Jack Straw and his US counterpart, Colin Powell, privately expressed serious doubts about the quality of intelligence on Iraq's banned weapons program at the very time they were publicly trumpeting it to get UN support for a war on Iraq, the Guardian has learned.
Their deep concerns about the intelligence -- and about claims being made by their political bosses, British Prime Minister Tony Blair and US President George W. Bush -- emerged at a private meeting between the two men shortly before a crucial UN security council session on Feb. 5.
The meeting took place at the Waldorf hotel in New York, where they discussed the growing diplomatic crisis. The exchange about the validity of their respective governments' intelligence reports on Iraq lasted less than 10 minutes, according to a diplomatic source who has read a transcript of the conversation.
The foreign secretary reportedly expressed concern that claims being made by Blair and Bush could not be proved. The problem, explained Straw, was the lack of corroborative evidence to back up the claims.
Much of the intelligence were assumptions and assessments not supported by hard facts or other sources. Powell shared the concern about intelligence assessments, especially those being presented by the Pentagon's office of special plans set up by the US Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz.
Powell said he had all but "moved in" with US intelligence to prepare his briefings for the UN security council, according to the transcripts.
But he told Straw he had come away from the meetings "apprehensive" about what he called, at best, circumstantial evidence highly tilted in favor of assessments drawn from them, rather than any actual raw intelligence.
Powell told the foreign secretary he hoped the facts, when they came out, would not "explode in their faces."
What are called the "Waldorf transcripts" are being circulated in NATO diplomatic circles. It is not being revealed how the transcripts came to be made; however, they appear to have been leaked by diplomats who supported the war against Iraq even when the evidence about Saddam Hussein's program of weapons of mass destruction was fuzzy, and who now believe they were lied to.
People circulating the transcripts call themselves "allied sources supportive of US war aims in Iraq at the time."
The transcripts will fuel the controversy in Britain and the US over claims that London and Washington distorted and exaggerated the intelligence assessments about Saddam's nuclear, chemical and biological weapons program.
An unnamed intelligence official told the BBC on Thursday that a key claim in the dossier on Iraq's weapons released by the British government last September -- that Iraq could launch a chemical or biological attack within 45 minutes of an order -- was inserted on the instructions of officials in 10 Downing Street.
Adam Ingram, the armed forces minister, admitted the claim was made by "a single source; it wasn't corroborated."
Speaking yesterday in Warsaw, the Polish capital, Blair said the evidence of weapons of mass destruction in the dossier was "evidence the truth of which I have absolutely no doubt about at all."
He said he had consulted the heads of the security and intelligence services before emphatically denying that Downing Street had leaned on them to strengthen their assessment of the WMD threat in Iraq. He insisted he had "absolutely no doubt" that proof of banned weapons would eventually be found in Iraq. Whitehall sources make it clear they do not share the prime minister's optimism.
Meanwhile, Powell on Friday fiercely defended the intelligence used by the Bush administration to justify war against Iraq, saying he spent several late nights poring over the CIA's reports because he knew the credibility of the country and the president were at stake.
The CIA's pre-war assessments have been sharply questioned by some intelligence officials and lawmakers in recent days, as US forces have uncovered limited evidence of unconventional weapons programs and Iraqi ties to terrorists.
Amid complaints from some intelligence officials that they felt pressured by Defense Department officials to produce reports that supported the administration's positions on Iraq, the CIA has started a review to determine whether its prewar assessments of Saddam Hussein's weapons programs were accurate.
The House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence has also asked the agency to provide a report on its Iraq intelligence, and is considering holding closed-door hearings on the issue, House officials said.
Powell used those assessments -- along with satellite photographs and intercepted conversations between Iraqi military officers -- in a dramatic presentation to the UN on Feb. 5, when he argued that Iraq's weapons programs and links to al-Qaeda made it an imminent threat to the world.
Asked on Friday whether he thought those assessments had been politicized to bolster the administration's call to arms, Powell said no, calling it "solid information" based on multiple sources that had been presented to him by unbiased analysts.
"I went out to the CIA, and I spent four days and four nights going over everything that they had," Powell told reporters traveling on Air Force One with Bush to Poland. For three consecutive nights, the chore kept him at the agency until midnight, he said.
"I knew that it was the credibility of the US that was going to be on the line on the Feb. 5," he said.
"The credibility of the president of the US and my credibility."
At the time, Powell was widely viewed as the most cautious member of Bush's national security team on Iraq, and his urgent presentation to the UN in February was intended to provided an extra layer of credibility to the administration's case for war.
Powell argued on Friday that the accuracy of the pre-war assessments was proven by the discovery of two Iraqi trailers that the CIA and Pentagon have concluded were designed to produce deadly germs. Powell presented drawings of suspected mobile biological labs to the UN in February.
"You should have seen the smile on my face when one day the intelligence community came in and gave me a photo, and said, `look,'" Powell said on Friday.
Also See Story:
Weapons reports wrong, top US general admits
UPDATED FORECAST: The warning covered areas of Pingtung County and Hengchun Peninsula, while a sea warning covering the southern Taiwan Strait was amended The Central Weather Administration (CWA) at 5:30pm yesterday issued a land warning for Typhoon Usagi as the storm approached Taiwan from the south after passing over the Philippines. As of 5pm, Usagi was 420km south-southeast of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻), Taiwan proper’s southernmost tip, with an average radius of 150km, the CWA said. The land warning covered areas of Pingtung County and the Hengchun Peninsula (恆春), and came with an amended sea warning, updating a warning issued yesterday morning to cover the southern part of the Taiwan Strait. No local governments had announced any class or office closures as of press time last night. The typhoon
Typhoon Usagi yesterday had weakened into a tropical storm, but a land warning issued by the Central Weather Administration (CWA) was still in effect in four areas in southern Taiwan. As of 5pm yesterday, Tropical Storm Usagi was over waters 120km south-southwest of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻), the southernmost tip of Taiwan proper, and was moving north at 9kph, CWA data showed. The storm was expected to veer northeast later yesterday. It had maximum sustained winds of 101kph, with gusts of up to 126kph, the data showed. The CWA urged residents of Kaohsiung, Pingtung County, Taitung County and the Hengchun Peninsula (恆春) to remain alert to
ONE LAST TALK: While Xi said that Taiwan was a ‘red line,’ Biden, in what is likely his last meeting with Xi as president, called for an end to China’s military activity around Taiwan China’s military intimidation and economic coercion against Taiwan are the main causes of tensions that are destabilizing peace in the Taiwan Strait, Taipei said yesterday while thanking US President Joe Biden for expressing Washington’s firm stance of maintaining peace and stability in the region. Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) met on Saturday for their third meeting and their first talks in seven months on the sidelines of the APEC forum in Lima, Peru. It was likely Biden’s last meeting as president with Xi. During their conversation, Biden reiterated the US’ opposition to any unilateral change to the “status quo” from either
Taiwan would participate in the 2026 APEC summit to be hosted by China after Beijing promised it would ensure the personal safety of attendees, Taiwanese national security sources said yesterday. The APEC Leaders’ Machu Picchu Declaration announced yesterday said that China would host the APEC summit in 2026. Beijing proposed hosting the summit shortly before this year’s gathering began on Friday, a national security official said, speaking on condition of anonymity. Many APEC members expressed concerns about China hosting the event and said that prior communication over the decision was insufficient, the official said. Taiwan brought up concerns about legal “guidelines” China announced in
RSS