By Congressman Adam Schiff

Published in the Pasadena Star News
11/8/03

Arms inspector Dr. David Kay recently testified before Congress on the progress of his search for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Although his team of inspectors did uncover evidence that Iraq had violated the terms of several United Nations resolutions, they have not found large stockpiles of chemical or biological weapons.

Evidence of Iraq's ongoing nuclear program has been even more limited, or as Kay characterized it, "very rudimentary.'
After visiting Iraq several weeks ago, it was plain to me that the dangerous conditions in the country are not optimal for such an investigation.

Not only do the security concerns for Kay and his team pose great logistical difficulties, but Iraqi scientists risk deadly retaliation from Saddam loyalists should their cooperation with the coalition become known.

Moreover, failure to prevent looting at some of the most promising sites of potential weapons development has further impeded Kay's progress.

And yet, this is not the complete answer. Although some dramatic discovery of a weapons stockpile is still possible, its likelihood decreases every day. Rather, the picture which seems to be emerging after months of intensive searching is that of a weapons of mass destruction program that was stalled during the period of United Nations scrutiny and capable of resurrection when Saddam was confident the heat was off for good.

This is a very different portrait than was painted by our intelligence agencies just a short time ago when the Congress authorized and the president initiated the use of force to disarm Saddam Hussein.

When I met with CIA director George Tenet and National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice last fall to discuss Iraq's weapons program, I questioned them about Iraq's nuclear program.

Ever since I was elected to Congress, I have worked to strengthen our nonproliferation efforts under Nunn-Lugar, a program to secure and destroy nuclear material from the former Soviet Union, and to guard against other means by which terrorists could acquire the ultimate weapon.

Although every step must be taken to protect against a chemical or biological attack in America, our nation would survive the use of those weapons as we did when anthrax was mailed to our Capitol and other targets.

But a nuclear incident of some kind, on our own soil or against our troops in the field, would fundamentally change America. In addition to the truly massive loss of life, the repercussions to our way of life would be extraordinary and terrible. This is a contingency against which all efforts must be made.

Tenet and Rice had great confidence in the intelligence on Iraq's ongoing nuclear program. That confidence was misplaced.
It is now conventional wisdom that Americans do not care why we went to war in Iraq, that it is enough that the world is better off without Saddam Hussein.

I believe that Americans do care about the circumstances that led to war, and for good reason. Unquestionably, the world is better off without Saddam. But it is equally incontrovertible that if our intelligence gathering process is seriously flawed, we had better find out and find out fast if we are to avoid another Sept. 11.

It is not simply looking backward at why we went to war, but looking forward at the future security needs of our country that compel us to find out why our Iraq intelligence appears to have so greatly missed the mark.

For this reason, I am co-sponsoring legislation to establish an independent commission to investigate the intelligence on Iraq. This commission should be nonpartisan, well respected and independent of the Bush administration. Its conclusions must enjoy the respect of the American people.

The House and Senate intelligence committees have already been inquiring into this issue, but their focus is merely on how the intelligence was gathered or analyzed, not how it was represented or used. The CIA may have done a great job or a poor one, but we cannot ignore the reality that its work product was only one part of the process.

The administration has acknowledged that the "uranium from Niger' claim in the State of the Union was based on faulty or fraudulent information; senior administration officials may have revealed a CIA agent's identity to discredit a critic of this very claim; and new evidence has surfaced that intelligence may have been collected from outside the CIA to bolster the case on Iraq.

These issues all demand a thorough and expansive investigation: How was the intelligence gathered? Was the analysis rigorous enough? Were reservations about the intelligence given proper weight? Was the intelligence accurately represented to Congress and the American people?

After six months of searching, we have found terrible mass graves that abundantly prove the depravity of Saddam's regime. But we have not yet found what we were looking for, and our future security may rest on whether we have the will to find out why.