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Statement
by Director of Central Intelligence George J. Tenet on
the 2002 National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on
Iraq’s Continuing Programs for Weapons of Mass Destruction
A great deal
has been said and written about the 2002 National Intelligence
Estimate (NIE) on Iraq’s Continuing Programs for
Weapons of Mass Destruction. Much of this commentary has
been misinformed, misleading, and just plain wrong. It
is important to set the record straight. Let me make three
points.
- We stand
by the judgments in the NIE.
- The NIE
demonstrates consistency in our judgments over many
years and are based on a decade's worth of work. Intelligence
is an iterative process and as new evidence becomes
available we constantly reevaluate.
- We encourage
dissent and reflect it in alternative views.
We stand behind
the judgments of the NIE as well as our analyses
on Iraq’s programs over the past decade. Those outside
the process over the past ten years and many of those
commenting today do not know, or are misrepresenting,
the facts. We have a solid, well-analyzed and carefully
written account in the NIE and the numerous products before
it.
After David
Kay and others finish their efforts—after we have
exploited all the documents, people and sites in Iraq—we
should and will stand back to professionally review where
we are—but not before.
The history
of our judgments on Iraq’s weapons programs is clear
and consistent. On biological weapons and missiles our
data got stronger in recent years. We have had a solid
historical foundation and new data that have allowed us
to make judgments and attribute high confidence in specific
areas. And we had numerous credible sources, including
many who provided information after 1998. When inspectors
were pushed out in 1998, we did not sit back. Rather,
we significantly increased our collection efforts throughout
the Intelligence Community. In other words, despite what
many read in the media that the NIE is based on nothing—no
sources, no understanding of complicated procurement networks,
etc.—the fact is we made significant professional
progress.
The National
Intelligence Estimate remains the Intelligence Community's
most authoritative product. The process by which we produce
NIEs—including the one on Iraqi weapons of mass destruction—has
been honed over nearly 30 years. It is a process that
is designed to provide policymakers in both the executive
and the legislative branches with our best judgments on
the most crucial national security issues. This process
is designed to produce coordinated judgments—but
not to the exclusion of differing views or without exposing
uncertainties. During coordination, agencies send representatives
who are actively engaged and change NIE drafts to reflect
better the views of the experts in their respective agencies.
It is an open and vigorous process that allows for dissent
to be registered by individual agencies in the final product.
Indeed, alternative views are encouraged. Finally, the
NIE is reviewed by the directors of US intelligence agencies
composing the DCI-chaired National Foreign Intelligence
Board, including in this case, CIA, DIA, INR, NSA, DoE,
and NIMA. This rigorous NIE process has served this nation
well.
Building upon
ten years of analysis, intelligence reporting, and inspections
that had to fight through Iraq’s aggressive denial
and deception efforts, including phony and incomplete
data declarations to the UN and programs explicitly designed
with built-in cover stories, the Intelligence Community
prepared the NIE on Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction.
In it we judged that the entire body of information over
that ten years made clear that Saddam had never abandoned
his pursuit of weapons of mass destruction.
Nuclear
program
Shortly after
the Gulf war of 1990-91 the International Atomic Energy
Agency and the US Intelligence Community were surprised
at how much more advanced Iraq’s program was prior
to the war than had been judged previously. In fact, the
IAEA’s 1996 report indicated that Iraq could have
completed its first nuclear device by as early as late
1992 had the program not been derailed by the Gulf war.
Intelligence analysts reevaluated Iraq’s nuclear
program in 1994 and 1997 in light of the body of inspection
revelations and seized documents and concluded that Iraq
could have a nuclear weapon within a year of obtaining
sufficient material and, if unconstrained, would
take five to seven years with foreign assistance to produce
enough fissile material. Those judgments, to which all
agencies agreed, have remained consistent for years.
The NIE points
out that by 2002, all agencies assessed that Saddam did
not yet have nuclear weapons or sufficient fissile material
to make any, but never abandoned his nuclear weapons ambitions.
Moreover, most agencies believed that Iraq’s attempts
to obtain high-strength aluminum tubes for centrifuge
rotors, magnets, high-speed balancing machines, and machine
tools, as well as Iraq’s efforts to enhance its cadre
of weapons personnel and activities at several suspect
nuclear sites indicated that Iraq was reconstituting its
nuclear weapons program. Saddam’s personal interest
in some of these efforts was also considered. DOE agreed
that reconstitution was underway, but assessed that the
tubes probably were not part of the program. INR assessed
that Baghdad was pursuing at least a limited effort to
acquire nuclear weapon-related capabilities, but not an
integrated and comprehensive approach to acquire nuclear
weapons; INR was not persuaded that the tubes were intended
for the nuclear program. All other agencies, including
DOE, assessed that Iraq probably would not have a weapon
until 2007 to 2009, consistent with the decade-old judgment
of Iraq needing five to seven years to develop a weapons-grade
uranium enrichment capability if freed from constraints.
These judgments and the six elements upon which the reconstitution
judgment was based were agreed to by those agencies during
coordination of the NIE and at the meeting of the heads
of all the intelligence agencies before publication.
- We note
yet again that uranium acquisition was not part of this
judgment. Despite all the focus in the media, it was
not one of the six elements upon which the judgment
was based. Why not? Because Iraq already had significant
quantities of uranium.
- Also it
is noteworthy that although DOE assessed that the tubes
probably were not part of Iraq’s nuclear program,
DOE agreed that reconstitution was underway.
Obviously, the tubes were not central to DOE’s
view on reconstitution.
Even though
the tubes constituted only one of the six elements underpinning
the other agencies’ judgment on reconstitution, I
will discuss it briefly. We need to point out that DOE
is not the only agency that has experts on the issue.
CIA has centrifuge and rocket experts. The National Ground
Intelligence Center (NGIC)—the US military’s
center for analysis of foreign conventional weaponry—has
battlefield rocket experts. These experts, along with
those from DOE, were involved in the NIE process and their
views were recorded. All agencies agreed that the tubes
could be used to build gas centrifuges for a uranium
enrichment program, so we are talking about differences
in agency views about intent.
- CIA, DIA,
and NSA believed the tubes were intended for that purpose.
- DOE believed
they probably were not part of the nuclear program and
that conventional military uses were more plausible
- INR was
not persuaded that the tubes were intended for use as
centrifuge rotors and considered artillery rockets as
the most likely purpose.
- NGIC believed
that these tubes were poor choices for rocket motor
bodies.
Not surprisingly,
the Iraqis went to great lengths to mask their intentions
across the board, including in their efforts to acquire
tubes with increasingly higher sets of specifications.
Thus, the fact that we had alternative views on the issue
would be expected. But the NIE went to great lengths to
spell out those views. Many reading these alternative
views, however, almost certainly recalled how far Iraq
had come in the early 1990s toward a nuclear weapon without
our knowledge, making all the factors leading us to the
reconstitution judgment more important.
Biological
Weapons
All agencies
of the Intelligence Community since 1995 have judged that
Iraq retained biological weapons and that the BW program
continued. In 1999 we assessed Iraq had revitalized its
program. New intelligence acquired in 2000 provided compelling
information about Iraq’s ongoing offensive BW activities,
describing construction of mobile BW agent production
plants—reportedly designed to evade detection—with
the potential to turn out several hundred tons of unconcentrated
BW agent per year. Thus, it was not a new story in 2002
when all agencies judged in the NIE that Iraq had biological
weapons—that it had some lethal and incapacitating
BW agents—and was capable of quickly producing and
weaponizing a variety of such agents, including anthrax.
We judged that most of the key aspects of Iraq’s
offensive BW program were more advanced than before the
Gulf war.
Chemical
Weapons
As early as
1994, all agencies assessed that Iraq could begin limited
production of chemical agents almost immediately after
UN sanctions, inspections and monitoring efforts were
ended. By 1997, the Intelligence Community judged that
Iraq was protecting a breakout capability to produce more
weapons and agent quickly. We further assessed in 1997,
that within months Iraq could restart full-scale production
of sarin and that pre-Desert Storm agent production levels—including
production of VX—could be achieved in two to three
years. And so it was not a surprising story when all agencies
judged in the NIE in 2002 that Baghdad possessed chemical
weapons, had begun renewed production of mustard, sarin,
cyclosarin, and VX and probably had at least 100 metric
tons (MT) and possibly as much as 500 MT of CW agents,
much of it added in the last year.
Delivery
Systems
The Intelligence
Community’s assessment on the possibility of Iraq
having a few covert Scuds has been consistent since at
least 1995. As Iraq continued to develop its short-range
missiles, we collected more data and by 1999 were able
to begin determining that both missiles were capable of
flying over 150 km. Also by 1999 we had noted that according
to multiple sources, Iraq was conducting a high-priority
program to convert jet trainer aircraft to lethal UAVs,
likely intended for delivering biological agents. Again,
not a new story for the NIE to judge that Iraq maintained
a small missile force and several development programs,
including an UAV that could deliver a biological warfare
agent.
In sum, the
NIE on Iraqi weapons of mass destruction was the product
of years of reporting and intelligence collection, analyzed
by numerous experts in several different agencies. Our
judgments have been consistent on this subject because
the evidence has repeatedly pointed to continued Iraqi
pursuit of WMD and efforts to conceal that pursuit from
international scrutiny. Modifications of our judgments
have reflected new evidence, much of which was acquired
because of our intensified collection efforts. Thus, noting
that Saddam had continued to pursue weapons of mass destruction
was not startling. That he probably was hiding weapons
was not new. That he would seek means to improve his capabilities
using alternative-use cover stories would have been expected.
That we would have alternative views is respected as part
of the process. We stand by the soundness and integrity
of our process, and no one outside the Intelligence Community
told us what to say or not to say in this Estimate.
As with any
other topic addressed in an NIE, the acquisition of further
evidence may confirm some of our judgments while calling
others into question. Operation Iraqi Freedom obviously
has opened a major new opportunity for learning about
the WMD activities of Saddam Husayn’s regime. We
have no doubt, however, that the NIE was the most reasonable,
well-grounded, and objective assessment of Iraq’s
WMD programs that was possible at the time it was produced.
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