Congressional Record: July 8, 2004 (Senate)
Page S7811-S7819                       



                  Senate Intelligence Committee Report

  Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, tomorrow's report of the Senate 
Intelligence Committee will be intensely and extensively critical of 
the CIA for its intelligence failures and mischaracteri-

[[Page S7812]]

zations regarding Iraq's possession of weapons of mass destruction. 
That report is an accurate and a hard-hitting and well-deserved 
critique of the CIA.
  It is, of course, but half of the picture. Earlier today I released 
an example of the other half.
  A few days ago the CIA finally answered, in an unclassified form, the 
question I have been asking them about whether the Intelligence 
Community believes that a meeting between an Iraqi intelligence 
official and Mohamed Atta, one of the 9/11 hijackers, occurred in 
Prague in the months before al-Qaida's attack in America on 9/11. The 
answer of the CIA illustrates the point that tomorrow's Intelligence 
Committee report is extremely useful regarding the CIA's failure, but 
it does not address another central issue--the administration's 
exaggerations of the intelligence that the CIA provided to them. That 
is left for the second phase of the Intelligence Committee's 
investigation.
  This newly released, unclassified statement by the CIA demonstrates 
that it was the administration, not the CIA, that exaggerated the 
connections between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaida. The new CIA answer 
states that the CIA finds no credible information that the April 2001 
meeting occurred and, in fact, that it is unlikely that it did occur.
  A bit of history. On December 9, 2001, Tim Russert asked the Vice 
President whether Iraq was involved in the September 11 attack. The 
Vice President replied:

       It's been pretty well confirmed that he [Mohamed Atta] did 
     go to Prague and he did meet with a senior official of the 
     Iraqi intelligence service in Czechoslovakia last April, 
     several months before the attack.

  Vice President Cheney also said in his interview with CNBC on June 17 
of this year that the report from the Czechs was evidence that Iraq was 
involved in the 9/11 attacks. In his interview with the Rocky Mountain 
News on January 9 of this year, the Vice President also said that the 
alleged meeting between the hijacker, Atta, and an Iraqi intelligence 
official in Prague a few months before 9/11 ``possibly tied the two 
together to 9/11.''

  President Bush frequently exaggerated the overall relationship 
between al-Qaida and Saddam Hussein. For instance, on the deck of the 
aircraft carrier, President Bush stated:

       The liberation of Iraq is a crucial advance in the campaign 
     against terror. We have removed an ally of al-Qaida.

  Now, relative to the alleged Prague meeting itself, Vice President 
Cheney continues the misleading rhetoric by stating that we cannot 
prove one way or another that the so-called Prague meeting occurred. 
Vice President Cheney said on June 17 on CNBC:

       We have never been able to prove that there was a 
     connection there on 9/11. The one thing we had is the Iraq--
     the Czech intelligence service report saying that Mohamed 
     Atta had met with a senior Iraqi intelligence official at the 
     embassy on April 9, 2001. That's never been proven; it's 
     never been refuted.

  But what the Vice President continues to leave out is the critical 
second half of the CIA's now unclassified assessment that ``although we 
cannot rule it out, we are increasingly skeptical that such a meeting 
occurred.''
  The Vice President also omits the key CIA statement:

       In the absence of any credible information that the April 
     2001 meeting occurred, we assess that Atta would have been 
     unlikely to undertake the substantial risk of contacting any 
     Iraqi official as late April 2001, with the plot already well 
     along toward execution.

  In summary, the CIA says there is no credible evidence that the 
meeting occurred, and it is unlikely that it did occur. The American 
public was led to believe before the Iraq war that Iraq had a role in 
the 9/11 attack on America, and that the actions of al-Qaida and Iraq 
were ``part of the same threat,'' as Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul 
Wolfowitz has put it.
  Well, it was not the CIA that led the public to believe that; it was 
the leadership of this administration.
  Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that four documents, which I 
referred to in the body of my remarks, be printed in the Record at this 
point.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

 Response of Director of Central Intelligence George Tenet to Senator 
Levin Question for the Record, March 9, 2004, Armed Services Committee 
                                Hearing

       Question 8. Director Tenet, do you believe it is likely 
     that September 11 hijacker Muhammad Atta and Iraqi 
     Intelligence Service officer Ahmed al-Ani met in Prague in 
     April 2001, or do you believe it unlikely that the meeting 
     took place?
       Answer. Although we cannot rule it out, we are increasingly 
     skeptical that such a meeting occurred. The veracity of the 
     single-threaded reporting on which the original account of 
     the meeting was based has been questioned, and the Iraqi 
     official with whom Atta was alleged to have met has denied 
     ever having met Atta.
       We have been able to corroborate only two visits by Atta to 
     the Czech Republic: one in late 1994, when he passed through 
     enroute to Syria; the other in June 2000, when, according to 
     detainee reporting, he departed for the United States from 
     Prague because he thought a non-EU member country would be 
     less likely to keep meticulous travel data.
       In the absence of any credible information that the April 
     2001 meeting occurred, we assess that Atta would have been 
     unlikely to undertake the substantial risk of contacting any 
     Iraqi official as late as April 2001, with the plot already 
     well along toward execution.
       It is likewise hard to conceive of any single ingredient 
     crucial to the plot's success that could only be obtained 
     from Iraq.
       In our judgment, the 11 September plot was complex in its 
     orchestration but simple in its basic conception. We believe 
     that the factors vital to success of the plot were all easily 
     within al-Qa'ida's means without resort to Iraqi expertise: 
     shrewd selection of operatives, training in hijacking 
     aircraft, a mastermind and pilots well-versed in the 
     procedures and behavior needed to blend in with US society, 
     long experience in moving money to support operations, and 
     the openness and tolerance of US society as well as the ready 
     availability of important information about targets, flight 
     schools, and airport and airline security practices.
                                  ____


   New CIA Response Raises Question Again: Where Does Vice President 
                      Cheney Get His Information?

       On July 7th, I finally received an unclassified answer to a 
     Question for the Record that I had posed to Director of 
     Central Intelligence George Tenet after he appeared before 
     the Armed Services Committee on March 9, 2004. I am releasing 
     this response today, because it is further evidence that Vice 
     President Cheney has and continues to misstate and exaggerate 
     intelligence information to the American public. This 
     pattern, the record of which has continued to grow over time 
     suggests that Vice President Cheney is getting his 
     intelligence from outside of the U.S. Intelligence Community. 
     In February I asked him to clarify the basis for some of his 
     statements, but he has not yet responded to my request 
     (letter attached). I am therefore left to continue wondering 
     what his sources are.


                     alleged atta meeting in prague

       Vice President Chency persists in his representation that a 
     leader of the 9/11 hijackers, Mohammed Atta, may have met 
     with an Iraqi intelligence official in Prague in April, 2001. 
     When asked on Meet the Press on December 9, 2001 about 
     possible links between Iraq and the 9/11 attacks, he claimed 
     that the April Atta meeting was ``pretty well confirmed.'' 
     His subsequent statements on the Prague meeting have been 
     more qualified, but he continues to present the alleged 
     meeting as if it were something about which there wasn't 
     enough information to make an informed judgment, i.e., it may 
     have happened, or we don't know that it didn't happen. Most 
     recently, on June 17, he wrapped the suggestion in the 
     following verbal package: ``We have never been able to 
     confirm that, nor have we bee able to knock it down, we just 
     don't know . . . I can't refute the Czech claim, I can't 
     prove the Czech claim, I just don't know. . . . That's never 
     been proven; it's never been refuted.''
       This characterization does not fairly represent the views 
     of the Intelligence Community. I have long been award of this 
     difference, and have pressed the Central Intelligence Agency 
     (CIA) to declassify their views on whether they believe this 
     meeting took place. Finally, a few days ago, they provided a 
     public, unclassified response to that question.
       The CIA stats publicly, for the first time, that they lack 
     ``any credible information'' that the alleged meetin took 
     place. They note that the report was based on a single source 
     whose ``veracity . . . has been questioned,'' and that the 
     Iraq intelligence official who was purportedly involved and 
     who is now in our custody denies the meeting took place. 
     Further, they assess that Atta is ``unlikely'' to have ever 
     sought such a meeting because of the substantial risk that it 
     would have involved. The full CIA response is attached.
       As we learned Tuesday, the 9/11 Commission reviewed all of 
     the intelligence, including investigations by both U.S. and 
     Czech officials, and indeed all of the intelligence that the 
     Vice President received, and stands by its conclusion that 
     the meeting did not occur.
       The CIA and 9/11 Commission staff statements are not 
     equivocal; while it is impossible to disprove a negative, 
     after a systematic and thorough review of the evidence it is 
     their judgment that the meeting was unlikely or did not take 
     place. However, the

[[Page S7813]]

     Vice President continues to simply claim that the evidence is 
     some how ambiguous or unclear, and leaves out the conclusion 
     of the CIA. On June 17, Vice President Cheney said that ``we 
     just don't know'' whether the meeting took place. He went 
     further to suggest that the report has ``never been 
     refuted,'' but acknowledged that the only piece of evidence 
     he'd ever seen to support an Iraq connection to September 11 
     was ``this one report from the Czechs.'' This is the one 
     report from the single source that the CIA now publicly 
     acknowledges has been called into question.
       Earlier this year in a January 9, 2004 interview with the 
     Rocky Mountain News, Vice President Cheney said that, after 
     the initial Czech report of a meeting, ``we've never been 
     able to collect any more information on that.'' But again, 
     this is simply not true: the 9/11 Commission lays out 
     information that was gathered by the FBI that places Atta in 
     the United States during the week of the alleged meeting in 
     Prague, and the CIA clearly had information about the 
     unreliability of the source as well as the refutation by the 
     other purported party in the meeting.
       In his numerous public statements Vice President Cheney has 
     not been reflecting the view of the Intelligence Community on 
     the issue of the Atta meeting. On what information has the 
     Vice President been relying?
       Outside of the Intelligence Community, the only other U.S. 
     government source of information I know on the Iraq-al Qaeda 
     connection, including the alleged Atta meeting in Prague, is 
     the Office of Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Douglas 
     Feith. Under Secretary Feith has acknowledge that his office 
     provided information to Vice President Cheney's office on 
     these matters.
       In the summer of 2002, Under Secretary Feith prepared 
     several versions of a classified briefing on the Iraq-al 
     Qaeda relationship. The briefing was given first to Secretary 
     of Defense Rumsfeld, then to Director Tenet and the CIA in 
     August, and finally to the staffs of the Office of the Vice 
     President (OVP) and the National Security Council (NSC) in 
     September. The version of the briefing given to Vice 
     President Cheney's staff included three slides that were not 
     included in the version given to the CIA.
       One of those slides, which has since been declassified at 
     my request and is attached, was critical of the way the 
     Intelligence Community was assessing the Iraq-al Qaeda 
     relationship. Under Secretary Feith has acknowledged to Armed 
     Services Committee staff that he added two other slides which 
     concerned the Atta meeting issue, and which were not part of 
     the briefing given to the CIA.
       The two slides remain classified despite my request for 
     declassification.
       The Atta meeting is, unfortunately, not the only instance 
     in which the Vice President appears to have relied on 
     analysis other than that of the Intelligence Community. As 
     the Intelligence Committee report to be released tomorrow 
     will indicate, the CIA intelligence was way off, full of 
     exaggerations and errors, mainly on weapons of mass 
     destruction. But it was Vice President Cheney, along with 
     other policymakers, who exaggerated the Iraq-al Qaeda 
     relationship.


          weekly standard article on iraq-al qaeda cooperation

       On January 9, 2004, Vice President Cheney told the Rocky 
     Mountain News that, on the question of the relationship 
     between Iraq and al qaeda, ``one place you ought to go look 
     is an article that Stephen Hayes did in the Weekly Standard 
     here a few weeks ago, that goes through and lays out in some 
     detail, based on an assessment that was done by the 
     Department of Defense and forwarded to the Senate 
     Intelligence Committee some weeks ago. That's your best 
     source of information.''
       The article to which Vice President Cheney astonishingly 
     enough referred as the ``best source of information'' says it 
     was based on a leaked Defense Department Top Secret/Codeword 
     document. Aside from the sense of wonder that is engendered 
     when the Vice President seems to confirm highly classified 
     leaked information by calling it the ``best source'' of 
     information, the Intelligence Community did not even agree 
     with the Defense Department document on which the Weekly 
     Standard article was purportedly based. On March 9th, when I 
     asked Director Tenet, the Director of Central Intelligence, 
     about Vice President Cheney's comments, allegedly based on 
     the classified Defense Department document, he said that the 
     CIA ``did not agree with the way the data was characterized 
     in that document.'' He also said that he would speak to Vice 
     President Cheney, to tell him that the Intelligence Community 
     had disagreements with the Defense Department document.
       The document in question was prepared by Under Secretary 
     Feith. It was very similar to the series of briefings that 
     Under Secretary Feith had provided to Secretary of Defense 
     Rumsfeld, then to Director Tenet and the CIA, and finally to 
     the staffs of the Office of the Vice President and the 
     National Security Council in the summer of 2002.


        other examples of exaggeration by vice president cheney

       Unfortunately, these are not the only cases where the Vice 
     President, as just one key Administration spokesman, has 
     exaggerated or misstated the intelligence on issues related 
     to Iraq. In fact, they are just two examples of a consistent 
     pattern of such exaggeration where the policymakers--not the 
     CIA--were the exaggerators, before and after the start of the 
     war, and continuing up to the present. There are others.


                 iraq's mobile biological weapons vans

       As late as January 22, 2004, Vice President Cheney said to 
     National Public Radio that ``we know for example that prior 
     to our going in that he had spent time and effort acquiring 
     mobile biological weapons labs, and we're quite confident he 
     did, in fact, have such a program. We've found a couple of 
     semi trailers at this point which we believe were, in 
     fact, part of that program.'' He concluded by saying ``I 
     would deem that conclusive evidence, if you will, that he 
     did in fact have programs for weapons of mass 
     destruction.''
       That is not what the Intelligence Community believed at the 
     time. David Kay, the CIA's chief inspector in Iraq said the 
     previous October that the Iraq Survey Group had ``not yet 
     been able to corroborate the existence of a mobile BW 
     [biological warfare] production effort,'' and that it was 
     still trying to determine ``whether there was a mobile 
     program and whether the trailers that have been discovered so 
     far were part of such a program.''
       When I asked Director Tenet about Vice President Cheney's 
     comments, he said he had spoken to him about it, to tell him 
     that was not the view of the Intelligence Community.


                   aluminum tubes for nuclear weapons

       On September 8, 2002, Vice President Cheney made an 
     unqualified statement about the aluminum tubes on Meet the 
     Press:
       ``He [Saddam] is trying, through his illicit procurement 
     network, to acquire the equipment he needs to be able to 
     enrich uranium to make the bombs.''
       Tim Russert: ``Aluminum tubes.''
       VP Cheney: ``Specifically aluminum tubes. . . . it is now 
     public that, in fact, he has been seeking to acquire, and we 
     have been able to intercept and prevent him from acquiring 
     through this particular channel, the kinds of tubes that are 
     necessary to build a centrifuge. . . . But we do know, with 
     absolute certainty, that he is using his procurement system 
     to acquire the equipment he needs in order to enrich uranium 
     to build a nuclear weapon.''
       There was a fundamental debate within the Intelligence 
     Community before the war as to the intended purpose of the 
     aluminum tubes that Iraq was trying to import. The Department 
     of Energy, the Nation's foremost nuclear weapons experts, and 
     the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research, 
     did not believe the aluminum tubes were for centrifuges to 
     make nuclear weapons. Instead, they believed they were for 
     conventional artillery rockets. But Vice President Cheney did 
     not acknowledge any division within the Intelligence 
     Community. He stated that the U.S. knew ``with absolute 
     certainty'' that Iraq was trying to obtain the tubes for 
     nuclear weapons purposes.
       Tomorrow the CIA will be properly called to account for 
     their failures expressed in Phase I of the Intelligence 
     Committee report. Phase II will follow, regarding the 
     policymakers' use of intelligence.
       The CIA's belated public acknowledgment to my earlier 
     question that the Intelligence Community has no credible 
     evidence of an Iraqi-al Qaeda meeting in April 2001 
     dramatizes the need for that Phase II review.
                                  ____


   Fundamental Problems With How Intelligence Community Is Assessing 
                              Information

       Application of a standard that it would not normally 
     obtain: IC does not normally require juridical evidence to 
     support a finding.
       Consistent underestimation of importance that would be 
     attached by Iraq and al Qaeda to hiding a relationship: 
     Especially when operational security is very good, ``absence 
     of evidence is not evidence of absence''.
       Assumption that secularists and Islamists will not 
     cooperate, even when they have common interests.
                                  ____

                                                      U.S. Senate,


                                  Committee on Armed Services,

                                Washington, DC, February 12, 2004.
     The Vice President,
     The White House,
     Washington, DC
       Dear Mr. Vice President: I am writing about two 
     intelligence matters related to Iraq: the first concerning 
     weapons of mass destruction, and the second concerning 
     alleged cooperation between Iraq and al Qaeda.
       On January 22, 2004, you made the following comment during 
     an interview with National Public Radio concerning two 
     trailers in Iraq: ``we know for example that prior to our 
     going in that he had spent time and effort acquiring mobile 
     biological weapons labs, and we're quite confident he did, in 
     fact, have such a program. We've found a couple of semi 
     trailers at this point which we believe were, in fact, part 
     of that program. . . . I would deem that conclusive evidence, 
     if you will, that he did in fact have programs for weapons of 
     mass destruction.''
       In his speech on February 5, 2004, Director of Central 
     intelligence George Tenet said that ``there is no consensus 
     within our community over whether the trailers were for that 
     use [biological weapons] or if they were used for the 
     production of hydrogen.''
       David Kay, former leader of the Iraq Survey Group, 
     testified to Congress on October 2, 2003 that ``we have not 
     yet been able to corroborate the existence of a mobile BW 
     [biological warfare] production effort.'' He indicated that 
     the ISG was still trying to determine ``whether there was a 
     mobile program

[[Page S7814]]

     and whether the trailers that have been discovered so far 
     were part of such a program.''
       In July, David Kay was interviewed by BBC television for a 
     program that aired in England in late November, and here in 
     the United States on January 22, 2004. In response to a 
     question as to whether he thought it had been premature for 
     the Administration to assert in May that the two trailers 
     were intended to produce biological weapons agents, Kay said 
     ``I think it was premature and embarrassing.'' He said ``I 
     wish that news hadn't come out,'' and concluded ``I don't 
     want the mobile biological production facilities fiasco of 
     May to be the model of the future.''
       On January 28, 2004, Dr. Kay stated in testimony before the 
     Senate Armed Services Committee that ``I think the consensus 
     opinion is that when you look at those two trailers . . . 
     their actual intended use was not for the production of 
     biological weapons.''
       Given those assessments, I would appreciate knowing what is 
     the intelligence basis for your statements that ``we're quite 
     confident [Saddam] did, in fact, have such a [mobile 
     biological weapons labs] program,'' that the trailers ``we 
     believe were, in fact, part of that program,'' and that those 
     trailers are ``conclusive evidence'' that Iraq ``did, in 
     fact, have programs for weapons of mass destruction?''
       I would be pleased to receive that information on an 
     unclassified or classified basis.
       With respect to the second intelligence issue, during your 
     interview with the Rocky Mountain News on January 9, 2004, 
     you recommended a source of information relative to the issue 
     of whether there was a relationship between al Qaeda and 
     Iraq: ``One place you ought to look is an article that 
     Stephen Hayes did in the Weekly Standard here a few weeks 
     ago, that goes through and lays out in some detail, based on 
     an assessment that was done by the Department of Defense and 
     was forwarded to the Senate Intelligence Committee some weeks 
     ago. That's your best source of information''
       That article states that it is based on ``a top secret U.S. 
     government memorandum'' prepared by the Defense Department, 
     which was purportedly leaked to the Weekly Standard. The 
     article then goes on to describe in detail and quote 
     extensively from the document it says was leaked.
       On October 15, 2003, the Defense Department had issued a 
     News Release about the article that seems to disagree with 
     what you said. According to the Defense Department, ``News 
     reports that the Defense Department recently confirmed new 
     information with respect to contacts between al Qaeda and 
     Iraq in a letter to the Senate Intelligence Committee are 
     inaccurate.''
       Furthermore, the DOD news release noted that the 
     ``classified annex'' sent by the Defense Department to the 
     Senate Intelligence Committee ``was not an analysis of the 
     substantive issue of the relationship between Iraq and al 
     Qaeda, and it drew no conclusions.''
       I would appreciate if you would advise whether you were 
     quoted accurately.
       I look forward to your reply.
           Sincerely,
                                                       Carl Levin,
                                                   Ranking Member.

  Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, I yield the floor and suggest the absence 
of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. CHAMBLISS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Coleman). Without objection, it is so 
ordered.

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