4.4 | The
search for WMD
693.
In a speech in
Washington on 11 February, President Bush highlighted
recent
counter-proliferation
successes, including the breaking of the AQ Khan
nuclear
proliferation
network and Libya’s agreement to end its nuclear and chemical
weapons
programmes,
and announced a package of proposals to strengthen
international
counter-proliferation
efforts.386
694.
On
13 February, the British Embassy Washington reported that,
although
President
Bush’s “big pitch on proliferation” had had some success in
broadening the
political
debate about WMD, a poll in The
Washington Post suggested
that a majority
of Americans
believed the President had intentionally exaggerated evidence that
Iraq
695.
The Embassy
also reported that the Senate Intelligence Committee had
decided
to broaden
its investigation, previously restricted to the performance of the
intelligence
community,
to include whether policy-makers’ statements were substantiated
by
intelligence.388
The Embassy
concluded that the way was probably now clear for the
Committee
to release a report at the end of March which criticised the
intelligence
community.
696.
The Embassy
also reported that:
•
The CIA had
released an internal speech by Ms Miscik to The
Washington
Post,
which had
reported on 12 February that “an internal review
revealed
several
occasions when analysts mistakenly believed that Iraq weapons
data
had been
confirmed by multiple sources when in fact it had come from a
single
source” and
that Mr Tenet had “ordered an end to the long-standing practice
of
withholding
from analysts details about the clandestine agents who provide
the
information”.
•
The New York
Times on
13 February had quoted “senior intelligence
officials”
as saying
that analysts had not been told that much of the information
came
from
defectors linked to exile organisations that were promoting an
American
invasion.
•
Newsweek
had
reported on 12 February that the CIA was “re-examining
the
credibility
of four Iraq defectors” and had already “acknowledged that one of
the
defectors
had been previously branded a fabricator by another US
intelligence
agency”.
386
The White
House, 11 February 2004, President
Announces New Measure to Counter the Threat
of WMD.
387
Telegram
220 Washington to FCO London, 13 February 2004, ‘Iraq WMD: US
Debate, 13 February’.
388
The
Intelligence Committee’s first report was published on 9 July
2004. The “Phase II” report on the
broader
investigation announced in February 2004 was published in five
parts between September 2006
and May
2008. Both are addressed later in this Section.
561