Flashback: Senate told Saddam had WMDs and a fleet of UAVs capable of hitting the East Coast

Senator Ben Nelson

I, along with nearly every Senator in this Chamber, in that secure room of this Capitol complex, was not only told there were weapons of mass destruction—specifically chemical and biological—but I was looked at straight in the face and told that Saddam Hussein had the means of delivering those biological and chemical weapons of mass destruction by unmanned drones, called UAVs, unmanned aerial vehicles. Further, I was looked at straight in the face and told that UAVs could be launched from ships off the Atlantic coast to attack eastern seaboard cities of the United States.

Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, I express my appreciation to
the Senator from North Dakota for the case that he has made, which has
been very disturbing to us as two Senators, because the information we
have received over the last several days causes us not only to scratch
our heads but to shake our heads—that the intelligence we received in
the secure rooms of this Capitol complex was either so faulty that we
are in a considerable degree of vulnerability, that we are not getting
accurate information upon which to defend this country, or that the
information that was presented to us was faulty not because of the
sources of that information and the analysis but there was some
suggestion of coloring that information to reach a certain conclusion.

I think this is far beyond Republicans and Democrats. This is about
defense of the homeland. This is about America. Just because this has
come up in January of an election year, with Dr. Kay coming forth and
telling us today in the Armed Services Committee that he concluded this
last November, then it is sure time for us to get some answers for the
protection of this country and its people.

I want to take this occasion to inform the Senate of specific
information that I was given, which turns out not to be true. I was one
of 77 Senators who voted for the resolution in October of 2002 to
authorize the expenditure of funds for the President to engage in an
attack on Iraq. I voted for it. I want to tell you some specific
information that I received that had a great deal of bearing on my
conclusion to vote for that resolution. There were other factors, but
this information was very convincing to me that there was an imminent
peril to the interests of the United States.

I, along with nearly every Senator in this Chamber, in that secure
room of this Capitol complex, was not only told there were weapons of
mass destruction—specifically chemical and biological—but I was
looked at straight in the face and told that Saddam Hussein had the
means of delivering those biological and chemical weapons of mass
destruction by unmanned drones, called UAVs, unmanned aerial vehicles.
Further, I was looked at straight in the face and told that UAVs could
be launched from ships off the Atlantic coast to attack eastern
seaboard cities of the United States.

Is it any wonder that I concluded there was an imminent peril to the
United States? The first public disclosure of that information occurred
perhaps a couple of weeks later, when the information was told to us.
It was prior to the vote on the resolution and it was in a highly
classified setting in a secure room. But the first public disclosure of
that information was when the President addressed the Nation on TV. He
said that Saddam Hussein possessed UAVs.

Later, the Secretary of State, Colin Powell, in his presentation to
the United Nations, in a very dramatic and effective presentation,
expanded that and suggested the possibility that UAVs could be launched
against the homeland, having been transported out of Iraq. The
information was made public, but it was made public after we had
already voted on the resolution, and at the time there was nothing to
contradict that.

We now know, after the fact and on the basis of Dr. Kay’s testimony
today in the Senate Armed Services Committee, that the information was
false; and not only that there were not weapons of mass destruction—
chemical and biological—but there was no fleet of UAVs, unmanned
aerial vehicles, nor was there any capability of putting UAVs on ships
and transporting them to the Atlantic coast and launching them at U.S.
cities on the eastern seaboard.

I am upset that the degree of specificity I was given a year and a
half ago, prior to my vote, was not only inaccurate; it was patently
false. I want some further explanations.

Now, what I have found after the fact—and I presented this to Dr.
Kay this morning in the Senate Armed Services Committee—is there was a
vigorous dispute within the intelligence community as to what the CIA
had concluded was accurate about those UAVs and about their ability to
be used elsewhere outside of Iraq. Not only was it in vigorous dispute,
there was an outright denial that the information was accurate. That
was all within the intelligence community.

But I didn’t find that out before my vote. I wasn’t told that. I
wasn’t told that there was a vigorous debate going on as to whether or
not that was accurate information. I was given that information as if
it were fact, and any reasonable person then would logically conclude
that the interests of the United States and its people were in
immediate jeopardy and peril. That has turned out not to be true.

We need some answers, and I saw the ranking member of the Armed
Services Committee ask the chairman for a further investigation into
this matter. I heard the chairman say: I will take it under
consideration.

I hope that is a positive sign and not a negative sign. We need to
get to the bottom of this for the protection of our country. It is too
bad this is coming up in the year 2004, which happens to coincide with
the Presidential election, because people are going to immediately say
this is partisan politics.

The fact is, this is the politics of the protection of our country,
and we need some answers. I don’t want to be voting on war resolutions
in the future based on information that is patently false when
everybody is telling me, looking me eyeball to eyeball, that it is
true.

I am hoping, as the Senator from North Dakota has suggested, that we
have a convening of the appropriate intelligence officials in the
secure room and that members of the intelligence community, as well as
members of the administration, will come and explain, in addition to
what Dr. Kay has explained on the public record—which is revealing
enough in itself—what, in fact, happened and how we are going to
correct the process and the analysis of information so that we never
have this kind of miscalculation and misinformation again.

Either the intelligence community’s self-examination, its analysis
was hugely faulty, or there were the hints at taking information and
coloring it, called stacking the news and coming out with a conclusion
that was wanted. I think we have to find out what happened.

It is not a question of whether or not Saddam Hussein ought to be
gone. Thank goodness he is gone. That probably had a very salutary
effect on the United States in that part of the world, that the United
States will back up its intentions with force. But when the United
States makes decisions about a preemptive war, a war now that has
claimed the lives of over 500 American men and women, then we have to
have a much higher standard of accuracy of the information upon which
we make the judgments to send America’s finest on to the battlefield.

I can tell you about all the soldiers from Florida who are now laid
to rest. There are plenty of reasons I am raising these questions, but
if for no other reason than to raise the questions for the mamas and
the daddies and the spouses and the children of those soldiers. That is
plenty justification enough. But the justification is much greater, and
that is the justification of making sure we can protect ourselves in
the future.

In a war against terrorists, our defense is only going to be as good
as the information we receive to stop the terrorists. We had a colossal
failure of intelligence on September 11, 2 years ago. We can’t afford
that kind of failure again. Yet we have just found out that when we
were given the reasons for going to war, that was faulty intelligence.
America can’t afford too many more of these, for the protection of
ourselves and our loved ones.

This is something of considerable concern to me personally. I know it
is of considerable concern to the rest of the Senate. I hope the
majority leader of this Senate, Senator Frist, is going to listen to
those of us in this Chamber who say that this request has nothing to do
with politics. Let’s get to the bottom of what is the truth and how we
make sure that information in the future is true.

http://www.fas.org/irp/congress/2004_cr/s012804b.html