[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 150 (2004), Part 12]
[Senate]
[Pages 15661-15663]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                           IRAQ INTELLIGENCE

  Mr. BOND. Madam President, I come to the Senate floor once again this 
week to talk about the Intelligence Committee report and what we know 
and what we have learned about the intelligence prior to this body 
authorizing the President to go into Iraq.
  We have seen over the past year a concerted effort by outside groups, 
partisan attack machines, and even Members of this body going after the 
credibility and attacking the President and Vice President, sometimes 
personally. We have seen breathless media coverage of every word of 
those who profess to be nonpartisan but who prove to be anything but 
nonpartisan.
  We have seen headlines alleging all types of wrongdoings. We have 
heard accusations of lying and misleading repeated as if they were the 
simple, obvious truth.
  Now, after the Senate Intelligence Committee spent a year 
painstakingly reviewing these accusations, attacks, and smears, we can 
set the record straight, while only hoping that the media will devote 
at least some of the same attention to the facts as they did to the 
accusations and unfounded allegations. Yes, we found there were 
significant problems with the intelligence mechanisms, the lack of 
human intelligence, the failure to share information, the wall that had 
been built between intelligence agencies, and that we need to correct 
with appropriations and legislation. That is what I hope the 
Intelligence Committee can do. But we also need to correct the outright 
inaccuracies and political attacks.
  Let's just review an example. First, let me take the interesting 
story of the initially anonymous former Ambassador, one Joe Wilson. As 
we point out in the additional views of Chairman Roberts, which Senator 
Hatch and I signed, Joe Wilson went on a media blitz with his 
allegations, appearing on more than 30 television shows in order to 
tell anyone and everyone that the President lied to the American people 
and that he was the ``patriot'' who debunked the claim of what he 
called in his book ``the 16-word lie.'' Joe Wilson states on the ``John 
Kerry for President'' Web site:

       The President misled the Nation in his State of the Union 
     Address.

  Then there was an ABC news story in which ABC said:

       A former Ambassador told ABC news that almost a year before 
     Bush's speech he informed the CIA that the information was 
     not credible. The Ambassador, who asked not to be identified, 
     said the CIA asked him in February 2002 to investigate 
     reports that Iraq was trying to buy uranium from Niger. After 
     spending 8 days in the west-central African nation, the 
     Ambassador said he told the CIA the information about uranium 
     was ``bogus and unrealistic.''

  That is pretty hard hitting.
  This was a CNN headline:

       Diplomat: U.S. knew Uranium Report Was False.

  Then Joe Wilson did Internet interviews. In one on Buzzflash, he 
said:

       I urged the Government to come clean with this story that 
     was patently not true.

  Then he went on Meet the Press and stated that he believed he had 
``effectively debunked the Niger arms uranium sale.''
  Andrea Mitchell asked him:

       Were they not properly briefed on the fact that you had the 
     previous February been there and that it wasn't true?

  Wilson said:

       No. No. In actual fact, in my judgment, I have not seen the 
     estimate either, but there were reports based upon my trip 
     that were submitted to the appropriate officials. The 
     question was asked of the CIA by the office of the Vice 
     President. The office of the Vice President, I am absolutely 
     convinced, received the very specific response to the 
     question it asked and that response was based upon my trip 
     out there.

  Well, now we have the facts, Madam President. The facts don't square 
with the claims. We not only have the Senate committee report, but 
yesterday we had Lord Butler's report investigating the intelligence 
obtained by British intelligence services that was shared with the U.S. 
and cited in the President's State of the Union Address. The Butler 
report states at paragraph 499:

       We conclude that, on the basis of the intelligence 
     estimates at the time, covering both Niger and the Democratic 
     Republic of Congo, the statements on Iraqi attempts to buy 
     uranium from Africa in the Government's dossier, and by the 
     Prime Minister in the House of Commons, were well founded. By 
     extension, we conclude also that the statement in President 
     Bush's State of the Union Address of January 28, 2003, ``The 
     British Government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently 
     sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa,'' was 
     well founded.

  That is what they said after looking at all the evidence. Paragraph 
503 of the Butler report goes into detail and says:

       From our examination of the intelligence and other material 
     on Iraqi attempts to buy uranium from Africa, we have 
     concluded that:
       A. It is accepted by all parties that Iraqi officials 
     visited Niger in 1999.
       B. The British Government had intelligence from several 
     different sources indicating that this visit was for the 
     purpose of acquiring uranium. Since uranium constitutes 
     almost three-quarters of Niger's exports, the intelligence 
     was credible.
       C. The evidence was not conclusive that Iraq actually 
     purchased, as opposed to having sought, uranium and the 
     British Government did not claim this.
       D. The forged documents were not available to the British 
     Government at the time its assessment was made, and so the 
     fact of the forgery does not undermine it.

  Well, that is the first pitch. Facts 1, Joe Wilson 0.
  What does the Senate Intelligence Committee say? On page 44 of our 
report, it says:

       When the former Ambassador spoke to Committee staff, his 
     description of his findings differed from the DO intelligence 
     report and his account of information provided to him by the 
     CIA differed from the CIA official accounts. . . .

     . . . The former Ambassador said he discussed with his CIA 
     contacts which names and signatures should have appeared on 
     any documentation of a legitimate uranium transaction. In 
     fact, the intelligence report made no mention of the alleged 
     Iraq-Niger deal or signatures that should have appeared on 
     any documentation of such a deal.

  Then we went on to page 45:

       The former Ambassador [Wilson] also told Committee staff 
     that he was the source of a Washington Post article (``CIA 
     Did Not Share Doubt on Iraq Data: Bush Used Report of Uranium 
     Bid''), which said, ``Among the Envoy's conclusions was that 
     the documents may have been forged because `the dates were 
     wrong and the names were wrong.''' Committee staff asked how 
     the former Ambassador could have come to the conclusion that 
     the ``dates were wrong and the names were wrong'' when he had 
     never seen the CIA reports and had no knowledge of what names 
     and dates were in the reports. The former Ambassador [Joe 
     Wilson] said that he may have ``misspoken'' to the reporter 
     when he said he concluded that the documents were ``forged.'' 
     He also said he may have become confused about his own 
     recollection after the International Atomic Energy Agency 
     reported in March 2003 that the names and dates on the 
     documents were not correct and may have thought he had seen 
     the names himself.

  Second pitch: Facts 2, Joe Wilson 0.
  Joe Wilson said in his book about how he was selected for the trip to 
Niger that his wife ``Valerie had nothing to do with the matter. . . . 
She definitely had not proposed that I make the trip.
  A Time Magazine article stated that Wilson ``angrily said his wife 
had nothing to do with his trip to Africa.'' ``That is bull 
[expletive]. That is absolutely not the case.''
   Page 39 of our report looks into the facts. Facts can come back to 
bite you when you make all kinds of charges. That conclusion was:

       Interviews and documents provided to the Committee 
     indicated that his wife, a CPD employee, suggested his name 
     for the trip. The CPD reports officer told the Committee 
     staff that the former Ambassador's wife ``offered up his 
     name'' and a memorandum to the Deputy Chief of the CPD on 
     February 12, 2002, from the former Ambassador's wife says, 
     ``My husband has good relations with both the PM and the 
     former Minister of Mines (not to mention lots of French 
     contacts) both of whom could shed light on this sort of 
     activity.''

  The report also states:

       On February 19, 2002, CPD hosted a meeting with the former 
     Ambassador, intelligence analysts from both the CIA and INR, 
     and several individuals from the DO's Africa and CPD 
     divisions. The purpose of the meeting was to discuss the 
     merits of the former

[[Page 15662]]

     Ambassador traveling to Niger. An INR analyst's notes 
     indicated that the meeting was ``apparently convened by [the 
     former Ambassador's] wife who had the idea to dispatch [him] 
     to use his contacts to sort out the Iraq-Niger uranium 
     issue.'' The former Ambassador's wife told Committee staff 
     she only attended the meeting to introduce her husband and 
     left after about 3 minutes.

  Third pitch: Facts 3, Wilson 0. Three strikes and you are out--and 
you should be.
  Let me add a couple of other things. This is from the additional 
views of Chairman Roberts. These are findings that the staff made that 
were not accepted by our Democratic colleagues for inclusion in the 
final reports. The former Ambassador's public comments suggested that 
the Vice President had been briefed, but that is not correct. While the 
CIA responded to the Vice President's request for the agency's 
analysis, they never provided the information gathered by the former 
Ambassador.
  The former ambassador, on ``Meet the Press,'' said he was absolutely 
convinced the Vice President received the specific response based on 
his trip. The former ambassador was speaking on the basis of what he 
believed should have happened based on his Government experience, but 
he had no knowledge that it did happen.
  These and other comments from the ambassador about his report 
debunking the Niger-Iraq uranium story were incorrect and has led to a 
distortion in the press and the public's understanding of the facts 
surrounding the Niger-Iraq uranium story.
  The committee staff found that for most analysts, the former 
ambassador's report lent more credibility, not less, to the reported 
Niger-Iraq uranium deal. When we looked into it, not only was the trip 
by Joe Wilson to drink mint tea with his friends in Niger not a 
debunking of the British intelligence that Iraq had sought uranium from 
Africa, but he did include things that suggested that it was even more 
likely.
  Why did he go off on such a tangent? In an interview with the 
committee staff, Joe Wilson was asked how he knew some of the things he 
was stating publicly with such confidence. On at least two occasions, 
according to the committee staff report, he admitted he had no direct 
knowledge to support some of his claims, and that he was drawing on 
either unrelated past experience or no information at all.
  For example, when he was asked how he knew that the intelligence 
community had rejected the possibility of a Niger uranium deal, as he 
wrote in his book, he told committee staff that his assertion may have 
involved ``a little literary flair.''
  ``A little literary flair,'' when you charge the Vice President of 
lying based on information you had that was insufficient, inaccurate, 
and did not relate to the basic underlying information the British 
Government intelligence service provided? I think ``a little literary 
flair'' is not accurate. It is a fraud and a hoax. His statements were 
fraud. They were a hoax.
  I have talked before about the people who owe some apologies for the 
assertions they have made about the President and Vice President. Let 
me add Joe Wilson as one who owes the Vice President a public apology--
a public apology--for the unfounded, unbased accusations he made with 
just ``a little literary flair.'' I think he owes the Vice President 
one, but I guess I will not hold my breath waiting until he provides 
it.
  Unfortunately, that has been the practice. We have seen too often in 
too many places grand charges made and covered in the news media, and 
the committee goes back and we search and we search and we search to 
find what were the actual facts.
  Democratic friends said the administration pressured analysts to 
change it or they influenced the views of the analysts. Chairman 
Roberts pursued every angle, invited everybody, pursued everyone, over 
200, I think 240 interviews, and we came up with some conclusions.
  Conclusion No. 83--and this is unanimously agreed to by Republicans 
and Democrats on the Senate Intelligence Committee:

       The committee did not find any evidence that administration 
     officials attempted to coerce, influence or pressure analysts 
     to change their judgments related to Iraq's weapons of mass 
     destruction capabilities.

  Conclusion 84:

       The committee found no evidence that the Vice President's 
     visits to the Central Intelligence Agency were attempts to 
     pressure analysts, were perceived as intended to pressure 
     analysts by those who participated in the briefings on Iraq's 
     weapons of mass destruction programs, or did pressure 
     analysts to change their assessments.

  I read an op-ed piece by one of my colleagues saying the 
administration did not do a good enough job of checking up on the 
analysis by the intelligence agencies. And in another breath, another 
one of my colleagues said they asked too many questions.
  Madam President, let me tell you something I have learned as one new 
to the workings of the intelligence field. A good intelligence analyst 
puts forth his best or her best judgment on what to conclude from the 
often sketchy, incomplete facts they have before them and the reports 
that have to be evaluated, and they expect to be questioned. They want 
to know that the policymakers who are using that information have the 
best sense of what they know. And the Vice President, who was 
diligent--he was doing due diligence--went over and questioned them 
time and time again. Did he tell them to change their analysis? Did he 
tell them what judgment they wanted? No. What he told them was what the 
intelligence community knew they had to do, and that was to do their 
very best job to get it right.
  There has been a lot of criticism of how the intelligence agency 
analyzed it. But we have lots of good people who work very hard. There 
are structures in place that have kept them from sharing. They did not 
have the information they needed. But to the best of their ability, 
they gave the Vice President what they thought was the best analysis.
  The report also found in conclusion No. 1--most important:

       The committee found no evidence that the IC's--

  Intelligence community's--

     mischaracterizations or exaggeration of the intelligence on 
     Iraq's weapons of mass destruction (WMD) capabilities was the 
     result of political pressure.

  Conclusion No. 11:

       No analyst questioned by the committee stated that the 
     questions were unreasonable, or that they were encouraged by 
     the questioning to alter their conclusions regarding Iraq's 
     link to al-Qaida.

  That is, the link to terrorism.
  As I said before, all of the charges, all of the outline of the 
Democrats' secret memo of November 2003 on how they were going to use 
the Intelligence Committee to attack the President, to influence the 
election have been debunked.
  A lot of apologies are owed for the baseless charges that have been 
made against the President, the Vice President, the Department of 
Defense, and particularly Douglas Feith, who is attempting to serve the 
Secretary of Defense by asking questions and trying to get the best he 
could out of the intelligence community for the decisionmaking in the 
Department of Defense.
  I hope, I trust--maybe I am gullible, but I trust now we can move 
beyond this and recognize that the intelligence that the administration 
had, the same intelligence that this body had when we approved going 
into Iraq, the same intelligence the world had when they said that 
Saddam Hussein was a bad guy and U.N. Resolution 1441 said that we need 
him to disarm, that was the best information we had at the time.
  When we look back on it, we were absolutely dead right to go into 
Iraq to depose Saddam Hussein. As David Kay said after he finished, 
Iraq was a far more dangerous place than we knew. It had the 
capability, it had the equipment, it had the scientists ready to turn 
out weapons of mass destruction, chemical and biological, to turn over 
to terrorist groups. Let us hope and pray they were not able to turn 
over any.
  The world is safer, the Iraqi people are safer, and the United States 
is safer because of the bold leadership of President Bush and Vice 
President Cheney and our magnificent men and women in

[[Page 15663]]

the military who are putting their lives at risk in Afghanistan and 
Iraq. We remember them and thank them in our prayers, and we also offer 
our best wishes and support for the Iraqi people to regain a decent 
country out of the mess that Saddam Hussein left.
  I thank the Chair and yield the floor.
  Mr. DeWINE. Madam President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. REID. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Ensign). Without objection, it is so 
ordered.

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