portrayal of the Iraqi 
     threat. ``It's troubling to have classified information that 
     contradicts statements made by the administration,'' Durbin 
     said. ``There's more they should share with the public.'' 
     Durbin would not be more specific, but he did say the 
     committee had received the views of some analysts who do 
     not share the administration's conclusion that Iraq was an 
     urgent threat with important links to al-Qaeda terrorists.
       Journalists also reported that many intelligence officials 
     within the Administration doubted the significance of 
     reported contacts between Iraq and al Qaeda. According to one 
     report: ``[A]nalysts at the C.I.A. . . . believed that the 
     evidence showed some contacts between Baghdad and the 
     terrorist organization, but not an operational alliance. . . 
     . [A]t the C.I.A., many analysts believed that

[[Page H1108]]

     Mr. bin Laden saw Mr. Hussein as one of the corrupt secular 
     Arab leaders who should be toppled.''
       Despite the doubts of many intelligence analysts, the five 
     Administration officials regularly asserted that there was a 
     close relationship between Iraq and al Qaeda. For example:
       In a November 7, 2002, speech, President Bush stated: 
     Saddam Hussein is ``a threat because he is dealing with al 
     Qaeda. . . . [A] true threat facing our country is that an Al 
     Qaeda-type network trained and armed by Saddam could attack 
     America and not leave one fingerprint.''
       In his January 28, 2003, State of the Union address, 
     President Bush stated: ``Evidence from intelligence sources, 
     secret communications, and statements by people now in 
     custody reveal that Saddam Hussein aids and protects 
     terrorists, including members of al Qaeda. Secretly, and 
     without fingerprints, he could provide one of his hidden 
     weapons to terrorists, or help them develop their own.''
       In his February 5, 2003, remarks to the United Nations, 
     Secretary of State Colin Powell stated: ``what I want to 
     bring to your attention today is the potentially much more 
     sinister nexus between Iraq and the al Qaeda terrorist 
     network, a nexus that combines classic terrorist 
     organizations and modern methods of murder. Iraq today 
     harbors a deadly terrorist network headed by Abu Musab al-
     Zarqawi, an associate and collaborator of Usama bin Laden and 
     his al-Qaeda lieutenants.''
       In his remarks on May 1, 2003, announcing the end of major 
     combat operations in Iraq, President Bush stated: ``The 
     battle of Iraq is one victory in a war on terror that began 
     on September the 11, 2001--and still goes on. . . . [T]he 
     liberation of Iraq . . . removed an ally of al Qaeda.''
       Vice President Cheney's statements on this topic repeatedly 
     cited reports of a specific alleged Iraq-al Qaeda contact: A 
     meeting between Mohammed Atta, one of the September 11 
     hijackers, and a senior Iraqi official in Prague a few months 
     before September 11, 2001. For example, Vice President Cheney 
     stated on September 14, 2003: ``With respect to 9/11, of 
     course, we've had the story that's been public out there. The 
     Czechs alleged that Mohammed Atta, the lead attacker, met in 
     Prague with a senior Iraqi intelligence official five months 
     before the attack, but we've never been able to develop any 
     more of that yet either in terms of confirming it or 
     discrediting it. We just don't know.''
       The Vice President's assertions about this meeting omitted 
     key information. He did not acknowledge that the CIA and FBI 
     had concluded before the war in Iraq that ``the meeting 
     probably did not take place''; and Czech government officials 
     had developed doubts regarding whether this meeting occurred; 
     or that American records indicate that Mr. Atta was in 
     Virginia Beach, Virginia, at the time of the purported 
     meeting.
       Assessments following the war further highlighted the 
     tenuous nature of the Administration's assertions about an 
     Iraq-al Qaeda alliance. According to the New York Times, 
     ``Since American forces toppled the Hussein government and 
     the United States gained access to captured Iraqi officials 
     and Iraqi files, the C.I.A. has not yet uncovered evidence 
     that has altered its prewar assessment concerning the 
     connections between Mr. Hussein and Osama bin Laden, the 
     leader of al Qaeda, officials said.''
       Consistent with this view, during Dr. Kay's testimony 
     before the Senate Armed Services Committee on January 28, 
     2004, the following exchange occurred between Senator Warner 
     and Dr. Kay. Senator Warner: Any evidence with regard to 
     participation by either Saddam Hussein or his principal 
     henchmen in the WMD-sharing with al Qaeda or any other 
     terrorist organizations? Dr. Kay: Senator Levin--Senator 
     Warner, there is no evidence that I can think of that I know 
     of.

            V. Misleading Statements by Individual Officials


                           a. president bush

       President Bush made 55 misleading statements about the 
     threat posed by Iraq in 27 separate public statements or 
     appearances.
       Of the 55 misleading statements by President Bush, 4 
     claimed that Iraq posed an urgent threat; 14 exaggerated 
     Iraq's efforts to develop nuclear weapons; 18 overstated 
     Iraq's chemical or biological weapons capacity; and 19 
     misrepresented Iraq's links to al Qaeda.
       On October 7, 2002, just days before the October 10 and 
     October 11, 2002 congressional votes on the Iraq war 
     resolution, President Bush gave an address in Cincinnati, 
     Ohio, about the threat posed by Iraq. In this speech, 
     President Bush made 11 misleading statements about Iraq, the 
     highest number of misleading statements in any single 
     appearance by any of the five officials. In this single 
     appearance, President Bush made misleading statements about 
     Iraq's nuclear capabilities, Iraq's efforts to procure 
     aluminum tubes, Iraq's chemical and biological capabilities, 
     and Iraq's connection to al Qaeda.
       Some of the misleading statements made by President Bush 
     included the following: ``On its present course, the Iraqi 
     regime is a threat of unique urgency. . . . It has developed 
     weapons of mass death.'' ``The British government has learned 
     that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of 
     uranium from Africa.'' ``The liberation of Iraq . . . removed 
     an ally of al Qaeda.'' ``We found the weapons of mass 
     destruction. . . . [F]or those who say we haven't found the 
     banned manufacturing devices or banned weapons, they're 
     wrong, we found them.''


                        b. vice president cheney

       Vice President Cheney made 51 misleading statements about 
     the threat posed by Iraq in 25 separate public statements or 
     appearances.
       Of the 51 misleading statements by Vice President Cheney, 1 
     claimed that Iraq posed an urgent threat; 22 exaggerated 
     Iraq's efforts to develop nuclear weapons; 7 overstated 
     Iraq's chemical or biological weapons capacity; and 21 
     misrepresented Iraq's links to al Qaeda.
       Some of the misleading statements made by Vice President 
     Cheney included the following: ``[W]e do know, with absolute 
     certainty, that he is using his procurement system to 
     acquire the equipment he needs in order to enrich uranium 
     to build a nuclear weapon.'' Saddam Hussein ``had an 
     established relationship with al Qaeda.'' ``[W]e believe 
     he has, in fact, reconstituted nuclear weapons.''


                         c. secretary rumsfeld

       Secretary Rumsfeld made 52 misleading statements about the 
     threat posed by Iraq in 23 separate public statements or 
     appearances.
       Of the 52 misleading statements by Secretary Rumsfeld; 5 
     claimed that Iraq posed an urgent threat; 18 exaggerated 
     Iraq's efforts to develop nuclear weapons; 21 overstated 
     Iraq's chemical or biological weapons capacity; and 8 
     misrepresented Iraq's links to al Qaeda.
       Some of the misleading statements made by Secretary 
     Rumsfeld included the following:
       ``Now transport yourself forward a year, two years, or a 
     week, or a month, and if Saddam Hussein were to take his 
     weapons of mass destruction and transfer them, either use 
     himself, or transfer them to the Al-Qaeda, and somehow the 
     Al-Qaeda were to engage in an attack on the United States . . 
     . with a weapon of mass destruction you're now talking about 
     300, or 3,000 people potentially being killed, but 30,000, or 
     100,000 . . . human beings.''
       ``[Saddam Hussein's] regime . . . recently was discovered 
     seeking significant quantities of uranium from Africa.''
       ``We said they had a nuclear program. That was never any 
     debate.''


                          d. secretary powell

       Secretary Powell made 50 misleading statements about the 
     threat posed by Iraq in 34 separate public statements or 
     appearances.
       Of the 50 misleading statements by Secretary Powell, 1 
     claimed that Iraq posed an urgent threat; 10 exaggerated 
     Iraq's efforts to develop nuclear weapons; 32 overstated 
     Iraq's chemical or biological weapons capacity; and 7 
     misrepresented Iraq's links to al Qaeda.
       Sometimes Secretary Powell used caveats and qualifying 
     language in his public statements. For example, on March 9, 
     2003, he said, ``Well with respect to the aluminum tubes, we 
     still believe the case is out. The CIA has done a great deal 
     of analysis on those tubes. They are not persuaded they were 
     just for rockets. And, in fact, another nation this week, a 
     European nation, came forward with some additional 
     information that still, I think, leaves it an open question 
     as to what the purpose of those tubes was.'' Secretary 
     Powell's acknowledgement of differences in this example was 
     not an unqualified statement that only mentioned one side of 
     an intelligence debate.
       On numerous other occasions, however, Secretary Powell made 
     unconditional statements about the threats posed by Iraq 
     without disclosing the doubts of intelligence officials. Some 
     of the misleading statements he made included the following:
       ``Iraq is now concentrating . . . on developing and testing 
     smaller UAVs. . . . UAVs are well suited for dispensing 
     chemical and biological weapons.''
       ``The more we wait, the more chance there is for this 
     dictator with clear ties to terrorist groups, including al-
     Qaida, more time for him to pass a weapon, share a 
     technology, or use these weapons again.''
       ``So far, we have found the biological weapons vans that I 
     spoke about when I presented the case to the United Nations 
     on the 5th of February, and there is no doubt in our minds 
     that those vans were designed for only one purpose, and that 
     was to make biological weapons.''


                   E. National Security Advisor Rice

       Ms. Rice made 29 misleading statements about the threat 
     posed by Iraq in 16 separate public statements or 
     appearances.
       Of the 29 misleading statements by Ms. Rice, 17 concerned 
     Iraq's efforts to develop nuclear weapons; 6 overstated 
     Iraq's chemical or biological weapons capacity; and 6 
     misrepresented Iraq's links to al Qaeda.
       Some of the misleading statements made by Ms. Rice included 
     the following:
       ``We do know that [Saddam Hussein] is actively pursuing a 
     nuclear weapon.''
       ``We do know that there have been shipments going into . . 
     .  Iraq, for instance, of aluminum tubes that really are only 
     suited to--high quality aluminum tools that are only really 
     suited for nuclear weapons programs, centrifuge programs.''
       ``[T]he declaration fails to account for or explain Iraq's 
     efforts to get uranium from abroad.''
       Ms. Rice made significantly more statements that were 
     false--8--than any of the other four officials. Many of these 
     statements came in June and July 2003 when questions were 
     being raised about why President

[[Page H1109]]

     Bush asserted in his State of the Union address that Iraq was 
     seeking to import uranium from Africa. Ms. Rice repeatedly 
     stated during this period that no one in the White House was 
     informed of the doubts about this uranium claim. For example, 
     she stated:
       ``We did not know at the time--no one knew at the time, in 
     our circles--maybe someone knew down in the bowels of the 
     agency, but no one in our circles knew that there were doubts 
     and suspicions that this might be a forgery.''
       ``[H]ad there been even a peep that the agency did not want 
     that sentence in or that George Tenet did not want that 
     sentence in, that the director of Central Intelligence did 
     not want it in, it would have been gone.''
       These statements were simply false. As explained above, the 
     CIA had repeatedly communicated its objections to White House 
     officials, including Ms. Rice.

                             VI. Conclusion

       Because of the gravity of the subject and the President's 
     unique access to classified information, members of Congress 
     and the public expect the President and his senior officials 
     to take special care to be balanced and accurate in 
     describing national security threats. It does not appear, 
     however, that President Bush, Vice President Cheney, 
     Secretary Rumsfeld, Secretary Powell, and National Security 
     Advisor Rice met this standard in the case of Iraq. To the 
     contrary, these five officials repeatedly made misleading 
     statements about the threat posed by Iraq. In 125 separate 
     appearances, they made 11 misleading statements about the 
     urgency of Iraq's threat, 81 misleading statements about 
     Iraq's nuclear activities, 84 misleading statements about 
     Iraq's chemical and biological capabilities, and 61 
     misleading statements about Iraq's relationship with al 
     Qaeda.
  Some of the categories of the misleading statements: A, a statement 
that Iraq posed an urgent threat; B, statements about Iraq's nuclear 
capabilities, including the claims about the status of the Iraqi 
nuclear program; the claims about the aluminum tubes; the claims about 
uranium from Africa.
  Then there is another category, statements about Iraq's chemical and 
biological weapons programs, claims about chemical and biological 
weapons, about unmanned aerial vehicles, about mobile biological 
laboratories; and then there is a special part in this study about 
Iraq's statements about Iraq's support of al Qaeda.
  Then just to be fair to the four other members in the White House 
that work on these matters, there are misleading statements by 
individual officials. The first official is the President of the United 
States. The second official is the Vice President of the United States. 
The third official is the Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld. The 
fourth category is the Secretary of State, Colin Powell, and the fifth 
category is reserved for the National Security Adviser, Condoleezza 
Rice.
  I recommend these items and this study to each and every Member of 
the House; and I would be happy to discuss it, along with the ranking 
member of the Committee on Government Reform, with any of the Members 
of the Congress on or off the record.


                                 Haiti

  Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, I turn now to a subject that I consider to 
be very important, and that is, Haiti, a beleaguered tiny nation in the 
western hemisphere that has been subject to a succession of activities 
that have caused President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, his wife, and 
children to flee from the country.
  I would like to commend the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Lee), 
the vice chair of the Progressive Caucus, who has introduced a truth 
bill to discover and uncover the truth about Haiti. It is a bill that 
would establish an independent commission and has been cosponsored by 
more than two dozen other Members, in which she calls for in this 
measure that we create an independent commission to investigate the 
circumstances that surround a democratically elected president being 
forcibly driven from his office and forced to leave the country, which 
is, incidentally, the second time this has happened during the election 
of President Aristide.

                              {time}  2030

  This last time raises some quite ambiguous questions that we need to 
resolve. Did the United States Government impede democracy and in any 
way contribute to the overthrow of the Aristide government? What were 
the circumstances that the President issued a resignation? To what 
extent did the United States impede efforts by the international 
community to prevent the overthrow of the democratically elected 
Government of Haiti? What was the role of the United States in 
influencing decisions regarding Haiti at the United Nations Security 
Council in discussions between Haiti and other countries that were 
apparently willing to assist in the preservation of the democratically 
elected Government of Haiti by sending security forces there? Was our 
assistance provided or were U.S. personnel involved in supporting 
indirectly the forces opposed to the President of Haiti? And, finally, 
was there bilateral assistance from the United States channeled through 
nongovernmental organizations that were directly or indirectly 
associated with political groups actively involved in creating 
hostilities, and in some instances violence, toward the government of 
President Aristide and citizens who supported the President of that 
country?
  And so we have referred that House Resolution 2625 to the appropriate 
Committee on Government Reform to be acted upon. We think this is a 
very important, very timely activity, and we are hoping that there can 
be a perfectly candid impartial commission formed to study these vexing 
questions that have been propounded in the proposal of the gentlewoman 
from California (Ms. Lee).

                          ____________________