{George Tenent was CIA director from JUL 1997 to Jul 2004. Therefore, the intelligence reports used by Congress before the Sept 11 atrocities occurred, as well as the ones which were used to plan the military events in Iraq and Afghanistan were approved by Mr. Tenent, a Democrat and a Clinton appointee.}

Iraq's Weapons of Mass Destruction:

Remarks from former Clinton Appointee George Tenent

Remarks as prepared for delivery by Director of Central Intelligence George J. Tenet at Georgetown University
5 February, 2004 Full Transcript From CIA.GOV web site here Part is shown below

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 way from a nuclear weapon - this was no theoretical program. It turned out that we and the 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 WMD 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 at 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 engagement UN 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 UN 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 agents 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.


{Also, skeptics should have the courage to address the issue of "550 metric tonnes" of Yellow Cake Uranium the the US Depts of Energy and Defense airlifted to Ontario in late 2008. They should also be more indignant about the 1.4 million people listed as Saddam Hussein's lifetime death count.}