[Congressional Record Volume 160, Number 151 (Thursday, December 11, 2014)]
[Senate]
[Pages S6608-S6621]
Prewar Iraq Intelligence
Mr. LEVIN. Madam President, I wish to speak for a few moments about
one of the most significant events in my 36 years as a U.S. Senator,
the war in Iraq. I want to speak about important historical records
crucial to our understanding of why we went to war against Iraq in
2003, I want to enter into the public record recent revelations not yet
made public, and I make one more public call for a key document to be
made fully public.
I will begin by renewing a request to the Director of the Central
Intelligence Agency, John Brennan. It is a request I have also made to
his predecessors: I ask Director Brennan to declassify fully a March
13, 2003 CIA cable debunking the contention that 9/11 hijacker Mohammad
Atta had met in Prague with an Iraqi intelligence official named Ahmad
al-Ani.
Earlier this year, Director Brennan wrote to me, refusing, as did his
predecessors, to fully declassify the CIA cable. But in his letter to
me he makes public for the first time a few lines from that document.
While this is a significant addition to the public record, and I will
discuss that in a moment, it is still not the full cable, and I am
calling on him to declassify and release the full cable.
In order to understand why I am making that request, we need to
return to early 2003.
On March 6, 2003, just two weeks before U.S. troops would cross the
Iraqi border, President Bush held a prime-time televised press
conference. In that press conference he mentioned the Sept. 11, 2001,
terror attacks eight times, often in the same breath as Iraqi dictator
Saddam Hussein. There was a concerted campaign on the part of the Bush
administration to connect Iraq in the public mind with the horror of
the Sept. 11 attacks. That campaign succeeded. According to public
polls in the week before the Iraq war, half or more of Americans
believed Saddam was directly involved in the attacks. One poll taken in
September 2003, 6 months after we invaded Iraq, found that nearly 70
percent of Americans believed it likely that Saddam Hussein was
personally involved in the Sept. 11 attacks. Americans who believed in
a link between Iraq and 9/11 overwhelmingly supported the idea of
invading Iraq. Of course, connections between Saddam and 9/11 or al
Qaeda were fiction.
America's intelligence community was pressed to participate in the
administration's media campaign. Just a week after the President's
prime-time press conference, on March 13, 2003, CIA field staff sent a
cable to CIA headquarters, responding to a request for information
about a report that Mohammad Atta, the leader of the Sept. 11
hijackings, had met in 2001 with an Iraqi intelligence official in the
Czech capital of Prague. In stark terms, this CIA cable from the field
warned against U.S. government officials citing the report of the
alleged Prague meeting.
Yet the notion of such a meeting was a centerpiece of the
administration's campaign to create an impression in the public mind
that Saddam was in league with the al Qaeda terrorists who attacked us
on 9/11. On multiple occasions, including national television
appearances, Vice President Dick Cheney cited reports of the meeting,
at one point calling it ``pretty well confirmed.'' Officials from
Donald Rumsfeld's Pentagon, who set up a sort of rogue intelligence
analysis operation, briefed senior officials with a presentation citing
the Prague meeting as a ``known contact'' between Iraq and al Qaida.
Why am I bringing up a CIA cable from more than a decade ago? Isn't
this old, well-covered terrain? No, it isn't. This is about giving the
American people a full account of the march to war as new information
becomes available. It is about trying to hold leaders who misled the
public accountable. It is about warning future leaders of this nation
that they must not commit our sons and daughters to battle on the basis
of false statements.
There is no more grave decision for a nation to make than the
decision to go to war, and there is no more important issue for every
member of Congress than the decision to authorize the use of military
force--A decision to authorize force is a decision to unleash the
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might of our Armed Forces, the strongest military on the planet. It
commits the men and women of our Armed Forces to fight, and perhaps to
die, on the battlefield. The decision to go to war must be careful,
considered, and based on the facts.
Such careful consideration was tragically absent in the march to war
in Iraq.
Here is what the Vice President said on December 9, 2001, in an
interview on ``Meet the Press'': ``It's been pretty well confirmed that
he [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.''
Far from ``pretty well confirmed,'' there was almost no evidence that
such a meeting took place. Just a single unsubstantiated report, from a
single source, and a mountain of information indicating there was no
such meeting, including the fact that travel and other records
indicated that Atta was almost certainly in the United States at the
time of the purported meeting in Prague.
It was highly irresponsible for the Vice President to make that
claim. Calling a single, unconfirmed report from a single source
``pretty well confirmed,'' as he did on Dec. 9, 2001, was a reckless
statement to make on such a grave topic as war, in the face of
overwhelming doubt that such a meeting occurred.
Yet Vice President Cheney's reckless statements continued, even as
evidence mounted that there was no Prague meeting. In September 2002,
he said Atta ``did apparently travel to Prague on a number of
occasions. And on at least one occasion, we have reporting that places
him in Prague with a senior Iraqi intelligence official.''
The Vice President made those statements in the face of a then-
classified June 2002 CIA assessment that said the alleged meeting was
``not verified,'' called the information about it ``contradictory,''
and described assessments of Iraqi cooperation with al Qaida terror
plots as ``speculative.'' The Vice President made those statements in
the face of a July 2002 Defense Intelligence Agency analysis, which
reported that there was no evidence that Atta was in the Czech Republic
at the time. He made those statements despite a Defense Intelligence
Agency memorandum in August 2002 rejecting the claims by a rogue
intelligence analysis shop at the Pentagon that the meeting was an
example of a ``known contact'' between Iraq and al Qaida.
That brings us to the March 13, 2003 cable. It is unfortunate that I
cannot fully lay out the contents of that cable, because much of it
remains classified. But as the Senate Intelligence Committee's 2006
``Phase II'' report indicates, it appears that the cable was sent in
response to a request from headquarters at Langley for comment on the
claim that Atta and al-Ani had met in Prague because the White House
was considering a reference to a Prague meeting in a speech. At that
time, according to then-CIA Director George Tenet's memoir, the CIA had
been given a draft of a speech by Vice President Cheney containing
assertions about connections between Iraq and al Qaida. Tenet writes in
his memoir that he had to object to the President that the speech went
``way beyond what the intelligence shows. We cannot support the speech
and it should not be given.''
The text of this cable and the information surrounding it was almost
entirely redacted by the CIA from the Intelligence Committee's 2006
Phase II report. A number of us objected to that redaction at the time
the report was made public; indeed, the Majority Leader introduced
legislation which I cosponsored that would have declassified the cable,
legislation Republicans blocked. At the time of the report's release, I
joined several members of the Intelligence Committee, including Ranking
Member Rockefeller, Senators Feinstein, Wyden, Bayh, Mikulski and
Feingold, in concluding that the administration's decision to keep the
contents of the cable classified ``represents an improper use of
classification authority by the intelligence community to shield the
White House.''
In the years since I have sought declassification of the March 2003
CIA cable on numerous occasions. Twice, in 2011 and 2012, I wrote to
then-CIA Director Petraeus asking him to declassify the cable. Then in
February 2013, I asked Director Brennan during his confirmation hearing
whether he would contact the Czech government to ask if they would
object to declassification of the cable, and he responded,
``Absolutely, Senator, I will.''
Despite his commitment, I heard nothing from Director Brennan for
some time. Finally, in March of this year, more than a year after his
public commitment to me, I received a letter from Director Brennan.
Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that Director Brennan's
March 13, 2014, letter to me be printed in the Record.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:
The Director,
Central Intelligence Agency,
Washingon, DC, March 13, 2014.
Hon. Carl Levin,
Chairman, Committee on Armed Services,
U.S. Senate, Washington, DC.
Dear Mr. Chairman: At my confirmation hearing you requested
that I pursue declassification of a 2003 communication
related to an alleged meeting between Mohammed Atta and an
Iraqi intelligence officer, which was referenced in the
Senate Select Committee on Intelligence's September 2006
report entitled Postwar Findings about Iraq's WMD Programs
and Links to Terrorism and How They Compare with Prewar
Assessments.
I understand that your principal concern is that the
historical record be as complete as possible regarding this
period in our history, and on this point we are in agreement.
The American people deserve as full an understanding as
possible of these historical events, consistent with the
national security interests of the United States.
Consequently, having worked with our declassification review
experts, I can confirm the following information, which
describes the substance of what the communication relayed
with respect to the meeting at issue, without compromising
national security:
On 13 March 2003, CIA headquarters received a communication
from the field responding to a request that the field look
into a single-source intelligence report indicating that
Muhammed Atta met with former Iraqi intelligence officer al-
Ani in Prague in April 2001. In that communication, the field
expressed significant concern regarding the possibility of an
official public statement by the United States Government
indicating that such a meeting took place. The communication
noted that information received after the single-source
report raised serious doubts about that report's accuracy.
In particular, the field noted that while it remained
possible that a meeting between Atta and al-Ani took place,
investigative records subsequently placed Atta in the United
States just before and just after the date on which the
single-source report said the meeting was to have occurred,
making it unlikely that Atta was in Prague at the time of the
alleged meeting. The field also warned that both FBI and CIA
had previously told foreign intelligence officials that they
were skeptical that Atta was in Prague. Finally, the field
observed that ``identifications'' like the one that was made
by the source of the earlier report, during a period of high
emotion four months after the September 11 attacks, could be
faulty and would require further evidence. The field added
that, to its knowledge, ``there is not one USG
[counterterrorism] or FBI expert that . . . has said they
have evidence or `know' that [Atta] was indeed [in Prague].
In fact, the analysis has been quite the opposite.''
I hope this letter answers any outstanding questions about
the correspondence in question and addresses our shared
interest in creating an accurate and complete historical
record.
Sincerely,
John O. Brennan.
Mr. LEVIN. The letter contains no indication that he had asked the
Czech government for its view, as he committed to do. But Director
Brennan's letter includes, and therefore finally declassifies, this
very clear statement from the cable: ``[T]here is not one USG
[counterterrorism] or FBI expert that . . . has said they have evidence
or `know' that [Atta] was indeed [in Prague]. In fact, the analysis has
been quite the opposite.''
Again, that cable was sent to CIA headquarters on March 13, 2003--a
week before our invasion of Iraq. But the Vice President of the United
States, Dick Cheney, continued to suggest the meeting may have taken
place. He said the following about the meeting on ``Meet the Press'' on
September 14, 2003--6 months after CIA received that cable: ``We've
never been able to develop any more of that yet either in terms of
confirming it or discrediting it. We just don't know.'' Here is what he
told the Denver Post newspaper on January 9, 2004: ``We've never been
able to collect any more information on that. That was the one that
possibly tied the two together to 9/11.'' Here is what he told CNN on
June 17, 2004: ``We
[[Page S6617]]
have never been able to confirm that, nor have we been able to knock it
down. We just don't know.''
Mr. President, those statements were simply not true. We did know. We
did know that there was no evidence that such a meeting had taken
place. We did know there was ample evidence it did not take place. We
did know that there was, as the CIA cable says, ``not one'' government
expert who said there was evidence that Atta met with Iraqi
intelligence in Prague. The Vice President recklessly disregarded the
truth, and he did so in a way calculated to maintain support for the
administration's decision to go to war in Iraq.
There is a second recent revelation about how the ``Prague meeting''
progressed from unsubstantiated report to justification for war. It
comes from Jiri Ruzek, who headed the Czech counterintelligence service
on and after 9/11. Mr. Ruzek published a memoir earlier this year,
which we have had translated from Czech. It recounts the days after the
terror attack, including how his nation's intelligence services first
reported a single-source rumor of a Prague meeting between Atta and al-
Ani, how CIA officials under pressure from CIA headquarters in turn
pressured him to substantiate the rumor, and how U.S. officials
pressured the Czech government when Czech intelligence officials failed
to produce the confirmation that the Bush administration sought.
Mr. Ruzek writes:
It was becoming more and more clear that we had not met
expectations and did not provide the `right' intelligence
output.
Mr. Ruzek continues:
The Americans showed me that anything can be violated,
including the rules that they themselves taught us. Without
any regard to us, they used our intelligence information for
propaganda press leaks. They wanted to mine certainty from
unconfirmed suspicion and use it as an excuse for military
action. We were supposed to play the role of useful idiot
thanks to whose initiative a war would be started.
That is chilling. We have a senior intelligence official of a
friendly nation describing the pressure that he and other Czech
officials were under to give the Bush administration material it could
use to justify a war.
When it came to the most serious decision a government can make--the
decision to commit our sons and daughters to battle--the Bush
administration was playing games with intelligence. The full, still
classified cable includes critically important, relevant information,
and it has been redacted and denied to the public in order to protect
those in the Bush White House who are responsible.
The March 13, 2003, cable is an invaluable record in helping the
American people understand how their elected officials conducted
themselves in going to war. Continuing to cloak this document with a
veil of secrecy, revealing a few sentences at a time, allows those who
misled the American people to continue escaping the full verdict of
history. It deprives the American people of a complete understanding of
how we came to invade Iraq. In his letter to me, Director Brennan
writes, ``I understand that your principal concern is that the
historical record be as complete as possible regarding this period in
our history, and on this point we are in agreement.'' But Director
Brennan's apparent refusal to do what he has committed to do--to ask
the Czech government if it objects to release of the cable--now takes
on the character of a continuing cover-up.
I believe decisionmakers should have to face the full, unadulterated,
unredacted truth about their decisions. The American people should know
the full story, not just so we can understand the decisions in 2002 and
2003 that took us to war, but as a warning to future leaders against
the misuse of intelligence and the abuse of power.
Very briefly, what I am doing in this statement, which is now in the
record, is I am asking CIA Director Brennan to fully declassify a March
13, 2003 cable from CIA field officers to headquarters. This cable
provides information about the Bush administration's campaign to build
public support for the Iraq invasion.
One part of that campaign was the repeated misleading suggestion that
Mohammed Atta, leader of the 9/11 hijackers, had met with an Iraqi
intelligence official in Prague.
I received a letter from Director Brennan making public for the first
time some of the cable's contents. He quotes the cable as saying:
There is not one USG [counterterrorism] or FBI expert that
. . . has said they have evidence or ``know'' that [Atta] was
indeed [in Prague]. In fact, the analysis has been quite the
opposite.
In my statement just entered into the Record, I also discussed recent
revelations by the former head of the Czech intelligence agency about
U.S. pressure to confirm the report of that meeting.
The American people deserve to know the full truth about this episode
and particularly in light of the new revelations from a top Czech
official.
I have renewed my request to Director Brennan to declassify the
entire cable.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Louisiana.
