How did the U.S. government lead its people to war?
Bush Administration Claims vs. The Facts
No weapons of mass destruction of any kind were found in Iraq
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January 28, 2003
President George W. Bush delivers his State of the Union address [link to source]“The United Nations concluded in 1999 that Saddam Hussein had biological weapons sufficient to produce over 25,000 liters of anthrax – enough doses to kill several million people. He hasn't accounted for that material. He's given no evidence that he has destroyed it.
“The United Nations concluded that Saddam Hussein had materials sufficient to produce more than 38,000 liters of botulinum toxin – enough to subject millions of people to death by respiratory failure. He hadn't accounted for that material. He's given no evidence that he has destroyed it.
“Our intelligence officials estimate that Saddam Hussein had the materials to produce as much as 500 tons of sarin, mustard and VX nerve agent. In such quantities, these chemical agents could also kill untold thousands. He's not accounted for these materials. He has given no evidence that he has destroyed them.
“The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa.
“Our intelligence sources tell us that he has attempted to purchase high-strength aluminum tubes suitable for nuclear weapons production.
“The dictator of Iraq is not disarming. To the contrary, he is deceiving.”
February 1–4, 2003 [reported at a later date]
As reported in Newsweek (published on June 9, 2003) [link to source] [link to source]“George Tenet, the director of Central Intelligence, was frustrated. For four days and nights last winter, some of the most astute intelligence analysts in the U.S. government sat around Tenet's conference-room table in his wood-paneled office in Langley, Va., trying to prove that Saddam Hussein posed an imminent threat to America…
“On Feb. 5, Secretary of State Colin Powell was scheduled to go to the United Nations and make the case that Saddam possessed an arsenal of weapons of mass destruction. But the evidence was thin – sketchy and speculative, or uncorroborated, or just not credible…
“A recently retired State Department intelligence analyst directly involved in assessing the Iraqi threat, Greg Thielmann, flatly told NEWSWEEK that inside the government, ‘there is a lot of sorrow and anger at the way intelligence was misused. You get a strong impression that the administration didn't think the public – would be enthusiastic about the idea of war if you attached all those qualifiers.’
“… The case that Saddam possessed WMD was based, in large part, on assumptions, not hard evidence…”
“Then came the defectors. Former Iraqi officials fleeing the regime told of underground bunkers and labs hiding vast stores of chemical and biological weapons and nuclear materials. The CIA, at first, was skeptical. Defectors in search of safe haven sometimes stretch or invent the facts. The true believers in the Bush administration, on the other hand, embraced the defectors and credited their stories. Many of the defectors were sent to the Americans by Ahmed Chalabi, the politically ambitious and controversial Iraqi exile…
“The CIA was especially wary of Chalabi, whom they regarded as a con man… But rather than accept the CIA's doubts, top officials in the Bush Defense Department set up their own team of intelligence analysts, a small but powerful shop now called the Office of Special Plans…
“The real test of the government's case against Saddam came in the testimony by Secretary of State Powell delivered to the United Nations on Feb. 5… Presented with a ‘script’ by the White House national-security staff, Powell suspected that the hawks had been ‘cherry-picking,’ looking for any intel that supported their position and ignoring anything to the contrary.
“Powell ordered his aides to check out every fact…
“For four days and nights, Powell and Tenet, top aides and top analysts and, from time to time, Rice, pored over the evidence – and discarded much of it. Out went suggestions linking Saddam to 9-11. The bogus Niger documents were dumped…”
February 5, 2003
Secretary of State Colin Powell addresses the United Nations Security Council [link to source]“…Every statement I make today is backed up by sources, solid sources. These are not assertions…
“One of the most worrisome things that emerges from the thick intelligence file we have on Iraq’s biological weapons is the existence of mobile production facilities used to make biological agents…
“We know, from Iraq’s past admissions, that it has successfully weaponized not only anthrax, but also other biological agents, including botulinum toxin, aflatoxin, and ricin… Saddam Hussein has investigated dozens of biological agents, causing diseases such as gas gangrene, plague, typhus, tetanus, cholera, camelpox, and hemorrhagic fever. And he also has the wherewithal to develop small pox…
“In May, 2002, our satellites photographed the unusual activity in this picture. Here, we see cargo vehicles accompanied by a decontamination vehicle associated with biological or chemical weapons activity…
“This photograph of the site, taken two months later in July, shows that this previous site, as well as all of the other sites around this site, have been fully bulldozed and graded in order to conceal chemical weapons evidence that would be there from years of chemical weapons activity…
“Our conservative estimate is that Iraq today has a stockpile of between 100 and 500 tons of chemical weapons agent. That is enough agent to fill 16,000 battlefield rockets.
“Even the low end of 100 tons of agent would enable Saddam Hussein to cause mass casualties across more than 100 square miles of territory, an area nearly 5 times the size of Manhattan…
“Saddam Hussein is determined to get his hands on a nuclear bomb. He is so determined, that he has made repeated covert attempts to acquire high specification aluminum tubes from 11 different countries, even after inspections resumed…”
February 6, 2003
President George W. Bush delivers a speech at the White House [link to source]“The Iraqi regime has acquired and tested the means to deliver weapons of mass destruction. Iraq has developed spray devices that could be used on unmanned aerial vehicles, with ranges far beyond what is permitted by the Security Council. A UAV launched from a vessel off the American coast could reach hundreds of miles inland.
“And we have sources that tell us that Saddam Hussein recently authorized Iraqi field commanders to use chemical weapons, the very weapons the dictator tells the world he does not have.”
February 11, 2003
Director of the CIA George Tenet testifies before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence
[link to source]“I think we will find caches of weapons of mass destruction, absolutely.”
February 12, 2003
CIA Director Tenet testifies before the Senate Committee on Armed Services [link to source]“[Hussein] is going to get a nuclear weapon sooner or later. Our estimate is that with fissile material, he could have it in a year or two.
“And his biological-weapons capability is far bigger than it was at the time of the Gulf War, and he has a chemical-weapons capability that he hasn't declared.”
February 2003 [reported at a later date]
The Washington Post reports on August 10, 2003 [link to source]“The National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) of October 2002 cited new construction at facilities once associated with Iraq's nuclear program, but analysts had no reliable information at the time about what was happening under the roofs. By February [2003], a month before the war, U.S. government specialists on the ground in Iraq had seen for themselves that there were no forbidden activities at the sites.”
March 5, 2003
In his remarks at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, DC, Secretary of State Colin Powell refers to the December 2002 Iraqi weapons declaration
[link to source]“…The 12,000-page document that they tried to pass off as the whole truth was nothing but a rehash of old and discredited material, with some new lies thrown in for good measure to make it look fresh. Fresh lies on top of the old lies.
“It repeated the biggest lie of all, the claim that Iraq has no weapons of mass destruction, thereby setting the stage for further deception of the inspectors as they went about their business.”
March 7, 2003
After months of U.N. weapons inspections, International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director General Mohamed ElBaradei delivers a speech to the United Nations [link to source]
“One, there is no indication of resumed nuclear activities in those buildings that were identified through the use of satellite imagery as being reconstructed or newly erected since 1998, nor any indication of nuclear-related prohibited activities at any inspected sites.
“Second, there is no indication that Iraq has attempted to import uranium since 1990.
“Three, there is no indication that Iraq has attempted to import aluminum tubes for use in centrifuge enrichment. Moreover, even had Iraq pursued such a plan, it would have encountered practical difficulties in manufacturing centrifuge out of the aluminum tubes in question…
“After three months of intrusive inspections, we have to date found no evidence or plausible indication of the revival of a nuclear weapon program in Iraq….
“I should note that in the past three weeks, possibly as a result of ever-increasing pressure by the international community, Iraq has been forthcoming in its cooperation, particularly with regard to the conduct of private interviews and in making available evidence that could contribute to the resolution of matters of IAEA concern…”
March 16, 2003
Vice President Dick Cheney speaks on NBC News’ Meet The Press [link to source]“We believe [Hussein] has, in fact, reconstituted nuclear weapons. I think Mr. ElBaradei frankly is wrong.”
March 17, 2003
President George W. Bush delivers his Address to the Nation [link to source]“Intelligence gathered by this and other governments leaves no doubt that the Iraq regime continues to possess and conceal some of the most lethal weapons ever devised.
“The danger is clear: using chemical, biological, or, one day, nuclear weapons, obtained with the help of Iraq, the terrorists could fulfill their stated ambition and kill thousands or hundreds of thousands of innocent people in our country, or any other.”
March 18, 2003
The Washington Post reports [link to source]“As the Bush administration prepares to attack Iraq this week, it is doing so on the basis of a number of allegations against Iraqi President Saddam Hussein that have been challenged – and in some cases disproved – by the United Nations, European governments and even U.S. intelligence reports.
“For months, President Bush and his top lieutenants have produced a long list of Iraqi offenses, culminating Sunday [March 16] with Vice President Cheney's assertion that Iraq has ‘reconstituted nuclear weapons.’ Previously, administration officials have tied Hussein to al Qaeda, to the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, and to an aggressive production of biological and chemical weapons. Bush reiterated many of these charges in his address to the nation last night.
“But these assertions are hotly disputed. Some of the administration's evidence – such as Bush's assertion that Iraq sought to purchase uranium – has been refuted by subsequent discoveries.
“Earlier this month, ElBaradei said information about Iraqi efforts to buy uranium were based on fabricated documents.”
March 19, 2003
The U.S. launches military strikes, commencing the Iraq War.
March 30, 2003
Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld on ABC’s This Week with George Stephanopoulos
[link to source]"… The area in the south and the west and the north that coalition forces control is substantial. It happens not to be the area where weapons of mass destruction were dispersed. We know where they are. They're in the area around Tikrit and Baghdad and east, west, south and north somewhat.”
May 14, 2003
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld answers Senators’ questions at the hearing of the Defense Subcommittee of the Senate Appropriations Committee [link to source]“Senator, I don't believe anyone that I know in the administration ever said that Iraq had nuclear weapons. So the statement I think you read, which – that we've warned of potential nuclear capability and weapons and materials in the hands of terrorists, in terms of their having them now, I don't know anyone who suggested that that was the case.”
June 24, 2003
Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld at a U.S. Department of Defense Press Briefing
[link to source]“I have reason, every reason, to believe that the intelligence that we were operating off was correct and that we will, in fact, find weapons or evidence of weapons programs that are conclusive. But that's just a matter of time.”
August 10, 2003
The Washington Post reports [link to source]“…Based on interviews with analysts and policymakers inside and outside the U.S. government, and access to internal documents and technical evidence not previously made public… The new information indicates a pattern in which President Bush, Vice President Cheney and their subordinates – in public and behind the scenes – made allegations depicting Iraq's nuclear weapons program as more active, more certain and more imminent in its threat than the data they had would support. On occasion administration advocates withheld evidence that did not conform to their views. The White House seldom corrected misstatements or acknowledged loss of confidence in information upon which it had previously relied.”
September 29, 2003
The New York Times reports [link to source]“An internal assessment by the Defense Intelligence Agency has concluded that most of the information provided by Iraqi defectors who were made available by the Iraqi National Congress was of little or no value, according to federal officials briefed on the arrangement.
“In addition, several Iraqi defectors introduced to American intelligence agents by the exile organization and its leader, Ahmad Chalabi, invented or exaggerated their credentials as people with direct knowledge of the Iraqi government and its suspected unconventional weapons program, the officials said…
“The Iraqi National Congress, a London-based umbrella group, was formed with American help in 1992 and received millions of dollars under the Iraq Liberation Act of 1998. In a stance that angered the dissidents and some Pentagon officials, the State Department and the Central Intelligence Agency had long been skeptical of the information from defectors that Mr. Chalabi's organization had brought out of Iraq…”
October 2, 2003
The nonpartisan, nonprofit policy research organization, the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, presents analysis of David Kay’s congressional testimony [link to source] [link to source]
“Buried in the October 2 [2003] congressional testimony of David Kay were two bombshells: all the Iraq Survey Group evidence collected to date indicates that there were not any active programs to develop or produce chemical or nuclear weapons.
“In the middle of a paragraph halfway through his testimony, Kay presents what should have been his lead finding: ‘Information found to date suggests that Iraq's large-scale capability to develop, produce, and fill new CW munitions was reduced – if not entirely destroyed – during Operations Desert Storm and Desert Fox, 13 years of U.N. sanctions and U.N. inspections.’ Similarly… he says: ‘to date we have not uncovered evidence that Iraq undertook significant post-1998 steps to actually build nuclear weapons or produce fissile material.’
“… It now appears from everything we have been able to learn since the war that the combination of U.N. sanctions, inspections, and the military strikes of 1991 and 1998 effectively destroyed Iraq's chemical and nuclear weapons programs and prevented their reconstruction. The same appears to be true for the biological weapons program and the missile program, but there is still more to be learned about these efforts.”
October 8, 2003
President George W. Bush speaks at the Republican National Committee Presidential Gala, Washington DC [link to source]
“Since the liberation of Iraq, our investigators have found evidence of a clandestine network of biological laboratories, advanced design work on prohibited long-range missiles, an elaborate campaign to hide these illegal programs.
“There's a lot more to investigate. Yet it is now undeniable – undeniable – that Saddam Hussein was in clear violation of United Nations Security Council resolution 1441. It is undeniable that Saddam Hussein was a deceiver and a danger. The Security Council was right to demand that Saddam disarm. And America was right to enforce that demand. Thanks to our brave troops and a coalition of nations, America is now more secure, the world is more peaceful and Iraq is free.”
December 1, 2003
The Associated Press reports [link to source]
“Months of searching by hundreds of U.S. experts have found no trace of nuclear, chemical, or biological weapons in Iraq, just as U.N. inspectors found none before the war. No Iraqi scientists have confirmed the programs were revived in recent years.”
January 24, 2004
The New York Times reports [link to source] [link to source]“David Kay, who led the American effort to find banned weapons in Iraq, said Friday after stepping down from his post that he has concluded that Iraq had no stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons at the start of the war last year.
“In an interview with Reuters, Dr. Kay said he now thought that Iraq had illicit weapons at the end of the 1991 Persian Gulf war, but that the subsequent combination of United Nations inspections and Iraq's own decisions ‘got rid of them.’”
February 4, 2004
Greg Thielmann, former Director of the Strategic, Proliferation, and Military Affairs Office for Colin Powell’s intelligence bureau (U.S. State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research) is interviewed on CBS’ 60 Minutes [link to source]
“At the time, Thielmann says that Iraq didn't pose an imminent threat to the U.S.: ‘I think it didn't even constitute an imminent threat to its neighbors at the time we went to war.’”
February 5, 2004
David Kay, former director of the Iraq Survey Group, speaks on CNN’s Paula Zahn Now“We have not found any chemical weapons that were present on the battlefield, even in a small number.” [link to source]
February 5, 2004
David Kay speaks at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace forum [link to source]“The nuke program was not resurgent. It is clear that the Iraqis had realized how seriously decayed their capability in this area had gone.”
February 5, 2004
The Associated Press reports [link to source]“In his first public defense of prewar intelligence, CIA Director George Tenet said Thursday that U.S. [intelligence] analysts never claimed before the war that Iraq posed an imminent threat.
“Tenet said that analysts had varying opinions on the state of Iraq’s chemical, biological and nuclear weapons programs and that those differences were spelled out in a National Intelligence Estimate given to the White House in October 2002.”
February 13, 2004
Knight Ridder newspaper reports [link to source]“U.S. intelligence officials have concluded that almost all of the Iraqi defectors whose information helped make the Bush administration's case against Saddam Hussein exaggerated what they knew, fabricated tales or were "coached" by others on what to say.
“Most of the former Iraqi officials were made available to U.S. intelligence agencies by the Iraqi National Congress, a coalition of exile groups with close ties to the Pentagon and Vice President Dick Cheney's office. The INC had lobbied for years for a U.S. military operation to oust Saddam.
“The officials said some of the defectors showed signs of "coaching" because they used similar language. That raised suspicions that the INC had prepped them before their debriefings.
“Senior U.S. officials said that despite doubts about the defectors' reports, they continued to be sought by top civilians in the Defense Department and other officials eager to make the case for war.”
July 9, 2004
Senate Select Committee on Intelligence issues its Report on the U.S. Intelligence Community’s Prewar Intelligence Assessments on Iraq [link to source]
“...The judgment… that Iraq was reconstituting its nuclear program, was not supported by the intelligence. The Committee agrees with the State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR) alternative view that the available intelligence ‘does not add up to a compelling case for reconstitution.’
“… that the Iraqi Atomic Energy Commission was ‘expanding the infrastructure – research laboratories, production facilities, and procurement networks – to produce nuclear weapons,’ is not supported by the intelligence provided to the Committee.
“… ‘that all key aspects – research & development, production, and weaponization – of Iraq’s offensive biological weapons program are active and that most elements are larger and more advanced than they were before the Gulf War’ is not supported by the intelligence provided to the Committee.
“… that ‘Baghdad has… chemical weapons’ overstated both what was known about Iraq’s chemical weapons holdings and what intelligence analysts judged about Iraq’s chemical weapons holdings.
“… that Iraq was developing an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) ‘probably intended to deliver biological warfare agents’ overstated… what was known about the mission of Iraq’s small UAVs… The Intelligence Community failed to discuss possible conventional missions for Iraq’s unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) which were clearly noted in the intelligence reporting and which most analysts believed were the UAV’s primary missions.”
September 30, 2004
After 18 months of exhaustive investigations, the CIA-appointed Iraq Survey Group (ISG) issues its final report [link to source] [link to source] [link to source]
“Saddam [Hussein] ended the nuclear program in 1991 following the Gulf War. ISG found no evidence to suggest concerted efforts to restart the program.
“While a small number of old, abandoned chemical munitions have been discovered, ISG judges that Iraq unilaterally destroyed its undeclared chemical weapons stockpile in 1991. There are no credible indications that Baghdad resumed production of chemical munitions thereafter.”
“ISG judges that in 1991 and 1992, Iraq appears to have destroyed its undeclared stocks of BW [biowarfare] weapons and probably destroyed remaining holdings of bulk BW agent. However ISG lacks evidence to document complete destruction.
“In practical terms, with the destruction of the Al Hakam facility, Iraq abandoned its ambition to obtain advanced BW weapons quickly. ISG found no direct evidence that Iraq, after 1996, had plans for a new BW program or was conducting BW-specific work for military purposes.
“Iraq would have faced great difficulty in re-establishing an effective BW agent production capability.
“In spite of exhaustive investigation, ISG found no evidence that Iraq possessed, or was developing BW agent production systems mounted on road vehicles or railway wagons.”
October 3, 2004
The New York Times reports [link to source]“… As they studied raw intelligence reports, those involved in the Senate [Select Committee on Intelligence] investigation came to a sickening realization. ‘We kept looking at the intelligence and saying, 'My God, there's nothing here,'’ one official recalled.”
April 25, 2005
Regarding the conclusion of the Iraq Survey Group’s mission, the Associated Press reports [link to source]
“‘After more than 18 months, the WMD investigation and debriefing of the WMD-related detainees has been exhausted,’ wrote Charles Duelfer, head of the Iraq Survey Group, in an addendum to the final report he issued last fall…
“In his final word, the CIA’s top weapons inspector in Iraq said Monday that the hunt for weapons of mass destruction has ‘gone as far as feasible’ and has found nothing, closing an investigation into the purported programs of Saddam Hussein that were used to justify the 2003 invasion.”
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