The Bush administration made a series of claims prior to the Iraq War, each intended to support the idea that Saddam Hussein was a grave and imminent threat. None of these claims were true.
The epilogue of the film, LEADING TO WAR, presents refutations to eight of these claims.
Here, each of these claims is examined in detail, using government and press reports, to show how the Bush administration presented intelligence to support these claims, despite the fact that behind closed doors Bush officials knew this intelligence to be disputed or even false.
• No weapons of mass destruction of any kind were found in Iraq.
Pre-War Claims:Senior members of the Bush administration made repeated claims that Iraq possessed chemical, biological and nuclear weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) and WMD programs, and was a grave and imminent threat to the security of the United States and the world.
Facts:
Following the invasion of Iraq in March 2003, many months of exhaustive investigations found no stockpiles of chemical, biological or nuclear weapons. No evidence of active WMD programs was found.
Iraq’s nuclear program ended in 1991 following the first Gulf War, and was never reconstituted. Iraq destroyed its chemical weapons stockpile in 1991. Its biological weapons were destroyed in 1991 and 1992. Through 1998, U.N. weapons inspectors repeatedly checked suspected facilities, and had installed cameras to monitor activity at these sites.
Overview:Although Iraq’s alleged possession of WMD programs was used as a justification for preemptive war, Iraq, in fact, did not possess any WMDs or active WMD programs.
Despite many reports from U.S. and foreign intelligence agencies, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), and other groups, questioning whether Iraq had WMD stockpiles or active development programs, the Bush administration continued to assert, without qualification, that Iraq definitely possessed WMDs.
• No mobile biological weapons labs were found in Iraq.Pre-War Claims:
Senior members of the Bush administration claimed that Iraq possessed truck-mounted and train-mounted mobile biological weapons laboratories.
Facts:
There is no evidence of the existence of mobile bioweapons laboratories.
The chief source for the Bush administration’s claim was an Iraqi defector, codenamed “Curveball.” Prior to the invasion of Iraq, British intelligence, German intelligence, and analysts from the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency and the CIA determined that Curveball was a fabricator, and was therefore completely unreliable as an intelligence source. Three other Iraqi defectors who corroborated Curveball’s claims were also found to be fabricators.
By May 2002, the Defense Intelligence Agency issued an official “fabrication notice” instructing other intelligence agencies to disregard the defector's information as unreliable.
Overview:
Although Curveball and a former Iraqi intelligence service defector, who corroborated Curveball’s story, were both determined to be fabricators by multiple intelligence agencies before the war – and despite the fact that the Bush administration was briefed on this – Bush, Powell and other senior officials persisted in citing Curveball’s fictitious claims about the existence of mobile bioweapons labs as solid facts.
Two trailers were found in Iraq in late April 2003, five weeks after the war began, which the Bush administration contended were mobile bioweapons labs – proof of Iraq’s possession of WMD. They held onto this position for eight months, despite the May 2003 conclusion of British, U.S. and U.N. bioweapons inspectors that these trucks were used to generate hydrogen for weather balloons.
• Iraq did not seek to acquire yellowcake uranium from Africa.
Pre-War Claims:
President Bush asserted in his 2003 State of the Union address that Iraq sought to purchase yellowcake uranium – fissile material that is a key ingredient in producing a nuclear weapon – from Africa. This claim relied on documents provided to the U.S. embassy in Italy, allegedly documenting Niger’s intentions to sell up to 500 tons of yellowcake uranium to Saddam Hussein.
Facts:
The Bush claim was false, as the Italy/Niger documents were proven to be forgeries even before the war began. The documents were filled with glaring errors: one letter, dated October 10, 2000, bore the signature of a Foreign Affairs Minister who had been out of office since 1989; another document contained the forged signature of Niger President Tandja Mamadou – a forgery so poor that it was clearly not that of Mamadou.
In addition, yellowcake uranium comes from two mines in Niger, both controlled by a French mining consortium that tightly controls the uranium from the time it is mined to the time it is loaded onto ships for transport overseas. As stated in the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence’s report on page 43, “It would be difficult, if not impossible, to arrange a special shipment of uranium to a pariah state, given these controls.”
There has been no evidence to show that Iraq sought uranium from abroad after 1991 or renewed indigenous production of uranium since the end of the first Gulf War.
Overview:
Despite repeated briefings from top CIA and other U.S. intelligence officials warning that the Italy/Niger documents were obvious forgeries, President Bush and his team chose to cite this faulty intelligence in his 2003 State of the Union address and elsewhere.
• The aluminum tubes were not suitable for nuclear weapons development.
Senior members of the Bush administration claimed that Iraq had made repeated attempts to acquire high-strength aluminum tubes for the purpose of enriching uranium to use in nuclear weapons, stating that the tubes “are only really suited for nuclear weapons programs.”
Facts:
These tubes constituted the only piece of physical, pre-war evidence presented by the administration concerning Iraq’s alleged nuclear weapons programs. Prior to making these claims public, the administration ignored strong dissent in 2001 and 2002 from U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) experts as well as from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), both of whom had vigorously contested these claims. Among several arguments, these experts contended that the tubes were the wrong size – too long, too narrow, too heavy – to be efficiently used as rotors in nuclear centrifuges to enrich uranium. They asserted that the more likely use for the tubes was in a conventional artillery rocket program, as Iraq had been using tubes of this exact size in rocket production in the 1980’s and 1990’s.
After the fall of Baghdad, extensive investigations found no sites of centrifuge program activity. Iraq’s nuclear program had been dormant for more than a decade, and the aluminum tubes had indeed been intended only for conventional rocket production.
Overview:
Despite the conclusions of the DOE – which possessed the most knowledge and experience about nuclear centrifuges of any U.S. intelligence agency – that the aluminum tubes were intended for use in conventional rocket launcher production and could not be used successfully for nuclear applications, the Bush administration chose to publicly promote the assessment that the tubes were intended for use solely in uranium enrichment.
• Mohamed Atta, the lead 9/11 hijacker, did not meet with Iraqi intelligence in Prague.
Senior members of the Bush administration alleged that there was a meeting in a cafe in Prague between September 11th hijacker Mohamed Atta and an Iraqi intelligence agent, Ahmed Khalil Ibrahim Samir al-Ani, in early April 2001 – five months prior to 9/11.
Facts:
Czech intelligence agents, who had initially presented this story to U.S. officials, had only one source for this alleged meeting: an Arab student who saw Atta’s newpaper photo after the September 11th attacks, and claimed that he had seen Atta months earlier in a cafe in Prague.
As early as September 2001, there were doubts within the CIA and FBI that this meeting occurred and that the source was reliable. Despite these doubts, the Bush administration repeatedly cited this alleged meeting in interviews.
By October 2002 – five months before the war began – the CIA, FBI and Czech government had all concluded that there was no evidence to support this claim. Furthermore, the FBI produced records indicating that Atta was in Virginia Beach, Virginia and Coral Springs, Florida at the time of the alleged meeting in Prague in early April.
Overview:
Despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary from the CIA and FBI, Bush administration officials continued to suggest that the Prague meeting between Mohamed Atta and an Iraqi intelligence agent had occurred.
• Iraq did not provide chemical weapons training to al-Qaeda.Pre-War Claims:
Bush officials repeatedly asserted that Iraq had provided chemical weapons training to al-Qaeda, citing “high-ranking detainees” as sources.
Facts:
There is no evidence to support this claim. The primary source for this claim was Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi, an al-Qaeda operative who ran a paramilitary camp in Afghanistan. Al-Libi was captured in Pakistan on November 11, 2001 by U.S. forces, and, under duress, told interrogators that Iraq had provided chemical weapons training to al-Qaeda. Yet as early as February 2002, the Defense Intelligence Agency and CIA issued classified reports to senior members of the Bush administration questioning the reliability of al-Libi’s reporting.
Other sources for this claim were never considered credible by the intelligence community.
After U.S. interrogators presented al-Libi with new evidence from other detainees that cast doubt on his claims, al-Libi recanted his story in January 2004.
Overview:
Despite intelligence community briefings contesting the credibility of this claim, in the months leading up to war senior Bush officials repeatedly cited this unconfirmed account as fact. Not once did Bush officials mention that there were doubts within the intelligence community about this veracity of this claim.
• There was no collaborative relationship between Iraq and al-Qaeda.
Pre-War Claims:
Bush officials suggested a collaborative relationship between Iraq and al-Qaeda, citing as evidence contacts dating back over a decade.
They specifically claimed that Iraq had provided chemical weapons training to al-Qaeda, could supply the terrorist group with weapons of mass destruction, and could join forces with them to attack America.
Facts:
There was no evidence of a collaborative relationship between Iraq and al-Qaeda. Although some meetings were held between Iraqi intelligence and al-Qaeda – these never led to any ongoing relationships. Mutual distrust and animosity between Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden made forging such a relationship highly improbable.
Overview:
Although prior to and after 9/11 the U.S. intelligence community had no evidence to substantiate any collaborative relationship between Iraq and al-Qaeda, Bush officials continued to suggest as early as September 2002 and as late as June 2004 that such a relationship existed.
• The implication that Iraq was involved in the attacks of 9/11 was untrue.
Although the Bush administration made no outright claim that Iraq was connected to the attacks of September 11, through suggestion, innuendo, careful use of language, and the repeated use of “Iraq” and “9/11” in the same sentence, it left a substantial portion of the public with that false impression – and subsequently initiated no efforts to correct it.
Among these false linkages was the administration’s specific claim that an Iraqi intelligence officer met with 9/11 lead hijacker Mohamed Atta in Prague five months before the attacks.
Furthermore, the global war on terror was initiated by the U.S. in response to the 9/11 attacks, and by declaring Iraq as a central part of the war on terror, the administration encouraged the idea that there was a connection between Iraq and 9/11.
Facts:
Iraq had no involvement in, or connection to, the attacks of 9/11. None of the hijackers were Iraqi – fifteen were Saudi and the rest were Egyptian, Emirati and Lebanese. Within days, the intelligence community reported that there was no evidence linking the Iraqi regime to the attacks.
Furthermore, 9/11 hijacker Mohamed Atta did not meet with an Iraqi intelligence officer in Prague.
[link to section: Mohammed Atta Did Not Meet with Iraqis]
Overview:
The Bush administration and the U.S. intelligence community knew immediately after 9/11 that Iraq had nothing to do with the 9/11 attacks and that al-Qaeda was solely responsible. Yet for months before the Iraq war, and even after the war began, the administration repeatedly implied that there was a connection between Iraq and the attacks of 9/11, leaving a majority of the U.S. public with that mistaken belief.
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