| Topic: |
Politics > Politics-USA |
| User: |
"Jei" |
| Date: |
17 Dec 2003 08:20:32 PM |
| Object: |
Senator: 'We Received False Security Briefing Prior to Iraq Vote' |
http://www.truthout.org/docs_03/121803A.shtml
Senators Were Told Iraqi Weapons Could Hit U.S.
By John McCarthy
Florida Today
Monday 15 December 2003
Nelson said claim made during classified briefing
U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson said Monday the Bush administration last
year told him and other senators that Iraq not only had weapons of
mass destruction, but they had the means to deliver them to East
Coast cities.
Nelson, D-Tallahassee, said about 75 senators got that news
during a classified briefing before last October's congressional
vote authorizing the use of force to remove Saddam Hussein from
power. Nelson voted in favor of using military force.
Nelson said he couldn't reveal who in the administration gave
the briefing.
The White House directed questions about the matter to the
Department of Defense. Defense officials had no comment on Nelson's
claim.
Nelson said the senators were told Iraq had both biological
and chemical weapons, notably anthrax, and it could deliver them to
cities along the Eastern seaboard via unmanned aerial vehicles,
commonly known as drones.
"They have not found anything that resembles an UAV that has
that capability," Nelson said.
Nelson delivered the news during a half-hour conference call
with reporters Monday afternoon. The senator, who is on a
seven-nation trade mission to South America, was calling from an
airport in Santiago, Chile.
"That's news," said John Pike, director of GlobalSecurity.org,
a Washington, D.C.-area military and intelligence think tank. "I
had not heard that that was the assessment of the intelligence
community. I had not heard that the Congress had been briefed on
this."
Since the late 1990s, there have been several reports that
Iraq was converting a fleet of Czechoslovakian jet fighters into
UAVs, as well as testing smaller drones. And in a speech in
Cincinnati last October, Bush mentioned the vehicles. "We're
concerned that Iraq is exploring ways of using these UAVs for
missions targeting the United States," the president said.
Nelson, though, said the administration told senators Iraq had
gone beyond exploring and developed the means of hitting the U.S.
with weapons of mass destruction.
Nelson wouldn't say what the original source of the
intelligence was, but said it contradicted other intelligence
reports senators had received. He said he wants to find out why
there was so much disagreement about the weapons. "If that is an
intelligence failure . . . we better find that out so we don't have
an intelligence failure in the future."
Pike said any UAVs Iraq might have had would have had a range
of only several hundred kilometers, enough to hit targets in the
Middle East but not the United States. To hit targets on the East
Coast, such drones would have to be launched from a ship in
Atlantic. He said it wasn't out of the question for Iraq to have
secretly acquired a tramp steamer from which such vehicles could
have been launched.
"The notion that someone could launch a missile from a ship
off our shores has been on Rummy's mind for years," Pike said,
referring to Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld.
Sen. Bob Graham, who voted against using military force in
Iraq, didn't return phone calls concerning the briefing.
Spokespersons for Reps. Dave Weldon and Tom Feeney said neither
congressman could say if they had received similar briefings since
they don't comment on classified information.
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