http://articles.philly.com/2002-10-08/news/25351633_1_al-qaeda-terrorist-network-iraq-war

Officials' private doubts on Iraq war

Some military, intelligence and diplomatic sources say hawks are overstating the danger that Baghdad poses.

By Warren P. Strobel, Jonathan S. Landay and John Walcott

October 8, 2002

WASHINGTON -- While President Bush marshals congressional and international support for invading Iraq, a growing number of military officers, intelligence professionals and diplomats in his own government privately have deep misgivings about the administration's double-time march toward war.

These officials say administration hawks have exaggerated evidence of the threat that Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein poses - including distorting his links to the al-Qaeda terrorist network; have overstated the amount of international support for attacking Iraq; and have downplayed the potential repercussions of a new war in the Middle East.

They say that the administration squelches dissenting views and that intelligence analysts are under intense pressure to produce reports supporting the White House's argument that Hussein poses such an immediate threat to the United States that preemptive military action is necessary.

"Analysts at the working level in the intelligence community are feeling very strong pressure from the Pentagon to cook the intelligence books," said one official, speaking on condition of anonymity.

A dozen other officials echoed his views in interviews with the Inquirer Washington Bureau. No one who was interviewed disagreed.

They cited recent suggestions by Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice that Hussein and Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda network were working together.

Rumsfeld said Sept. 26 that the U.S. government had bulletproof" confirmation of links between Iraq and al-Qaeda members, including "solid evidence" that members of the terrorist network maintained a presence in Iraq.

The facts are much less conclusive. Officials said Rumsfeld's statement was based in part on intercepted telephone calls in which an al-Qaeda member who apparently was passing through Baghdad was overheard calling friends or relatives, intelligence officials said. The intercepts provide no evidence that the suspected terrorist was working with the Iraqi regime or that he was working on a terrorist operation while he was in Iraq, they said.

Rumsfeld also suggested that the Iraqi regime had offered safe haven to bin Laden and Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar.

While technically true, that, too, is misleading. Intelligence reports said the Iraqi ambassador to Turkey, a longtime Iraqi intelligence officer, made the offer during a visit to Afghanistan in late 1998, after the United States attacked al-Qaeda training camps with cruise missiles to retaliate for the bombings of the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. But officials said the same intelligence reports said bin Laden rejected the offer because he did not want Hussein to control his group.

In fact, the officials said, there is no ironclad evidence that the Iraqi regime and the terrorist network are working together, or that Hussein has ever contemplated giving chemical or biological weapons to al-Qaeda, with whom he has deep ideological differences.

None of the dissenting officials, who work in a number of different agencies, would agree to speak publicly, out of fear of retribution. Many of them have long experience in the Middle East and South Asia, and all spoke in similar terms about their unease with the way that U.S. political leaders were dealing with Iraq.

All agreed that Hussein was a threat who eventually must be dealt with, and none flatly opposed military action. But, they say, the U.S. government has no dramatic new knowledge about the Iraqi leader that justifies Bush's urgent call to arms.

Some lawmakers have voiced similar concerns after receiving CIA briefings.

Sen. Richard J. Durbin (D., Ill.) said some information he had seen did not support Bush's portrayal of the Iraqi threat.

"It's troubling to have classified information that contradicts statements made by the administration," Durbin said. "There's more they should share with the public."

Several administration and intelligence officials defended CIA Director George Tenet, saying Tenet was not pressuring his analysts but was quietly working to include dissenting opinions in intelligence estimates and congressional briefings.

In one case, a senior administration official said, Tenet made sure that a State Department official told Congress that the Energy and State Departments disagreed with an intelligence assessment that said hundreds of aluminum tubes Iraq tried to purchase were intended for Baghdad's secret nuclear-weapons program. Analysts in both departments concluded that the Iraqis probably wanted the tubes to make conventional artillery pieces.

Other examples of questionable statements include:

Vice President Cheney said in late August that Iraq might have nuclear weapons "fairly soon." A CIA report released Friday said it could take Iraq until the last half of the decade to produce a nuclear weapon, unless it could acquire bomb-grade uranium or plutonium on the black market.

Also in August, Rumsfeld suggested that al-Qaeda operatives fleeing Afghanistan were taking refuge in Iraq with Hussein's assistance. "In a vicious, repressive dictatorship that exercises near-total control over its population, it's very hard to imagine that the government is not aware of what's taking place in the country," he said. Rumsfeld apparently was referring to about 150 members of the militant Islamic group Ansar al Islam ("Supporters of Islam") who have taken refuge in Kurdish areas of northern Iraq. However, one of America's would-be Kurdish allies controls that part of the country, not Hussein.

Contact Warren Strobel at 202-383-6033 or wstrobel@krwashington.com.