CIA never said Saddam 'an imminent threat'

CIA director George Tenet said today Saddam Hussein’s Iraq posed “no imminent threat” in the months leading up the invasion.

But Saddam was determined to develop a nuclear weapon and had called his closest advisers together to berate them for not having done so.

Mr Tenet said details of the meeting landed on his desk in the months before the war after being leaked by an agent.

The advisers told Saddam they could develop a nuclear weapon within 18 to 20 months of obtaining fissile material.

The same source said Saddam was trying to “stockpile” biological or chemical weapons.

Other friendly intelligence agencies around the world “agreed that Saddam Hussein wanted nuclear weapons”, he said.

But despite the intelligence, Mr Tenet told an audience at Georgetown University in Washington that the CIA “never said there was an imminent threat” from Saddam.

Mr Tenet defended himself and the intelligence community.

The CIA and other agencies have come under attack from some quarters amid the ongoing failure to find WMD stockpiles in Iraq.

Mr Tenet said Saddam was working on biological and chemicals weapons programmes and pursuing the nuclear bomb.

“Did these strands of information weave into a perfect picture? Could they answer every question? No, far from it.

“But taken together this information provided a solid basis on which to estimate what Iraq did or did not have, WMDs and the means of delivering them.”

He said intelligence he saw “solidified and reinforced the judgments that we had reached and my own view of the danger posed by Saddam Hussein”.

“And I conveyed this view to our nation’s leaders,” he said.

Mr Tenet added 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.”

He also noted that the search for banned weapons continued and “we need more time”.

“While many of us want instant answers, the search for biological weapons in Iraq will take time and will take patience.”

CIA agents never “penetrated the inner sanctum” of Saddam’s Iraq, but they were on the “periphery” providing useful information.

He also said Iraqi leaders were engaged in an “elaborate plan” to deceive weapons inspectors.