Iraq’s Weapons of Mass Destruction: Remarks from
former Clinton Appointee George Tenent
Remarks as prepared for delivery by Director of Central Intelligence George J. Tenet at
Georgetown University
5 February, 2004 Full Transcript From CIA.GOV web site here Part is shown below
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 way from a nuclear weapon - this was no theoretical program. It
turned out that we and the 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 WMD programs, 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 at 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 engagement 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
agents 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.
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