CIA 'did not tell Bush of WMD finding'; Gary Younge in New York
Wednesday July 7, 2004; The Guardian

The US intelligence services withheld information from George Bush that Iraqi WMD programmes had been abandoned, to justify their prewar contention that Saddam Hussein possessed banned weapons, according to the New York Times. A highly critical report due to be released later this week by the Senate select committee on intelligence is expected to lambast the intelligence community for doing a poor job of collecting information about Iraqi weapons programmes and for failing to pass on what information it did have. The committee is expected to single out the outgoing CIA director, George Tenet, and his deputy, John McLaughlin, for particular criticism, according to the New York Times....

The report reveals that relatives of Iraqi scientists told the CIA that Saddam had abandoned attempts to develop unconventional weapons, but the CIA failed pass these statements on to Mr Bush, even as he made public claims to the contrary. One CIA spokesman told the New York Times that the families' statements were ignored because they were "not at all convincing". The committee found that one Iraqi defector, whose testimony had been used as evidence of a biological weapons programme, had actually said he had no knowledge of it. They did not unearth the contradiction until they read original reports of his debriefings before the war.