Hearing of the Senate Select Intelligence Committee

SECTION: CAPITOL HILL HEARING

HEADLINE: HEARING OF THE SENATE SELECT INTELLIGENCE COMMITTEE

SUBJECT: WORLDWIDE THREATS

CHAIRED BY: SENATOR PAT ROBERTS (R-KS)

LOCATION: 106 DIRKSEN SENATE OFFICE BUILDING, WASHINGTON, D.C.

WITNESSES: CIA DIRECTOR GEORGE TENET; DIA DIRECTOR VICE ADMIRAL LOWELL JACOBY; FBI DIRECTOR ROBERT MUELLER

BODY:
SEN. RICHARD DURBIN (D-IL): Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

I thank the witnesses for appearing today and for your service to our country.

Director Tenet, it is rare when speculation comes face to face with facts, but that's what has happened in Iraq. The speculation and supposition that led up to our invasion now must face certainties and near certainties that we have uncovered after spending 10 months or more on the ground in Iraq. In the words of Dr. Kay, quote, "It turns out we were all wrong." Close quote. Wrong, I might say in looking at the-in retrospect, about the nuclear weapons and weapons of mass destruction, their numbers, their location, their threat. It is now declassified. I mean, we were as specific as saying: Here are the most likely sites you will find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. And Dr. Kay has said there was nothing there.

We were wrong about the al Qaeda connection, which was alleged before our invasion of Iraq. We were wrong in speculating about the Iraqi reaction to our invasion, the flowers in gun muzzles and things that just didn't happen. We were wrong about the nature, the complexity, the timetable and the cost about rebuilding Iraq.

There are only two possible conclusions that I think we can reach. And if you have a third, please let me know. One is our intelligence operations failed in a historic way in accurately assessing the threat in Iraq and what would happen after we deposed Saddam Hussein. Or secondly, that our political leaders misled the American people in the buildup to the war. That is a very grave assertion, particularly in a democracy.

If the government misleads the governed in something as basic and grave as war and the sacrifice of American life, there can be no more serious charge made in a democracy.

Now, I read your Georgetown speech and I've tried to compare it and to figure out which side we come down on here, whether or not those who assert that intelligence failed that led to these wrong conclusions, or those who assert that intelligence didn't fail, the politicians just misstated what we told them.

Let me go to two specifics. You say on page 6 of your Georgetown speech, basically, we didn't find chemical or biological weapons.

SEN. DURBIN: On September-all right, I'll give you that. We've gone to the identified locations, we found nothing, we've come up empty.

On September 19th, 2002, Secretary Rumsfeld told the Senate Armed Services Committee, quote, "We should be just as concerned about the immediate threat from biological weapons. Iraq has these weapons," end of quote. Now, that directly contradicts what you said at Georgetown. You said we haven't found these weapons, we don't have these weapons. Secretary Rumsfeld said we-"Iraq has these weapons."

And then, you said in the Georgetown speech, the intelligence community, quote "never said there was an imminent threat," close quote. September 28th, 2002, President Bush in his radio address, quote: "The danger to our country is grave and it is growing. The Iraqi regime possesses biological and chemical weapons, is rebuilding the facilities to make more, and, according to the British government, could launch a biological or chemical attack in as little as 45 minutes after the order is given," end of quote.

We can't have it both ways. If you were accurate in the information you gave to this government, then how in the world can we justify these quotes from the highest elected officials in this land before this war?

MR. TENET: Senator, you raised a bunch of issues, and I'd like to --

SEN. DURBIN: Please.

MR. TENET: -- try and walk through some of them with you. First of all, I've now worked in two administrations, Democrat and Republican. I've looked at statements about Iraq going back 10 years, so I am not going to go to people's statements. I'm going to focus on the intelligence and what we said and what we didn't say and how we believed it.

First of all, I would say to you is it's true at my Georgetown speech-if you go back and look at Dr. Kay's interim report, he said we haven't found weapons. Obviously I said we haven't found weapons. Obviously we said we judged that he has chemical and biological weapons. We also said very clearly in the National Intelligence Estimate that in the BW arena it's bigger than it was during the Gulf War. And we also argued for patience. I also argued that it is incumbent upon us to work through this to find out whether we were all right and all wrong, because we know on the missile side that we were generally right on the mark. We did better against the UAV programs. We know that he maintained clandestine BW research facilities. If you go back and read David Kay's interim report, the punchline of course was we haven't found weapons. And after being in Baghdad last week, and talking to the men and women of ISG, they continue to have leads, they continue to have people come to them. And for the purpose of understanding as professionals whether we were right or wrong on how we did this, we need to find out.

SEN. DURBIN: May I ask you this question? If we are going to subscribe to a policy of preemption, then we have to prepare ourselves to invade countries before it is clear they are an imminent threat. And the only way you reach that conclusion is from intelligence. Now we look at the body of information gathered by our intelligence agencies leading up to the invasion of Iraq, and with hindsight we say we missed the mark. How can you build a policy of preemption on intelligence, if we were so wrong in the lead-up to the invasion of Iraq? We will all concede Saddam Hussein is a bad man, and I'm glad he's out of power. But many more arguments were made to the American people to justify this invasion, and it turns out that the bulk of them were just plain wrong-either bad intelligence or misleading the people. How can we fight a war on terrorism or have a policy of preemption based on what we have just lived through in Iraq?

MR. TENET: Well, sir, you are fighting a war on terrorism very successfully because of intelligence. You got a country called Libya to disarm because of intelligence. You got A.Q. Khan, who I said last year in my public testimony was the biggest purveyor of nuclear weapons that we had to worry about-although I didn't name him-and we've dismantled that network because of intelligence. We understand that the North Koreans were pursuing an alternative route to a nuclear weapon, using highly-enriched uranium, because of intelligence.

Now, we are not perfect, but we are pretty damn good at what we do, and we care as much as you do about Iraq and whether we were right or wrong. And we are going to work through it in a way where we tell the truth as to whether we were right or wrong. But at the end of the day, we followed this for eight, nine, ten years. We had deep concerns about the history, the deceit, what he didn't give the U.N. And as I said in my Georgetown speech, we worked hard after 1998 to resuscitate sources and the record was mixed, and we made judgments on a narrower band of data. This is a tough business.

SEN. DURBIN: Mr. Tenet, I'm out of time here, and I'll just say this: At some point we have to reconcile the things that you've said and the things that were said publicly by the administration. And where they are in conflict someone has to be held accountable. And I don't know if it will be done today-not likely-I don't know if it will be done by this committee-I hope so. But some day in this open form of government we have to reconcile this clear conflict.