60 Minutes’ 2003 investigation of intelligence that led to Iraq War

60 Minutes rewindjust yesterday Secretary of State ColinPowell made a surprising admission hetold the Washington Post that he doesn'tknow whether he would have recommendedthe invasion of Iraq if he'd been toldat the time that there were nostockpiles of banned weaponsPowell said when he made the case forwar before the United Nations one yearago he used evidence that reflected thebest judgments of the intelligenceagencies but according to the peopleyou're about to meet long before the warthere was plenty of Doubt amongintelligence analysts about saddam'sweapons one analyst Greg Tillman told uslast fall that key evidence cited by theadministration was misrepresented to thepublic Tillman should know he'd been incharge of analyzing the Iraqi weaponsthreat for Powell's own intelligenceBureauwhen you saw Secretary of State Powellmake his presentation to the UnitedNations what did you thinkI had a couple of initial reactions thenI had a more mature reaction I think myconclusion now is that it's probably oneof the low points in his longdistinguishedservice to the nation at the end of thespeech the United Nations and theAmerican people have been misinformed inyour opinion I think soGreg Tillman was a Foreign ServiceOfficer for 25 years his last job at thestate department was acting director ofThe Office of strategic proliferationand Military Affairs responsible foranalyzing the Iraqi weapons threatyou and your staff had the highestsecurity clearances that's right and yousaw virtually everything that's rightwhether it came into the CIA or thedefense department it all came throughyour office sooner or later yesTillman was admired at State onehigh-ranking official called himhonorable knowledgeable very experiencedTillman took a long planned retirementfour months before Powell's big momentat the U.NFebruary 5th 2003 was the day that theworld had been waiting forsecretary Powell presented the evidenceagainst Saddam the gravity of thismomentis matched by the gravity of the threatthat Iraq's weapons of mass destructionposed to the world do you believe thatIraq posed an imminent threatto the United States of America at thepoint we went to war noI think it didn't evenconstituted an imminent threat to itsneighbors at the time he went to warTillman says that's what theintelligence really showed for examplehe points to the evidence behindPowell's charge that Iraq was importingthese aluminum tubes to use in a programto build nuclear weapons Sodom Husseinis determined to get his hands on anuclear bomb he is so determined that hehas made repeated covert attempts toacquire High specification aluminumtubes from 11 different countries evenafter inspections resumed this is one ofthe most disturbing parts of secretaryPowell's speech for us the tubes wereintercepted by intelligence agents in2001. the CIA said that they were partsfor a centrifuge to enrich uranium fuelfor an atom bomb but Tillman wasn't sosure experts at the Oak Ridge NationalLaboratory the scientists who enricheduranium for American bombs advised thatthe tubes were all wrong for a bombprogramat about the same time Tillman's officewas working on another explanation itturned out the tube's Dimensionsperfectly matched an Iraqi conventionalrocket the aluminum was exactly I thinkwhat the Iraqis wanted for artillery andyou sent that word up to the Secretaryof State many months before that's rightwe'll see where it intersects this isthe velocity Houston wood was aconsultant who worked on the Oak Ridgeanalysis of the tubes he watchedPowell's speech too when you saw thepresentation in full with regard to thealuminum tubes what were you thinkingI guess I was angry I think that'sprobably the best emotion that uh bestway to describe my emotions I was angryat that wood is among the world'sauthorities on uranium enrichment bycentrifuge he found that the tubescouldn't be what the CIA thought theywere they were too heavy three times toothick and certain to leak wasn't gonnawork no they would they would havefailed would reach that conclusion backin 2001 Steelman reported to secretaryPowell's office that he was confidentthe tubes were not for a nuclear programthen about a year later when theadministration was building a case forwar the tubes were resurrected on thefront page of the New York Times Ithought when I read that there must besome other tubes that people weretalking about I just was flabbergastedthat people were still pushing thatthose might be centrifuges the New YorkTimes reported that seniorAdministration officials insisted thetubes were for an atom bomb program wasit clear to you that science wasn'tpushing this forward yesthat's a very good way to put it sciencewas not pushing this forwardscientists had made their evaluation andmade their determination and now wedidn't know what was happening in hisU.N speech secretary Powell acknowledgedthere was disagreement about the tubesbut he said most experts agreed with thenuclear theory there is controversyabout what these tubes are formost U.S experts think they are intendedto serve as rotors in centrifuges usedto enrich uranium most experts arelocated in Oak Ridge and that was notthe position there do you know onein Academia in government in a foreigncountrywho disagrees with your appraisal whosays yes these are for nuclear weapons Idon't know a single one anywhere if thesecretarytook the information that his ownintelligence Bureau had developed andturned it on its head which is whatyou're sayingto what endI can only assume that he was doing itto loyally support the president of theUnited States and build the strongestpossible case for arguing that there wasno alternative to the use of militaryforce that was the case the presidenthimself was making in his State of theUnion Address only eight days beforesecretary Powell's speech the Britishgovernment has learned that SaddamHussein recently sought significantquantities of uranium from Africaour intelligent sources tell us that hehas attempted to purchase high-strengthaluminum tubes suitable for nuclearweapons productionafter the war the White House said theAfrican uranium claim was false andshouldn't have been in the president'saddress but at the time it was part of acampaign that painted the intelligenceas irrefutable there is no doubt thatSaddam Hussein now has weapons of massdestructionthere is no doubt that he is amassingthem to use against our friends againstour allies and against us my colleaguesevery statement I make today is backedup by sources solid sources these arenot assertionswhat we're giving you are facts andconclusions based on solid intelligencesolid intelligence Powell said thatproves Saddam had amassed chemical andbiological weapons our conservativeestimate is that Iraq today has astockpile of between 100 and 500 tons ofchemical weapons agent and part of thatstockpile he said was clearly in thesebunkers the four that are in red squaresrepresent active chemical Munitionsbunkers how do I know that how can I saythat let me give you a closer look upclose Powell said you could see a truckused for cleaning up chemical spills asignature he called it for a chemicalbunker it's a decontamination vehicle incase something goes wrong myunderstanding is that these particularvehicles were simply fire trucks thatyou cannot really describe as being aunique signature satellite photos werenotoriously misleading according toSteve allenson he was a un inspector inIraq in the months leading up to the warwas there ever a Time In your experiencethat American satellite intelligenceprovided you with something that wastruly usefulno no not to me not on not oninspections that I participated in notonce ever no allenson had been sent tofind decontamination vehicles thatturned out to be fire trucks and anothertime a satellite spotted what theythought were trucks used for movingbiological weapons we were told that wewere going to the site to look forrefrigerated trucks specifically linkedto biological agents and you found thetrucks we did we found about seven oreight of them I think in total and therewerethey had cobwebs in themsome samples were taken and nothing wasfound if allenson doubted the satelliteevidence Tillman watched with worry assecretary Powell told the securityCouncil that human intelligence providedconclusive prooftealman says that many of the humansources were defectors who came forwardwith an ax to grind give me some senseof how reliable The Defector informationwas across the board you got badinformation what rarelyI guess I would sayfrequently we got bad informationsome of it came from defectors suppliedby the Iraqi National Congress theleading Exile group headed by Ahmedchalabi you had the Iraqi NationalCongress with a clear motive forpresenting the worst possible picture ofwhat was happening in Iraq to theAmerican government the story willcontinue after thisthere was a good deal more in SecretaryPowell's speech that bothered theanalysts for example Powell claimed thatSaddam still had a few dozen scudmissiles I wondered what he was talkingaboutwe did not have evidence that the Iraqishad those missiles pure and simple lastweek David K the former Chief U.S armsinspector said his team found nostockpiles of banned weapons hisassessment of 12 Years of U.Sintelligence was this let me Begin bysaying we were almost all wrong and Icertainly include myself here that myview was that the best evidence that I'dseen was that Iraq indeed had weapons ofmass destruction secretary Powelldeclined an interview for this broadcastas we mentioned earlier Powell told theWashington Post this week that hedoesn't know if he would haverecommended Invasion if he had knownthen that there were no stockpiles ofweapons but yesterday he added this thebottom line is this president made theright decisionhe made the right decision based on thehistory of this regime the intentionthat this leader terrible despoticleader had and the capabilities at avariety of levels The Delivery Systemsthat were there and there's nobodydebating that the infrastructure thatwas there the technical know-how thatwas there the only thing we're debatingis the stockpile tomorrow marks one yearsince secretary Powell's U.N speech inthat time Greg Tillman has come to hisown conclusion about the presentationhe believes that the decision to go towar was made and the intelligence wasinterpreted to fit that conclusionthere's plenty of blame to go around butthe main problem was that the seniorAdministration officials have what I'vecalled faith-based intelligence theyknew what they wanted the intelligenceto show they were really blind and deafto any kind of countervailinginformation the intelligence Communitywould produce so I would I would assignsome blame to the intelligence communityand most of the blame to the seniorAdministration officialsthis week President Bush said anindependent commission will investigatethe intelligence failures on Iraq