Secrecy News: Iraq's Tubes - Fact and Fiction; To Motivate a Terrorist
Secrecy News: Iraq's Tubes
- Fact and Fiction; To Motivate a Terrorist
About
Secrecy News
SECRECY NEWS is an email publication of
the Federation of American Scientists (FAS)
Project on Government Secrecy. It provides
informal coverage of new developments in secrecy,
security and intelligence policies, as well
as links to new acquisitions on the Federation
of American Scientists web site. It
is published 2 to 3 times a week, or as events
warrant. Secrecy
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The discovery three years ago that Iraq was seeking to
procure thousands of aluminum tubes was promptly interpreted
by the Central Intelligence Agency as a sign that Saddam
Hussein was pursuing uranium enrichment centrifuge
technology for a reconstituted Iraqi nuclear weapons
program.
That assessment, leaked to the press and uncritically
reported, helped bolster the Bush Administration case for
war against Iraq.
But now all indications are that the CIA assessment was
wrong, according to David Albright, president of the
Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS), who
has authored a detailed review of the aluminum tube
controversy.
"Since the fall of Baghdad last spring, no evidence has
emerged that Iraq planned to use the aluminum tubes in
centrifuges. Despite months of searching, the Iraqi Survey
Group (ISG) has not found any link between the tubes and a
gas centrifuge program," Albright wrote.
Albright traces the development of the aluminum tube story
from its earliest beginnings to the latest equivocations on
the matter by David Kay of the CIA's Iraq Survey Group.
Among other lessons learned, Albright notes that the National
Intelligence Estimate process proved to be a poor instrument
for adjudicating the significance of the aluminum tubes.
Crucially, of the ten or so intelligence agencies that each
had one vote on the Estimate, those with technical expertise
in centrifuge technology were outnumbered by those without
such expertise.
At a time when intelligence oversight has moved entirely
behind closed doors and is effectively dormant, Albright's
review significantly enriches the public record on this
controversial matter.
The most damning thing one could say about an intelligence
agency is not that it sometimes makes mistakes in analysis,
which is inevitable, but that it refuses to admit its
mistakes. When an agency cannot admit error, it cannot
learn from its own missteps and is doomed to mediocrity.
In a recent publication, Stuart Cohen,
Vice Chairman of the National Intelligence Council, finds no reason
to acknowledge a single flaw in U.S. intelligence on Iraqi weapons
of mass destruction. It is the critics, he says, who have it wrong.
But whether CIA admits it or not, the Agency is already
paying a price in credibility for having acquiesced in
overstating the threat of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction.
So when the CIA issues an assessment on North Korea's nuclear
weapons program, for example, it is now roundly met with
skepticism by national security experts, as the Los Angeles
Times reported today.
A report of the Congressional Research Service (CRS)
dispassionately considers whether terrorists might use
chemical and biological weapons, and why (or why not).
Congressional leaders refuse to provide comprehensive online
public access to CRS products like this one. Rep. Bob Ney
(R-OH), chair of the House Committee on House
Administration, told the Associated Press on Monday that he
would oppose a bill to require routine publication of CRS
reports. Members of the public will have to turn elsewhere.
