Ex-CIA/State Dep Thielmann: Iraq "evidence" was distorted

posted by ewing2001 on Friday June 06, @08:12PM

AP

Ex-Official: Evidence Distorted for War"

By JOHN J. LUMPKIN, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON - Sat, Jun 07, 2003, 3:58 AM

"...The Bush administration distorted intelligence and presented conjecture as evidence to justify a U.S. invasion of Iraq , according to a retired intelligence official who served during the months before the war.

"What disturbs me deeply is what I think are the disingenuous statements made from the very top about what the intelligence did say," said Greg Thielmann, who retired last September. "The area of distortion was greatest in the nuclear field."

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Thielmann was director of the strategic, proliferation and military issues office in the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research. His office was privy to classified intelligence gathered by the CIA and other agencies about Iraq's chemical, biological and nuclear programs..."

In Thielmann's view, Iraq could have presented an immediate threat to U.S. security in two areas: Either it was about to make a nuclear weapon, or it was forming close operational ties with al-Qaida terrorists.

Evidence was lacking for both, despite claims by President Bush and others, Thielmann said in an interview this week. Suspicions were presented as fact, contrary arguments ignored, he said.

"When the administration did talk about specific evidence — it was basically declassified, sensitive information — it did it in a way that was also not entirely honest," Thielmann said.

In his State of the Union address, Bush said, "The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa."

The Africa claim rested on a purported letter or letters between officials in Iraq and Niger held by European intelligence agencies. The communications are now accepted as forged, and Thielmann said he believed the information on Africa was discounted months before Bush mentioned it.

MSNBC

Where are Iraq’s WMDs?

Sunday 01 June 2003

"...The evidence sometimes cited to support Saddam’s nuclear program was shaky, however. On the morning after Bush’s State of the Union address in January, Greg Thielmann, who had recently resigned from the State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR)—whose duties included tracking Iraq’s WMD program—read the text in the newspaper. Bush had cited British intelligence reports that Saddam was trying to purchase “significant quantities of uranium from Africa.”

Thielmann was floored. “When I saw that, it really blew me away,”Thielmann told NEWSWEEK. Thielmann knew about the source of the allegation. The CIA had come up with some documents purporting to show Saddam had attempted to buy up to 500 tons of uranium oxide from the African country of Niger. INR had concluded that the purchases were implausible—and made that point clear to Powell’s office. As Thielmann read that the president had relied on these documents to report to the nation, he thought, “Not that stupid piece of garbage. My thought was, how did that get into the speech?” It later turned out that the documents were a forgery, and a crude one at that, peddled to the Italians by an entrepreneurial African diplomat. The Niger minister of Foreign Affairs whose name was on the letterhead had been out of office for more than 10 years. The most cursory checks would have exposed the fraud...."

Thielmann's connection to CEIP

Source:

CEIP.org

CEIP stands for Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Recently they discussed, "whether anti-Americanism is a self-inflicted wound --or a counterattack by resentful international elites who confuse consensus with legitimacy"

At this 2002 Conference, Thielman met members of the Union of Concerned Scientists, The Nuclear Disarmament Partnership, Federation of American Scientists or Nuclear Threat Reduction Campaign but also Pentagon-supporter Aviation Week & Space Technology, DTRA (Defense Threat Reduction Agency), SAIC (CIA-contractor), The Aerospace Corporation, RAND, Sandia National, Livermore or nterey Institute of International Studies.

Founded in 1910, the Carnegie Endowment is a private nonprofit organization dedicated to advancing cooperation among nations and promoting active international engagement by the United States.

On their board of trustees is:

James C. Gaither (Sutter Hill Ventures), Richard A. Debs (Morgan Stanley ), Susan Eisenhower (President, The Eisenhower World Affairs Institute), Leslie H. Gelb (CFR), Robert Legvold (The Harriman Institute, Columbia), Zanny Minton Beddoes (The Economist) or William J. Perry (Professor, Stanford University, Institute for International Studies)

Novinite, Bulgaria

The Olympian, WA

Salon

ABC News

The Independent

and CBC News, Canada, CBS or Indian Express.

Bush, Blair Face Heat Over Iraq Weapons

AP

Sat, Jun 07, 2003

"... "What disturbs me deeply is what I think are the disingenuous statements made from the very top about what the intelligence did say," said Greg Thielmann, who retired in September. He was director of the strategic, proliferation and military issues office in the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research.

On Friday, the head of the Defense Intelligence Agency acknowledged he had no hard evidence of Iraqi chemical weapons last fall but believed Iraq had a program in place to produce them. The assessment suggests greater uncertainty about the Iraqi threat than the administration indicated publicly. ..."

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