'It's All Just Show Business: A Former CIA Analyst Reviews Powell's Speech
by Edward Spannaus
One of the United States' most experienced intelligence professionals on the subject of Iraq, says that he did not find Secretary of State Colin Powell's presentation to the United Nations Security Council to be persuasive, and he also told EIR that there is much dissatisfaction in both the U.S. and British intelligence communities, over the politicization of intelligence by the Bush Administration and the Blair government in Britain.
Dr. Stephen C. Pelletiere, the CIA's senior political analyst on Iraq during the Iran-Iraq war, and a professor at the U.S. Army War College from 1988 to 2000, was the co-author of 1990 War College study, Lessons Learned: The Iran-Iraq War, which refuted the claim that Iraq had gassed 5,000 Iraqi Kurds at Halabja in 1998, using a biological nerve agent. The study also found that the Iraqi Army had used chemical weapons as integrated battlefield tactical weapons, but not as indiscriminate weapons of mass destruction.
'Falling Apart...'
In an interview with EIR on Feb. 7just as the revelations began coming out about the plagiarized material in Prime Minister Blair's dossierPelletiere was asked about his assessment of Powell's presentation.
"The al-Qaeda connection is the one that's falling apart most spectacularly," Pelletiere said. He pointed to two articles in the Feb. 6 New York Times, one an interview with the head of the al-Ansar group, who's living in exile in Norway, who said he had no awareness of any connection to al-Qaeda, and who said that he had no knowledge of Zarqawi, the so-called high-ranking al-Qaeda operative whom he's supposed to be sheltering.
"All of that raises a question," Pelletiere said, adding that "the Kurds, who are ringing the al-Ansar enclave, and who are assumed to be fairly knowledgeable about what goes on in that part of the world, claim that the town that Powell singled out as an Aswar enclave, actually is in the possession of a rival group, the Komola.
"I know the Komola, because I worked on them when I was at the Agency in the 1980s, so that's a bona fide group," Pelletiere added.
"The Ansar is a new group, but it may be an old group with a new name. because there has always been a small group of Kurds in the north who oppose the secularist Kurds of the two warlordsTalabani and Barzani. This little group was Islamist," Pelletiere stated. "So it would appear Powell's just got his information wrong."
Pelletiere also drew attention to the fact that "the poison lab in that al-Qaeda enclave apparently doesn't exist. The Kurds say there is no lab...."
'No Real Intelligence Investigation'
When EIR alerted Pelletiere to the statements by German officialsthat they have conducted an extensive investigation of Zarqawi, and that they have no information supporting Powell's that he works closely with Saddam HusseinPelletiere called that "disturbing," saying that "it makes you wonder if the Administration is just going through the motions."
"They've determined that they're going to invade Iraq, and they're aware that they need a cover from the UN," Pelletiere said, "but they're really not going out of their way, to make a very good case, if it can be shot down that easily.
"When you take that, on top of the Blair dossier, you get the impression that this is all just show business. There isn't any real intelligence investigation going on here."
The 'Nerve Gas' Intercepts
When asked about the intercepts of alleged conversations cited by Secretary of State Powell, Pelletiere's response was that the statement cited by Powell"Don't mention 'nerve gas' in any of your dispatches"could have just been a routine dissemination of advice from the Iraqi government, based on knowledge of how the U.S. gathers "sigint" (signals intelligence). "We routinely take thousands of hours and hours of conversations, and then the computer trolls through and picks out certain phrases," Pelletiere explained. "So if they don't want their conversations taped, they would make sense to advise their subordinates to stop using certain key words, because that's going to trigger the sigint.
"The guy isn't actually saying that 'We've got this stuff.' He's just saying: 'Don't use that phrase.'"
Iraq's Use of Chemical Weapons
When EIR asked Pelletiere about his assessment of Powell's warnings about Iraq's biological and chemical weapons, Pelletiere hastened to explain that he has little knowledge about biological weapons, but as to Iraq's use of chemical weapons, he referred back to his 1990 study.
"It was always my understandingand I was reinforced in that when I was at the Army War Collegethat chemicals are not a weapon of mass destruction," the former analyst said. "You can't correct the volatility, so that you can assure a mass kill. And as a consequence, chemicals certainly have their uses as tactical weapons, but they're not weapons of mass destruction.
"There may be others who would challenge me on that assumption," he noted, "but all the time I was at the Army War College, I proceeded on that assumption, and I can't think of any time that anyone ever challenged me."
Politicization of Intelligence
Citing his experience in the CIA in the 1980s under then-director William Casey, Pelletiere said that he is concerned that this kind of "politicization" is resurfacing.
"And of course the Agency was badly shaken by that, back in the '80s, and there was a reaction away from it, and I understand that there are a number of Agency analysts who are speaking out, and are very unhappy with what they see.
"I've seen a lot of this at Langley, and I've seen a lot of this in Britain," Pelletiere noted. "British Intelligence leaked the material on Blair, in which they showed that they didn't have any proof of links with al-Qaeda, and then Jack Straw came out and said, 'Blair doesn't give a damn.'
"Obviously," Pelletiere concluded, "there's a lot of dissent in the intelligence community."
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