Iraq Posed an Unclear and Dubious Danger
by Ray McGovern
June 17, 2003

Fox News asked me to present my views on June 8 on the ongoing quest for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, but the first thing the anchor asked was why I should care about that when the vast majority of Americans don't.

I responded, somewhat indecorously, that this was largely the fault of Fox News and other media that have kept Americans malnourished on issues such as why our country launched a preemptive war. I was dyspeptic earlier that day after watching Condoleezza Rice and Colin Powell blow still more smoke at these key issues and disparage those with legitimate questions.

Powell said that it was "nonsense" to brand as "bogus" the intelligence adduced to justify making war on Iraq. But, sadly, "bogus" is precisely the correct word to apply to the key piece of "evidence" used to deceive our representatives and senators into voting to give President Bush permission to launch an unprovoked war on Iraq.

However strong a word, "bogus" pales in comparison with the F-word to which Powell and Rice showed themselves allergic: F for forgery. Yes, forgery. Had Fox and other news outlets adequately reported on what both Powell and Rice had already conceded was a forgery, the American people might have a better appreciation as to why they should care.

I refer to the bogus story that Iraq was attempting to acquire uranium from Niger to develop nuclear weapons. Those who followed developments at the United Nations have known since February that that story was based on a crude forgery. What is little known is that the Bush administration knew it was bogus a full year earlier. (The United Nations now has the forged documents.)

Early last year Vice President Dick Cheney sent to Niger a former U.S. ambassador in Africa to investigate the story. The latter brought back word that the documents were not authentic. But this did not prevent senior administration officials from using them in the critical run-up to Congress vote to give Bush the authority to make war.

Indeed, Bush included the forged "evidence" in his State of the Union Message on Jan. 28 – something that Rice, when asked about it by George Stephanopoulos on national television on June 8, was at a loss to explain satisfactorily. Now "senior administration officials" are telling gullible reporters that Cheney and other senior officials were never informed of the outcome of the investigation.

Recent press reports of a Defense Intelligence Agency study of September 2002 that found "no definitive, reliable information" that Iraq was producing or stockpiling chemical or biological weapons has helped me connect the dots, so to speak. Last falls full-court press to get Congress to vote for war required proof that Iraq posed a clear and present danger. As Bushs strategists reviewed the bidding, it became painfully clear that allegations of a confirmed chemical and biological threat would run too great a risk of being undermined by uncooperative analysts in the DIA.

A 'MUSHROOM CLOUD'

At that point the White House decided to present evidence raising the specter of nuclear weapons in the hands of Saddam Hussein and play up the danger of a "mushroom cloud." Former U.N. nuclear inspector David Albright said recently that he was "deeply troubled by the selective use of information to basically scare people. People are scared by nuclear weapons. And its a button."

But where was the evidence? It is now clear that the only thing available at that time was the so-called argument about aluminum tubes. There had been reports of Iraq's trying to procure them from abroad, and those eager to please the White House offered instant analysis that the tubes were for Iraqs nuclear program. Thus, Rice on Sept. 8, 2002, told CNN's Wolf Blitzer that "Saddam Hussein is actively pursuing a nuclear weapon. We do know that there have been shipments into Iraq of aluminum tubes that really are only suited to nuclear weapons programs."

But when the engineers and scientists at U.S. nuclear labs were consulted, their conclusion was that the tubes were not suitable for a nuclear application. So that line of argument turned out to be as weak as the chemical and biological weapons evidence about which DIA analysts were so suspicious.

BOGUS EVIDENCE

What was left? Someone remembered the forged correspondence between Iraq and Niger, decided that it could be used to win the vote in Congress and then, after winning the war in Iraq and in the afterglow of victory, no one would care that the evidence was bogus. It worked.

Small wonder that U.S. Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., in a March 17 letter to Bush, expressed outrage at having been deceived into voting for war, since "the evidence cited regarding Iraqs efforts to obtain nuclear weapons is a hoax."

Ray McGovern, a CIA analyst for 27 years, is now on the Steering Group of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity.