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CIA: Assessment of Syria's WMD exaggerated
(Warren P. Strobel and Jonathan S. Landay, Knight Ridder Newspapers, July 15, 2003)
In a new dispute over interpreting intelligence data, the CIA and other agencies objected vigorously to a Bush administration assessment of the threat of Syria's weapons of mass destruction that was to be presented Tuesday on Capitol Hill. . . . After the objections, the planned testimony by Undersecretary of State John R. Bolton, a leading administration hawk, was delayed until September. . . . Syria has come under increasing U.S. pressure during and after the Iraq war for allegedly giving refuge to members of Saddam Hussein's regime, allowing foreign fighters to cross into Iraq to attack U.S. troops and for backing Palestinian militant groups that were conducting terrorist strikes on Israel. After Saddam's government fell, some Bush aides hinted that the government of Syrian President Bashar Assad in Damascus might be the next U.S. target. . . . The objections by the intelligence community come as the Bush administration is defending itself over complaints that it embellished intelligence secrets to justify the war against Iraq. . . . Bolton's planned remarks caused a "revolt" among intelligence experts who thought they inflated the progress Syria has made in its weapons programs, said a U.S. official who isn't from the CIA, but was involved in the dispute. . . . The CIA's objections and comments alone ran to 35 to 40 pages, the official said. . . . The conflict appears to illustrate how battles over prewar intelligence on Iraq have spread to other issues and have heightened sensitivity among Bush aides about public descriptions of threats to the United States. . . . Bolton set off a controversy in May 2002 when he asserted in a speech that Cuba has a biological warfare program. A State Department intelligence expert, Christian Westermann, recently told a closed-door Senate Intelligence Committee hearing that available intelligence data don't support that assertion, U.S. officials have said. . . . In speeches and congressional testimony over the past year, Bolton has identified Syria among a handful of countries whose alleged pursuit of biological and chemical weapons makes them threats to international stability.

posted by Lorenzo 6:41 PM