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E. Iraqi Support for Terrorism, September 2002

(U) Iraqi Support for Terrorism was disseminated to 12 senior officials by the CIA Directorate of Intelligence on September 19, 2002; it was not drafted to respond to a specific request. CIA officials decided that new intelligence warranted another look at the issue. The initial drafter of the paper was a senior analyst from the Near East and South Asia Division, who according to his manager, worked closely with the Iraq analysts in the Counter Terrorism Center's (CTC) Office of Terrorism Analysis. The manager also indicated that the paper was later handed over to CTC to carry through the publication process and to update it as it went through that process. The assessment received only selective distribution to twelve senior Administration officials³⁹ due to the sensitivity of sources and methods identified in the document. A copy of this document was not provided to Congress until October 2003.

(U) Two weeks after publication of Iraqi Support for Terrorism, the Intelligence Community published the October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq's Continuing Programs for Weapons of Mass Destruction.⁴⁰ Although the National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) did not focus explicitly on terrorism, the NIE did include key judgments regarding Saddam Hussein's potential for employing terrorist attacks, which began with the judgment, "Baghdad for now appears to be drawing a line short of conducting terrorist attacks with conventional or CBW against the United States fearing that exposure of Iraqi involvement would provide Washington a stronger case for making war." These judgments were similar to those found in Iraqi Support for Terrorism.

footnotes

³⁹ This assessment was shown to the Secretary of Transportation and was left with the Director of the Secret Service, Secretary of State, National Security Advisor, Deputy National Security Advisor, Under Secretary of Defense for Policy, Attorney General, Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Office of the Vice President Chief of Staff, National Security Council Senior Director for Intelligence Programs, Secretary of the Treasury and Deputy Secretary of State.

⁴⁰ The NIE was produced at the request of Senator Bob Graham, then-Chairman of the SSCI. The NIE was written by the National Intelligence Council with the input of IC analysts.