Iraq never imminent threat, says CIA chief

IN HIS first public defence of pre-war intelligence, CIA Director George Tenet yesterday said US analysts never claimed Iraq posed an imminent threat.

Mr Tenet said analysts had varying opinions on the state of Iraq’s chemical, biological and nuclear weapons programs and those differences were spelled out in the October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate given to the White House. That report summarised intelligence on Iraq’s weapons programs.

Analysts “painted an objective assessment for our policy makers of a brutal dictator who was continuing his efforts to deceive and build programs that might constantly surprise us and threaten our interests”, he said in a speech at Georgetown University, his alma mater.

“No one told us what to say or how to say it,” Mr Tenet said.

He said that “in the intelligence business, you are never completely wrong or completely right ... When the facts of Iraq are all in, we will neither be completely right nor completely wrong.”

US President George W. Bush added yesterday that he still believed that the war in Iraq was “the right thing” despite the failure to find weapons of mass destruction there.

“Knowing what I knew then, and knowing what I know today, America did the right thing in Iraq,” Mr Bush said in an impassioned defence of the invasion during a brief trip here to tout his record on national security.

A similar debate raged in London, with British Defence Secretary Geoff Hoon playing down a spiralling row over pre-war information on Iraq’s alleged weapons of mass destruction after British prime minister Tony Blair admitted he was in the dark about a key piece of intelligence.

In a vigorous defence of the British government, Mr Hoon insisted it mattered little that Mr Blair had been unaware whether a claim Iraq could unleash chemical or biological weapons within 45 minutes referred to long-range arms or so-called “battlefield” weapons.

On Wednesday, Mr Blair told the House of Commons that even immediately before British troops entered Iraq in March last year, he had not been clear about what sort of weapons Iraq was alleged to possess.

In Washington, Mr Bush drew cheers last night when he praised Mr Blair as a leader in Winston Churchill’s mould.

“In his determination to do the right thing, and not the easy thing, I see the spirit of Churchill in Prime Minister Tony Blair,” he said.

The president also drew parallels last night between the war on terrorism and Winston Churchill’s struggle against fascism.