Full text: Tenet speech on Iraq prewar intelligence

WASHINGTON - Here is the transcript of a speech by Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) director George Tenet in which he defends the intelligence his agency provided before the 2003 invasion of Iraq:

"I have come here today to talk to you and to the American people about something important to our nation and central to our future: how the United States intelligence community evaluated Iraq's weapons of mass destruction programmes over the past decade, leading to a national intelligence estimate in October of 2002. I want to tell you about our information and how we reached our judgments. I want to tell you what I think, honestly and directly.

There's several reasons to do this: because the American people deserve to know, because intelligence has never been more important to the security of our country.

As a nation we have, over the past seven years, been rebuilding our intelligence with powerful capabilities that many thought we would no longer need after the Cold War. We have been rebuilding our clandestine service, our satellite and other technical collection, our analytical depth and expertise.

Both here and around the world, the men and women of American intelligence are performing courageously, often brilliantly, to support our military, to stop terrorism and to break up networks of proliferation.

The risks are always high. Success and perfect outcomes are never guaranteed. But there's one unassailable fact: We will always call it as we see it. Our professional ethic demands no less.

To understand a difficult topic like Iraq takes patience and care. Unfortunately, you rarely hear a patient, careful or thoughtful discussion of intelligence these days. But these times demand it because the alternative -- politicised, haphazard evaluation, without the benefit of time and facts -- may well result in an intelligence community that is damaged and a country that is more at risk.

Before talking about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction, I want to set the stage with a few words about intelligence collection and analysis, how they actually happen in a real world. This context is completely missing from the current debate.

By definition, intelligence deals with the unclear, the unknown, the deliberately hidden. What the enemies of the United States hope to deny, we work to reveal.

The question being asked about Iraq in the starkest terms is, were we right or were we wrong? In the intelligence business, you are almost never completely wrong or completely right.

That applies in full to the question of Saddam's weapons of mass destruction. And like many of the toughest intelligence challenges, when the facts of Iraq are all in, we will neither be completely right nor completely wrong.

As intelligence professionals, we go to where the information takes us. We fear no fact or finding, whether it bears us out or not. Because we work for high goals -- the protection of the American people -- we must be judged by high standards.

Let's turn to Iraq. Much of the current controversy centres on our pre-war intelligence, summarised in the national intelligence estimate of October of 2002.

National estimates are publications where the intelligence community as a whole seeks to sum up what we know about a subject, what we don't know, what we suspect may be happening and where we differ on key issues.

This estimate asked if Iraq had chemical, biological and nuclear weapons and the means to deliver them. We concluded that in some of these categories Iraq had weapons, and that in others where it did not have them, it was trying to develop them.

Let me be clear: Analysts differed on several important aspects of these programmes and those debates were spelled out in the estimate.

They never said there was an imminent threat. Rather, they painted an objective assessment for our policy-makers of a brutal dictator who was continuing his efforts to deceive and build programmes that might constantly surprise us and threaten our interests. No one told us what to say or how to say it.

How did we reach our conclusions? We had three streams of information; none perfect, but each important.

First, Iraq's history. Everyone knew that Iraq had chemical and biological weapons in the 1980s and 1990s. Saddam Hussein used chemical weapons against Iran and his own people on at least 10 different occasions. He launched missiles against Iran, Saudi Arabia and Israel.

And we couldn't forget that in the early 1990s, we saw that Iraq was just a few years away from a nuclear weapon. This was not a theoretical programme. It turned out that we and other intelligence services of the world had significantly underestimated his progress.

And finally, we could not forget that Iraq lied repeatedly about its unconventional weapons.

So to conclude before the war that Saddam had no interest in rebuilding his weapons of mass destruction programmes, we would have had to ignore his long and brutal history of using them.

Our second stream of information was that the United Nations could not and Saddam would not account for all the weapons the Iraqis had: tons of chemical weapons precursors, hundreds of artillery shells and bombs filled with chemical or biological agents.


We did not take this data on face value. We did take it seriously. We worked with the inspectors, giving them leads, helping them fight Saddam's deception strategy of cheat and retreat.

Over eight years of inspections, Saddam's deceptions and the increasingly restrictive rules of engagements UN inspectors were forced to negotiate with the regime undermined efforts to disarm him.

To conclude before the war that Saddam had destroyed his existing weapons, we would have had to ignore what the United Nations and allied intelligence said they could not verify.

The third stream of information came after the UN inspectors left Iraq in 1998. We gathered intelligence through human agents, satellite photos and communications intercepts. Other foreign intelligence services were clearly focused on Iraq and assisted in the effort.

In intercepts of conversations and other transactions, we heard Iraqis seeking to hide prohibited items, worrying about their cover stories and trying to procure items Iraq was not permitted to have.

Satellite photos showed a pattern of activity designed to conceal movement of material from places where chemical weapons had been stored in the past. We also saw reconstruction of dual-purpose facilities previously used to make biological weapons or chemical precursors.

And human sources told us of efforts to acquire and hide materials used in the production of such weapons.

And to come to conclusions before the war other than those we reached, we would have had to ignore all the intelligence gathered from multiple sources after 1998.

Did these strands of information weave into a perfect picture? Could they answer every question? No, far from it. But taken together, this information provided a solid basis on which to estimate whether Iraq did or did not have weapons of mass destruction and the means to deliver them.

It is important to underline the word "estimate," because not everything we analyse can be known to a standard of absolute proof.

Now, what exactly was in the October estimate? Why did we say it and what does the postwar evidence thus far show?

But before we start, let me be direct about an important fact. As we meet here today, the Iraq Survey Group is continuing its important search for people and data. And despite some public statements, we are nowhere near 85 per cent finished. The men and women who work in that dangerous environment are adamant about that fact.

Any call that I make today is necessarily provisional. Why? Because we need more time and we need more data.

So what did our estimates say? Let's start with missile and other delivery systems for weapons of mass destruction.

Our community said with high confidence that Saddam was continuing and expanding his missile programmes, contrary to UN resolutions. He had missiles and other systems with ranges in excess of UN restrictions and he was seeking missiles with even longer ranges.

What do we know today? Since the war we have found an aggressive Iraqi missile programme concealed from the international community.

In fact, David Kay just last fall said that the Iraq Survey Group, quote, "discovered sufficient evidence to date to conclude that the Iraqi regime was committed to delivery system improvements that would have, if Operation Iraqi Freedom had not occurred, dramatically breached UN restrictions placed on Iraq after the 1991 Gulf War."

We have also found that Iraq had plans and advanced design work for a liquid-propellant missile with ranges of up to 1,000 kilometres; activity that Iraq did not report to the UN and which could have placed large portions of the Middle East in jeopardy.

We have confirmed that Iraq had new work under way on prohibited solid-propellant missiles that were also concealed from the United Nations.

Significantly, the Iraq Survey Group has also confirmed pre-war intelligence that Iraq was in secret negotiations with North Korea to obtain some of its most dangerous missile technology.

My provisional bottom line on missiles: We were generally on target.

Let me turn to unmanned aerial vehicles. The estimate said that Iraq had been developing an unmanned aerial vehicle probably intended to deliver biological warfare agents.

Baghdad's existing unmanned aerial vehicle could threaten its neighbours, US forces in the Persian Gulf and, if a small unmanned aerial vehicle was brought close to our shores, the United States itself.

What do we know today?

The Iraq Survey Group found that two separate groups in Iraq were working on a number of unmanned aerial vehicle designs that were hidden from the UN until Iraq's declaration in December of 2002. Now we know that important design elements were never fully declared.

The question of intent, especially regarding the smaller unmanned aerial vehicle, is still out there. But we should remember that the Iraqis flight tested an aerial biological weapons spray system intended for a large unmanned aerial vehicle.

A senior Iraqi official has now admitted that their two large unmanned vehicles, one developed in the early '90s and the other under development in late 2000, were intended for the delivery of biological weapons.

My provisional bottom line today: We detected the development of prohibited and undeclared unmanned aerial vehicles. But the jury is still out on whether Iraq intended to use its newer, smaller unmanned aerial vehicle to deliver biological weapons.

Let me turn to the nuclear issue.

In the estimate, all agencies agree that Saddam Hussein wanted nuclear weapons. Most were convinced that he still had a programme and if he obtained fissile material he could have a weapon within a year.

But we detected no such acquisition.

We made two judgments that get overlooked these days. We said that Saddam did not have a nuclear weapon and probably would have been unable to make one until 2007 to 2009.

Most agencies believed that Saddam had begun to reconstitute his nuclear programme, but they disagreed on a number of issues, such as which procurement activities were designed to support his nuclear programme.

But let me be clear: Where there are differences, the estimate laid out the disputes clearly.

So what do we know now? David Kay told us last fall that, quote, 'The testimony we have obtained from Iraqi scientists and senior government officials should clear up any doubts about whether Saddam still wanted to obtain nuclear weapons,' end of quote.

Keep in mind that no intelligence agency thought that Iraq's efforts had progressed to the point of building an enrichment facility or making fissile material. We said that such activities were a few years away. Therefore it's not surprising that the Iraq Survey Group has not yet found evidence of uranium enrichment facilities.

Regarding prohibited aluminium tubes, a debate laid out extensively in the estimate and one that experts still argue over, were they for uranium enrichment or conventional weapons? We have additional data to collect and more sources to question.

Moreover, none of the tubes found in Iraq so far match the high-specification tubes Baghdad sought and may never have received the amounts needed. Our aggressive interdiction efforts may have prevented Iraq from receiving all but a few of these prohibited items.

My provisional bottom line today: Saddam did not have a nuclear weapon, he still wanted one, and Iraq intended to reconstitute a nuclear programme at some point.

We have not yet found clear evidence that the dual-use items Iraq sought were for nuclear reconstitution. We do not yet know if any reconstitution efforts had begun. But we may have overestimated the progress Saddam was making.

Let me turn to biological weapons.

The estimates said Baghdad had them and that all key aspects of an offensive programme -- research and development, production and weaponisation -- were still active and most elements were larger and more advanced than before the Gulf War.

We believe that Iraq had lethal biological weapons agents, including anthrax, which it could quickly produce and weaponise for delivery by bombs, missiles, aerial sprayers and covert operatives. But we said we had no specific information on the types or quantities of weapons, agent or stockpiles at Baghdad's disposal.

What do we know today? Last fall the Iraqi Survey Group uncovered, quote, "significant information, including research and development of biological weapons, applicable organisms, the involvement of the Iraqi intelligence service in possible biological weapons activities and deliberate concealment activities."

All of this suggests that Iraq, after 1996, further compartmentalised its programme and focused on maintaining smaller covert capabilities that could be activated quickly to surge the production of biological weapons agents.

The Iraq Survey Group found a network of laboratories and safe houses controlled by Iraqi intelligence and security services that contained equipment for chemical and biological research and a prison laboratory complex possibly used in human testing for biological weapons agents that were not declared to the United Nations.

It also appears that Iraq had the infrastructure and the talent to resume production, but we have yet to find that it actually did so, nor have we found weapons.

Until we get to the bottom of the role played by the Iraqi security services, which were operating covert labs, we will not know the full extent of the programme.

Let me also talk about the trailers discovered in Iraq last summer.

We initially concluded that they resembled trailers described by a human source for mobile biological warfare agent production. There is no consensus within our intelligence community today over whether the trailers were for that use or if they were used for the production of hydrogen.

- REUTERS

Herald Feature: Iraq