TENET PROTESTS TOO MUCH

This is from his testimony to the Senate Armed Services Committee, February 12, 2003¹.

TENET:
Iraq has in place an active effort to deceive U.N. inspectors and deny them access. This effort is directed by the highest levels of the Iraqi regime. Baghdad has given clear instructions to its operational forces to hide banned materials in their possession.

Iraq's biological weapons program includes mobile research and production facilities that will be difficult, if not impossible, for the inspectors to find. Baghdad began this program in the mid 1990s, during a time when U.N. inspectors were in the country.

Iraq has established a pattern of clandestine procurements designed to reconstitute its nuclear weapons program. These procurements include, and also go well beyond, the aluminum tubes that you have heard so much about.

Iraq has tested unmanned aerial vehicles to ranges that far exceed both what it declared to the U.N., and what it is permitted under U.N. resolutions. We are concerned that Iraq's UAVs can dispense chemical and biological weapons, and they can deliver such weapons to Iraq's neighbors or be transported to other countries, including the United States.

Iraq is harboring senior members of a terrorist network led by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, a close associate of Osama bin Laden. We know Zarqawi's network was behind the poison plots in Europe that I discussed earlier, and the secretary also discussed the association of this network with the assassination of a U.S. State Department employee in Jordan.

Iraq has in the past provided training in document forgery and bomb-making to al Qaeda. It has also provided training in poisons and gases to two al Qaeda associates. One of these associates characterized the relationship he forged with Iraqi officials as successful.

Mr. Chairman, this information is based on a solid foundation of intelligence. It comes to us from credible and reliable sources. Much of it is corroborated by multiple sources. And it is consistent with the pattern of denial and deception exhibited by Saddam Hussein over the past 12 years.


Tenet has said that they got it wrong but it's hard to see from this statement even a tiny hint that there is some uncertainty about WMD. Instead, Tenet affirms that we will find WMD:

SEN. WARNER: Yesterday the Intelligence Committee met, and as a member of that committee, I put this question to you, and you gave an answer. But I think it's important that that same question and answer be put in today's record.

There's been allegations by some world leaders that they do not think Iraq possesses -- that is, possesses -- weapons of mass destruction. In the event -- and there's no decision yet -- that force must be used by this nation and other nations willing to work with us, and in the aftermath of the battle, when the world press can go in and examine the sites and so forth, is it your professional judgment that there will be clearly found caches of weapons of mass destruction, to establish beyond a reasonable doubt that he had them?

MR. TENET: Sir, I believe that we -- I believe that we will. I think that when you listened to Secretary Powell's statement to the United Nations, you noted specific intercepts that told operational units to ensure that the word "nerve agents" never appeared in any communications. So we know that weapons have been subordinated to units, and I believe that we will find R&D. I will -- we will find stockpiles of things he has not declared and weapons he has not declared.


¹Federal News Service
February 12, 2003 Wednesday
SECTION: CAPITOL HILL HEARING
LENGTH: 22613 words
HEADLINE: HEARING OF THE SENATE ARMED SERVICES COMMITTEE
SUBJECT: THREATS TO U.S. NATIONAL SECURITY
CHAIRED BY: SENATOR JOHN WARNER (R-VA)
LOCATION: 106 DIRKSEN SENATE OFFICE BUILDING, WASHINGTON, D.C.
WITNESSES: GEORGE TENET, CIA DIRECTOR; ADMIRAL LOWELL JACOBY, DIRECTOR, DEFENSE INTELLIGENCE AGENCY