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The
document summarizing the CIA’s purported knowledge of Iraqi chemical,
biological and nuclear weapons programs, produced in October 2002 and hidden
from the public ever since, has finally been made public.
The
CIA had previously released a heavily redacted version of the controversial
National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) in 2004. Last year, transparency advocate
John Greenwald made another FOIA request and received a declassified version of
the document, which Vice News published this Thursday.
RT.com report continues:
RAND
Corporation, a government-connected think tank, also had access to the NIE. In a report published in December 2014, RAND analysts noted
that the original CIA assessment contained many qualifiers about virtually
everything, but as the document went up the chain of command, “the
conclusions were treated increasingly definitely.”
Thus,
even though the CIA offered guesses based on rumors from Iraqi exiles and
unverifiable sources, Bush administration officials claimed with absolute
certainty that Iraq was producing chemical and biological agents, and acquiring
components for nuclear weapons.
Likewise,
the Bush administration asserted a connection between Al-Qaeda and the
government in Baghdad even though the CIA report noted that its information was
based on “sources of varying
reliability,” and that even if the relationship had existed, there
was no indication Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein knew about it.
“As with much of the information
on the overall relationship, details on training and support are second-hand,” the document, quoted by
Vice News, said. “The
presence of [Al-Qaeda]...militants in Iraq poses many questions. We do not know
to what extent Baghdad may be actively complicit in this use of its territory
for safehaven and transit.”
The
NIE reveals much of the intelligence concerning allegations that Iraq gave
Al-Qaeda instructions on using chemical and biological weapons came from
interrogations of alleged terrorists, often under torture.
Last
year’s Senate investigation into the CIA torture program revealed that the
dubious charges all came from a single source, which the NIE names as Ibn
al-Shaykh al-Libi (“The Libyan”). Al-Libi commanded the Khaldan training camp
in Afghanistan, shut down by the Taliban before 9/11 because he refused to
subordinate to Osama bin Laden. Who exactly tortured the information out of him
remains redacted, but the Senate report noted that Al-Libi recanted his
testimony after being turned over to the CIA in February 2003, saying he only
told his torturers what they wanted to hear.
Paul
Pillar, the former CIA analyst in charge of coordinating the assessment on Iraq
and now a visiting professor at Georgetown University, told Vice News that the
claims of alleged Iraqi biological weapons – such as the anthrax-laced
envelopes sent to Senators Tom Daschle and Patrick Leahy a week after 9/11 –
were based on such sources as Ahmad Chalabi, of the US-backed Iraqi National
Congress.
“There was an insufficient
critical skepticism about some of the source material,” Pillar said. “I think there should have been
agnosticism expressed in the main judgments. It would have been a better paper
if it were more carefully drafted in that sort of direction.”
Iraq
October 2002 NIE on WMDs (unedacted version) by Jason Leopold 
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