www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/10/14/60II/main577975.shtml
In February, Secretary of State Colin Powell made a surprising admission. He told The Washington Post that he doesnt know whether he would have recommended the invasion of Iraq if he had been told at the time that there were no stockpiles of banned weapons. Powell said that when he made the case for war before the United Nations one year ago, he used evidence that reflected the best judgments of the intelligence agencies. But long before the war started, there was plenty of doubt among intelligence analysts about Saddams weapons. One analyst, Greg Thielmann, told Correspondent Scott Pelley last fall that key evidence cited by the administration was misrepresented to the public. He had been in charge of analyzing the Iraqi weapons threat for Powells own intelligence bureau. Then I had a more mature reaction, says Thielmann, commenting on Powells presentation to the United Nations last February. I think my conclusion now is that its probably one of the low points in his long, distinguished service to the nation. His last job at the State Department was acting director of the Office of Strategic Proliferation and Military Affairs, which was responsible for analyzing the Iraqi weapons threat. He and his staff had the highest security clearances, and saw virtually everything whether it came into the CIA or the Defense Department. One high-ranking official called him honorable, knowledgeable, and very experienced. Thielmann had planned to retire just four months before Powells big moment before the United States Security Council.
At the time, Thielmann says that Iraq didnt pose an imminent threat to the United States: I think it didnt even constitute an imminent threat to its neighbors at the time we went to war. For example, he points to the evidence behind Powells charge that Iraq was importing aluminum tubes to use in a program to build nuclear weapons. Powell said: Saddam Hussein is determined to get his hands on a nuclear bomb. He is so determined that he has made repeated covert attempts to acquire high-specification aluminum tubes from 11 different countries even after inspections resumed. This is one of the most disturbing parts of Secretary Powells speech for us, says Thielmann. Intelligence agents intercepted the tubes in 2001, and the CIA said they were parts for a centrifuge to enrich uranium - fuel for an atom bomb. Experts at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, the scientists who enriched uranium for American bombs, advised that the tubes were all wrong for a bomb program. At about the same time, Thielmanns office was working on another explanation. It turned out the tubes dimensions perfectly matched an Iraqi conventional rocket. The aluminum was exactly, I think, what the Iraqis wanted for artillery, recalls Thielmann, who says he sent that word up to the Secretary of State months before. Houston Wood was a consultant who worked on the Oak Ridge analysis of the tubes. I was angry at that, says Wood, who is among the worlds authorities on uranium enrichment by centrifuge. They would have failed, says Wood, who reached that conclusion back in 2001. Thielmann reported to Secretary Powells office that they were confident the tubes were not for a nuclear program. Then, about a year later, when the administration was building a case for war, the tubes were resurrected on the front page of The New York Times. I thought when I read that there must be some other tubes that people were talking about. I just was flabbergasted that people were still pushing that those might be centrifuges, says Wood. The New York Times reported that senior administration officials insisted the tubes were for an atom-bomb program. Scientists had made their determination, their evaluation, and now we didnt know what was happening, says Wood. In his United States speech, Secretary Powell acknowledged there was disagreement about the tubes, but he said most experts agreed with the nuclear theory. Most United States experts think they are intended to serve as rotors in centrifuges used to enrich uranium, said Powell. Most experts are located at Oak Ridge and that was not the position there, says Wood, who claims he doesnt know anyone in academia or foreign government who would disagree with his appraisal. Why would the secretary take the information that Thielmanns intelligence bureau had developed and turn it on its head? I can only assume that he was doing it to loyally support the President of the United States and build the strongest possible case for arguing that there was no alternative to the use of military force, says Thielmann. That was a case the president himself was making only eight days before Secretary Powells speech. In his State of the Union address, the president said: The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa. Our intelligence sources tell us that he has attempted to purchase high-strength aluminum tubes suitable for nuclear-weapons production. After the war, the White House said the African uranium claim was false and shouldnt have been in the presidents address. But at the time, it was part of a campaign that painted the intelligence as irrefutable. 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, said Vice President Dick Cheney. Powell said: My colleagues, every statement I make today is backed up by sources, solid sources. What we are giving you are facts and conclusions based on solid intelligence. It was solid intelligence, Powell said, that proved Saddam had amassed chemical and biological weapons: Our conservative estimate is that Iraq today has a stockpile of between 100 and 500 tons of chemical-weapons agent. He also said that part of the stockpile was clearly in these bunkers: The four that are in red squares represent active chemical munitions bunkers. Up close, Powell said you could see a truck for cleaning up chemical spills, a signature for a chemical bunker: Its a decontamination vehicle in case something goes wrong. But Thielmann disagreed with Powells statement: My understanding is that these particular vehicles were simply fire trucks. Satellite photos were also notoriously misleading, according to Steve Allinson, a United States inspector in Iraq in the months leading up to war. Was there ever a time when American satellite intelligence provided Allinson with something that was truly useful? Not on inspections that I participated in, says Allinson, whose team was sent to find decontamination vehicles that turned out to be fire trucks. Another time, a satellite spotted what they thought were trucks used for biological weapons. We were told we were going to the site to look for refrigerated trucks specifically linked to biological agents, says Allinson. If Allinson doubted the satellite evidence, Thielmann watched with worry as Secretary Powell told the Security Council that human intelligence provided conclusive proof. Thielmann says that many of the human sources were defectors who came forward with an ax to grind. I guess I would say, frequently we got bad information, says Thielmann. Some of it came from defectors supplied by the Iraqi National Congress, the leading exile group headed by Ahmed Chalabi. You had the Iraqi National Congress with a clear motive for presenting the worst possible picture of what was happening in Iraq to the American government, says Thielmann. But there was a good deal more in Secretary Powells speech that bothered the analysts. We did not have evidence that the Iraqis had those missiles, pure and simple. Last week, David Kay, the former chief United States arms inspector, said his team found no stockpiles of banned weapons. His assessment of 12 years of United States intelligence was this: Let me begin by saying we were almost all wrong and I certainly include myself here.
My view was that the best evidence that I had seen was that Iraq indeed had weapons of mass destruction. But as 60 Minutes II mentioned earlier, Powell told The Washington Post this week that he doesnt know if he would h...
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