US Releases Documents to Counter Criticism over Iraq Intelligence

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Saturday, July 19, 2003

US Releases Documents to Counter Criticism over Iraq Intelligence

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The US White House on Friday released declassified intelligence documents citing "compelling evidence" about Iraq's attempt to reconstitute its nuclear program,in an effort to counter criticism that it used flawed data to justify the Iraq war.

The White House made public excerpts of the National Intelligence Estimate compiled in October 2002 by the CIA-led intelligence community. The report asserted that Baghdad probably will have a nuclear weapon during this decade "if left unchecked,"according to local press reports.

It cited unsubstantiated reports that Iraq was trying to buy uranium from three African countries: Niger, Somalia and "possibly" Congo. But it also included a "footnote" by the State Departmentthat said the claims are "highly dubious."

Those excerpts of the National Intelligence Estimate have been widely reported since the controversy occurred over comments by President George W. Bush in his State of the Union address in January that Iraq was attempting to buy uranium in Africa. The intelligence on which the comments were based turned out to be forged.

The release of the intelligence documents marked the beginning of a campaign by the White House to counter criticism, especially from Democrats in Congress, that the Bush administration used unsubstantiated intelligence in Bush's speech even if the Central Intelligence Agency had warned of its reliability several times.

CIA Director George Tenet has taken blame for the inclusion of the false claim in Bush's speech. Some Democratic lawmakers have tried to start an independent investigation into whether the WhiteHouse had intentionally included that part into the address.

On Thursday, administration officials confirmed a Newsweek report Wednesday that the State Department received copies of the forged documents on Iraq's uranium attempt in October 2002, but the CIA did not get them until February this year, well after the State of the Union speech.

The State Department said it offered the documents to the CIA soon after it got them, but the CIA never followed up on the offer.Officials said had US intelligence analyzed the documents sooner, they could have discovered the forgeries before the information was used in Bush's speech.

The idea that the documents about Iraq's uranium attempt was based on forged material did not become known until after Feb. 4, 2003, when the International Atomic Energy Agency asked the US government to back up some of the allegations it was making about Iraq's nuclear program. IAEA forensic analysts easily figured out they were forgeries.

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