Letter: U.S. was indeed misled on threat

Friday, April 15, 2005 | 9:09 a.m.

In F. Jay Harrell's April 11 letter, he wrote that he hopes he won't have to repeat "that at the time (in the weeks leading up to the Iraq war), every intelligence service in every responsible country in the world, including France, believed incorrectly that Iraq still possessed weapons of mass destruction." And that Bush didn't mislead the country.

Harrell should consider:

The February 2001 report from the CIA, delivered to the White House, that said: "We do not have any direct evidence that Iraq has used the period since Desert Fox to reconstitute its weapons of mass destruction programs."

An intelligence review by the CIA concluded that evidence did not "add up to a compelling case that Iraq is currently pursuing what (we) consider to be an integrated and comprehensive approach to acquiring nuclear weapons."

CIA information, however, was stopped when the White House set up its own special team called the Office of Special Plans.

Also, a Senate report concluded that the White House "misrepresented" classified intelligence by eliminating references to contradictory assertions.

The U.N.'s International Atomic Energy Agency stated there was no indication Iraq ever achieved nuclear capability or had any physical capacity for producing weapons-grade nuclear material in the near future.

It has been documented by multiple sources that the Bush administration knew there were reasons to doubt Iraq's possession of WMDs.

JERRY STURDIVANT

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