Remarks by George Tenet today

From Fox News

The question being asked about Iraq in the starkest terms is, were we right or were we wrong? In the intelligence business, you are almost never completely wrong or completely right.

That applies in full to the question of Saddam's weapons of mass destruction. And like many of the toughest intelligence challenges, when the facts of Iraq are all in, we will neither be completely right nor completely wrong...

We had three streams of information; none perfect, but each important.

First, Iraq's history. Everyone knew that Iraq had chemical and biological weapons in the 1980s and 1990s. Saddam Hussein used chemical weapons against Iran and his own people on at least 10 different occasions. He launched missiles against Iran, Saudi Arabia and Israel.

And we couldn't forget that in the early 1990s, we saw that Iraq was just a few years away from a nuclear weapon. This was not a theoretical program. It turned out that we and other intelligence services of the world had significantly underestimated his progress.

And finally, we could not forget that Iraq lied repeatedly about its unconventional weapons.

So to conclude before the war that Saddam had no interest in rebuilding his weapons of mass destruction programs, we would have had to ignore his long and brutal history of using them.

Our second stream of information was that the United Nations could not and Saddam would not account for all the weapons the Iraqis had: tons of chemical weapons precursors, hundreds of artillery shells and bombs filled with chemical or biological agents.

We did not take this data on face value. We did take it seriously. We worked with the inspectors, giving them leads, helping them fight Saddam's deception strategy of cheat and retreat.

Over eight years of inspections, Saddam's deceptions and the increasingly restrictive rules of engagements U.N. inspectors were forced to negotiate with the regime undermined efforts to disarm him.

To conclude before the war that Saddam had destroyed his existing weapons, we would have had to ignore what the United Nations and allied intelligence said they could not verify.

The third stream of information came after the U.N. inspectors left Iraq in 1998. We gathered intelligence through human agents, satellite photos and communications intercepts. Other foreign intelligence services were clearly focused on Iraq and assisted in the effort.

In intercepts of conversations and other transactions, we heard Iraqis seeking to hide prohibited items, worrying about their cover stories and trying to procure items Iraq was not permitted to have.

Satellite photos showed a pattern of activity designed to conceal movement of material from places where chemical weapons had been stored in the past. We also saw reconstruction of dual-purpose facilities previously used to make biological weapons or chemical precursors.

And human sources told us of efforts to acquire and hide materials used in the production of such weapons.

And to come to conclusions before the war other than those we reached, we would have had to ignore all the intelligence gathered from multiple sources after 1998.

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 whether Iraq did or did not have weapons of mass destruction and the means to deliver them...

My provisional bottom line on missiles: We were generally on target...

Let me turn to unmanned aerial vehicles...we should remember that the Iraqis flight tested an aerial biological weapons spray system intended for a large unmanned aerial vehicle...My provisional bottom line today: We detected the development of prohibited and undeclared unmanned aerial vehicles. But the jury is still out on whether Iraq intended to use its newer, smaller unmanned aerial vehicle to deliver biological weapons...

Let me turn to the nuclear issue...My provisional bottom line today: Saddam did not have a nuclear weapon, he still wanted one, and Iraq intended to reconstitute a nuclear program at some point...

Let me turn to biological weapons...We believe that Iraq had lethal biological weapons agents, including anthrax, which it could quickly produce and weaponize for delivery by bombs, missiles, aerial sprayers and covert operatives. But we said we had no specific information on the types or quantities of weapons, agent or stockpiles at Baghdad's disposal...My provisional bottom line today: Iraq intended to develop biological weapons. Clearly, research and development work was under way that would have permitted a rapid shift to agent production if seed stocks were available. But we do not yet know if production took place. And just as clearly, we have not yet found biological weapons.

Before I leave the biological weapons story, an important fact that you must consider: For years the U.N. searched unsuccessfully for Saddam's biological weapons program. His son-in-law, Hussein Kamil, who controlled the hidden program, defected and only then was the world able to confirm that Iraq indeed had an active and dangerous biological weapons program...

Let me now turn to chemical weapons...We said in the estimate with high confidence that Iraq had them. We also believed, though with less certainty, that Saddam had stocked at least 100 metric tons of agent...That may sound like a lot, but it would fit in a few dorm rooms on this campus. And the last time I remember, they're not very big rooms...My provisional bottom line today: Saddam had the intent and capability to quickly convert civilian industry to chemical weapons production...

So what do I think about all this today? Based on an assessment of the data we collected over the past 10 years, it would have been difficult for analysts to come to any different conclusions than the ones reached in October of 2002.