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washingtonpost.com
White House Didn't Gain CIA Nod for Claim On Iraqi Strikes
Gist Was Hussein Could Launch in 45 Minutes

By Dana Milbank
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, July 20, 2003; Page A01

The White House, in the run-up to war in Iraq, did not seek CIA
approval before charging that Saddam Hussein could launch a biological
or chemical attack within 45 minutes, administration officials now
say.

The claim, which has since been discredited, was made twice by
President Bush, in a September Rose Garden appearance after meeting
with lawmakers and in a Saturday radio address the same week. Bush
attributed the claim to the British government, but in a "Global
Message" issued Sept. 26 and still on the White House Web site, the
White House claimed, without attribution, that Iraq "could launch a
biological or chemical attack 45 minutes after the order is given."

The 45-minute claim is at the center of a scandal in Britain that led
to the apparent suicide on Friday of a British weapons scientist who
had questioned the government's use of the allegation. The scientist,
David Kelly, was being investigated by the British parliament as the
suspected source of a BBC report that the 45-minute claim was added to
Britain's public "dossier" on Iraq in September at the insistence of
an aide to Prime Minister Tony Blair -- and against the wishes of
British intelligence, which said the charge was from a single source
and was considered unreliable.

The White House embraced the claim, from a British dossier on Iraq, at
the same time it began to promote the dossier's disputed claim that
Iraq sought uranium in Africa.

Bush administration officials last week said the CIA was not consulted
about the claim. A senior White House official did not dispute that
account, saying presidential remarks such as radio addresses are
typically "circulated at the staff level" within the White House only.


Virtually all of the focus on whether Bush exaggerated intelligence
about Iraq's weapons ambitions has been on the credibility of a claim
he made in the Jan. 28 State of the Union address about efforts to buy
uranium in Africa. But an examination of other presidential remarks,
which received little if any scrutiny by intelligence agencies,
indicates Bush made more broad accusations on other intelligence
matters related to Iraq.

For example, the same Rose Garden speech and Sept. 28 radio address
that mentioned the 45-minute accusation also included blunt assertions
by Bush that "there are al Qaeda terrorists inside Iraq." This claim
was highly disputed among intelligence experts; a group called Ansar
al-Islam in Kurdish-controlled northern Iraq and Jordanian Abu Musab
Zarqawi, who could have been in Iraq, were both believed to have al
Qaeda contacts but were not themselves part of al Qaeda.

Bush was more qualified in his major Oct. 7 speech in Cincinnati,
mentioning al Qaeda members who got training and medical treatment
from Iraq. The State of the Union address was also more hedged about
whether al Qaeda members were in Iraq, saying "Saddam Hussein aids and
protects terrorists, including members of al Qaeda."

Bush did not mention Iraq in his radio address yesterday. Sen. Carl M.
Levin (Mich.), delivering the Democratic radio address, suggested that
the dispute over the uranium claim in the State of the Union "is about
whether administration officials made a conscious and very troubling
decision to create a false impression about the gravity and imminence
of the threat that Iraq posed to America." Levin said there is
evidence the uranium claim "was just one of many questionable
statements and exaggerations by the intelligence community and
administration officials in the buildup to the war."

The 45-minute accusation is particularly noteworthy because of the
furor it has caused in Britain, where the charge originated. A
parliamentary inquiry determined earlier this month that the claim
"did not warrant the prominence given to it in the dossier, because it
was based on intelligence from a single, uncorroborated source." The
inquiry also concluded that "allegations of politically inspired
meddling cannot credibly be established."

As it turns out, the 45-minute charge was not true; though forbidden
weapons may yet be found in Iraq, an adviser to the Bush
administration on arms issues said last week that such weapons were
not ready to be used on short notice.

The 45-minute allegation did not appear in the major speeches Bush
made about Iraq in Cincinnati in October or in his State of the Union
address, both of which were made after consultation with the CIA. But
the White House considered the 45-minute claim significant and drew
attention to it the day the British dossier was released. Asked if
there was a "smoking gun" in the British report, White House press
secretary Ari Fleischer on Sept. 24 highlighted that charge and the
charge that Iraq sought uranium in Africa.

"I think there was new information in there, particularly about the
45-minute threshold by which Saddam Hussein has got his biological and
chemical weapons triggered to be launched," Fleischer said. "There was
new information in there about Saddam Hussein's efforts to obtain
uranium from African nations. That was new information."

The White House use of the 45-minute charge is another indication of
its determination to build a case against Hussein even without the
participation of U.S. intelligence services. The controversy over the
administration's use of intelligence has largely focused on claims
made about the Iraqi nuclear program, particularly attempts to buy
uranium in Africa. But the accusation that Iraq could launch a
chemical or biological attack on a moment's notice was significant
because it added urgency to the administration's argument that Hussein
had to be dealt with quickly.

Using the single-source British accusation appears to have violated
the administration's own standard. In a briefing for reporters on
Friday, a senior administration official, discussing the decision to
remove from the Cincinnati speech an allegation that Iraq tried to buy
uranium in Niger, said CIA Director George J. Tenet told the White
House that "for a presidential speech, the standard ought to be higher
than just relying upon one source. Oftentimes, a lot of these things
that are embodied in this do***ent are based on multiple sources. And
in this case, that was a single source being cited, and he felt that
that was not appropriate."

The British parliamentary inquiry reported this month that the claim
came from one source, and "it appears that no evidence was found which
corroborated the information supplied by the source, although it was
consistent with a pattern of evidence of Iraq's military capability
over time. Neither are we aware that there was any corroborating
evidence from allies through the intelligence-sharing machinery. It is
also significant that the US did not refer to the claim publicly." The
report said the investigators "have not seen a satisfactory answer" to
why the government gave the claim such visibility.

----------------
Staff writer Walter Pincus contributed to this report.

starwars

In article <3f1a1b6a.26940697@news.io.com>

This story is silly. The primary definition of discredit is "to
reject as untrue." But the rest of the story doesn't bear that
out. "Dubious," "questionable," "uncorroborated," and similar
words do not equal "true" but they also do not equal "false."
Intelligence work is not a science.

Also, how does the Post know that the "scandal" in Britain led
to the suicide? Is this reporter a mindreader?

Junk like this can be easily flipped. Is the Post trying to tell
us that Saddam disarmed? It sure looks that way with all these
"scandal" stories. If that's what the Post is up to, then they
need to ****yze this
http://www.fas.org/irp/cia/product/Iraq_Oct_2002.htm
When the Post can definitively DISPROVE everything in this
report, then they might be on to something. Don't forget that
the burden of proof was on Saddam, not Bush. By the way, if you
see critics of this report named Lumpin or Linzer......well,
I'll save that for later.