A desert mirage: How U.S. misjudged Iraq's arsenal
USA Today | 2/4/2004 12:13 AM | John Diamond
WASHINGTON One year before President Bush ordered the invasion of Iraq, a U.S. spy satellite over the western Iraqi desert photographed trailer trucks lined up beside a military bunker. Canvas shrouded the trucks' cargo. Through a system of relays, the satellite beamed digitized images to Fort Belvoir in Virginia, south of Washington. Within hours, analysts a few miles away at CIA headquarters had the pictures on high-definition computer screens. The photos would play a critical role in an assessment that now appears to have been wrong that Iraq had stockpiled weapons of mass destruction.
The way analysts interpreted the truck convoy photographed on March 17, 2002 and seven others like it spotted over the next two months is perhaps the single most important example of how U.S. intelligence went astray in its assessment of Saddam Hussein's arsenal. Analysts made logical interpretations of the evidence but based their conclusions more on supposition than fact.
The eight convoys stood out from normal Iraqi military movements. They appeared to have extra security provided by Saddam's most trusted officers, and they were accompanied by what analysts identified as tankers for decontaminating people and equipment exposed to chemical agents.
But the CIA had a problem: Once-a-day snapshots from the KH-11 spy satellite didn't show where the convoys were going. "We couldn't get a destination," a top intelligence official recalled. "We tried and tried and tried. We never could figure that out."
As far as U.S. intelligence was concerned, the convoys may as well have disappeared, like a mirage, into the Iraqi desert. Nearly a year after the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, Saddam's supposed arsenal remains a mirage.
The convoy photos, described in detail for the first time by four high-ranking intelligence officials in extensive joint interviews, were decisive in a crucial shift by U.S. intelligence: from saying Iraq might have illegal weapons to saying that Iraq definitely had them.
The assertion that Saddam had chemical and biological weapons and the ability to use them against his neighbors and even the United States was expressed in an Oct. 1, 2002, document called a National Intelligence Estimate. The estimate didn't trigger President Bush's determination to oust Saddam. But it weighed heavily on members of Congress as they decided to authorize force against Iraq, and it was central to Secretary of State Colin Powell's presentation to the United Nations Security Council a year ago this week.
Powell argued that Saddam had violated U.N. resolutions, agreed to after the 1991 Gulf War, requiring Iraq to disarm. But David Kay, the former head of the CIA-directed team searching for Saddam's weapons, now says that Iraq got rid of most of its banned weapons about six months after the 1991 war and that, unknown to the CIA, Iraq's weapons research was in disarray over the past four years.
The failure to find biological or chemical weapons in Iraq has undercut the Bush administration's main justification for invading Iraq. And it has raised concerns that the United States is conducting a policy of pre-empting foreign threats with an intelligence system that is fundamentally flawed.
An independent commission, reluctantly backed by the Bush administration, will be established to find out what went wrong. Such a panel is sure to explore whether, like thirsty travelers seeking an oasis, the U.S. analysts were looking so hard for evidence of banned Iraqi weapons that they "saw" things that turned out to be illusions.
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USA Today | 2/4/2004 12:13 AM | John Diamond
WASHINGTON One year before President Bush ordered the invasion of Iraq, a U.S. spy satellite over the western Iraqi desert photographed trailer trucks lined up beside a military bunker. Canvas shrouded the trucks' cargo. Through a system of relays, the satellite beamed digitized images to Fort Belvoir in Virginia, south of Washington. Within hours, analysts a few miles away at CIA headquarters had the pictures on high-definition computer screens. The photos would play a critical role in an assessment that now appears to have been wrong that Iraq had stockpiled weapons of mass destruction.
The way analysts interpreted the truck convoy photographed on March 17, 2002 and seven others like it spotted over the next two months is perhaps the single most important example of how U.S. intelligence went astray in its assessment of Saddam Hussein's arsenal. Analysts made logical interpretations of the evidence but based their conclusions more on supposition than fact.
The eight convoys stood out from normal Iraqi military movements. They appeared to have extra security provided by Saddam's most trusted officers, and they were accompanied by what analysts identified as tankers for decontaminating people and equipment exposed to chemical agents.
But the CIA had a problem: Once-a-day snapshots from the KH-11 spy satellite didn't show where the convoys were going. "We couldn't get a destination," a top intelligence official recalled. "We tried and tried and tried. We never could figure that out."
As far as U.S. intelligence was concerned, the convoys may as well have disappeared, like a mirage, into the Iraqi desert. Nearly a year after the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, Saddam's supposed arsenal remains a mirage.
The convoy photos, described in detail for the first time by four high-ranking intelligence officials in extensive joint interviews, were decisive in a crucial shift by U.S. intelligence: from saying Iraq might have illegal weapons to saying that Iraq definitely had them.
The assertion that Saddam had chemical and biological weapons and the ability to use them against his neighbors and even the United States was expressed in an Oct. 1, 2002, document called a National Intelligence Estimate. The estimate didn't trigger President Bush's determination to oust Saddam. But it weighed heavily on members of Congress as they decided to authorize force against Iraq, and it was central to Secretary of State Colin Powell's presentation to the United Nations Security Council a year ago this week.
Powell argued that Saddam had violated U.N. resolutions, agreed to after the 1991 Gulf War, requiring Iraq to disarm. But David Kay, the former head of the CIA-directed team searching for Saddam's weapons, now says that Iraq got rid of most of its banned weapons about six months after the 1991 war and that, unknown to the CIA, Iraq's weapons research was in disarray over the past four years.
The failure to find biological or chemical weapons in Iraq has undercut the Bush administration's main justification for invading Iraq. And it has raised concerns that the United States is conducting a policy of pre-empting foreign threats with an intelligence system that is fundamentally flawed.
An independent commission, reluctantly backed by the Bush administration, will be established to find out what went wrong. Such a panel is sure to explore whether, like thirsty travelers seeking an oasis, the U.S. analysts were looking so hard for evidence of banned Iraqi weapons that they "saw" things that turned out to be illusions.
READ MORE
