G. Statements Made by Administration Officials about the Sharing of Information
(U) During the time when the CIA was sharing information on suspected WMD sites with the UN (i.e. December 31, 2002 - March 11, 2003), unclassified written and oral statements were made by DCI Tenet and other Administration officials on the extent to which the Intelligence Community had shared information with inspection officials:
- (U) Senate Select Committee on Intelligence Open Hearing - February 11, 2003
Senator Levin: "My question to you is: When will we be completing the sharing of information with the U.N. inspectors?"
Director Tenet: "Sir, we have given the U.N. inspectors and UNMOVIC every site that we have that is of high or moderate value, where there is proven intelligence to lead to a potential outcome - every site we have."
Director Tenet: ". . . All I can tell you is we have given them everything we have and provided every site at our disposal, and we cooperate with our foreign colleagues to give them - we have held nothing back from sites that we believe, based on credible intelligence, could be fruitful for these inspections."
Senator Levin: "I just must tell you that is news. That is a very different statement than we have received before."
Director Tenet: "Sir, I was briefed last night, and I think we owe you an apology. I don't know that you have gotten the full flavor of this. But in going through this last night, I can tell you with confidence that we have given them every site."
- Senate Armed Services Committee Open Hearing - February 12, 2003
Director Tenet: "We, the American intelligence community, have had an intelligence exchange with the United Nations on Iraq and WMD in sensitive sites for over ten years . . . There is, therefore, a very strong common understanding of sites of potential interest to inspectors, whether they were UNSCOM inspectors or UNMOVIC inspectors or IAEA inspectors."
". . . When the inspections began, we drew up a list of suspect sites which we believe may have a continuing association with Iraq's WMD programs. The list is dynamic. It changes according to available intelligence or other information we receive. Of this set number of suspect sites, we identified a specific number as being highest interest, highest value or moderate value because of recent activities suggesting ongoing WMD association or other intelligence information that we received. As I said yesterday, we have briefed all of these high value and moderate value sites to UNMOVIC and IAEA."
"Of the remaining sites of lower interest on this suspect site list, I had my analysts review all of them last night to see what we had shared with UNSCOM, with UNMOVIC, and with IAEA. We identified a handful, one handful of sites which may not have been known to the UNSCOM inspectors that we will pass to them. Now, the important thing to note is, in addition, we continue to provide additional site information to UNSCOM [sic] either in response to their questions on a daily basis, because they have their own site list." -416-
". . . my direction to our community and our people was that quote, 'flood the zone.' To work with these people on a daily basis to do everything that we can to assist their inspection process . .."
- Statement for the Record. Letter from PCI Tenet to Senator John Warner - March
6. 2003
"When the current round of inspections began, the Intelligence Community assembled several lists of suspect sites, which we combined into a common list in early January. This list consisted of high, moderate and low value sites, depending on our assessment of recent activities suggesting ongoing WMD association or other intelligence information that the sites were worth inspecting. We have now provided detailed information on all of the high value and moderate value sites to UNMOVIC and the IAEA."
- Letter from Condoleezza Rice. Assistant to the President for National Security
Affairs, to Senator Carl Levin - March 6. 2003
"In terms of U.S. intelligence support specifically, it has been substantial. United Nations inspectors have been briefed on every high or medium priority weapons of mass destruction, missile, and UAV-related site the U.S. Intelligence Community has identified. Our bottom line is that, when we believe there is any real probability of finding prohibited material or activity, we provide the relevant information to the U.N. inspectors and offer to assist them in using it."
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