Iraqi diplomat gave U.S. prewar WMD details

nbc ^ | 3/20/06 | Aram Roston, Lisa Myers

[mathprof]

Saddam's foreign minister told CIA the truth, so why didn't agency listen?

In the period before the Iraq war, the CIA and the Bush administration erroneously believed that Saddam Hussein was hiding major programs for weapons of mass destruction. Now NBC News has learned that for a short time the CIA had contact with a secret source at the highest levels within Saddam Hussein’s government, who gave them information far more accurate than what they believed. It is a spy story that has never been told before, and raises new questions about prewar intelligence.

What makes the story significant is the high rank of the source. His name, officials tell NBC News, was Naji Sabri, Iraq’s foreign minister under Saddam. Although Sabri was in Saddam's inner circle, his cosmopolitan ways also helped him fit into diplomatic circles.

In September 2002, at a meeting of the U.N.’s General Assembly, Sabri came to New York to represent Saddam. In front of the assembled diplomats, he read a letter from the Iraqi leader. "The United States administration is acting on behalf of Zionism," he said. He announced that there were no weapons of mass destruction and that the U.S. planned war in Iraq because it wanted the country’s oil.

[mathprof]

The MSM is in a counterattack because of the recently released documents.

[Dilbert56]

Everyone in the Iraq government said that. Why would this bozo be any more credible than the rest of the regime that had been proven to be liars many times over.

[7mmMag@LeftCoast]

Just because Baghdad Bob's cousin says there were no WMD, makes it so? Now we have irrefutable proof that the media is a bunch of dumba$$e$.

They are going to have to come up with something a lot less lame. How about the satellite photo's showing the WMD being shipped to Syria? That would definitely 'prove' that Iraq had no WMD's.

[Cyclopean Squid]

The press apparently doesn't understand the subtle art of international diplomacy, or otherwise doesn't believe its readers do.

[BenLurkin]

Sabri came to New York to represent Saddam. "The United States administration is acting on behalf of Zionism," he said.

Nice guy.

Note this article is rating his representations and the CIA analysis against what the writer has concluded to be true (whether it is or not).

On the other hand it makes sense: this guys job was to start the "no WMDs" cover-up process which continues to this day -- and which this gullible reporter has eagerly swallowed.

[eureka!]

Another CIA leak. I hope Goss eventually gets around to do something about these hacks. And yes, the MSM will spew it. Anything to harm W and the war effort...

[roses of sharon]

LOL, lame NBC, very lame.

Saddam and Son's defense team on the prowl yelling, "we should have trusted Saddam, he is innocent, he was contained, he was just an innocent bystander of the evil Bush regime".

Of course the left has always propped up tyrants, who are enemies of the US.

[stylin19a]

No kidding:

From the article:
"On the issue of chemical weapons, the CIA said Saddam had stockpiled as much as "500 metric tons of chemical warfare agents" and had "renewed" production of deadly agents. Sabri said Iraq had stockpiled weapons and had "poison gas" left over from the first Gulf War. Both Sabri and the agency were wrong."

The article never follows-up why they were wrong.
Nor does it ever intimate that if he was wrong once he could have been wrong elsewhere. Because when Sabri was what they considered "right" it fits their view of the facts.

[ex-snook]

Hey everyone knew they had WMD [well except the inspectors on the ground].

[mrsmith]

Arab Times Kuwait May 12
"Foreign Minister of the toppled Iraqi regime, Naji Sabri Al-Hadithi,
stole a sum of $15 million from the Foreign Ministry's treasury,
before the fall of Baghdad, smuggling it with him abroad, said the
Austrian Der Standard newspaper. In its issue today, the newspaper
quoted the Foreign Ministry's workers in Baghdad, as saying that the
sum confiscated by Al-Hadithi was transported abroad on April 7,
before the US entered Baghdad.

Al-Hadithi might currently be with his friend, the far-rightist leader
Joerg Haider, in southern Austria, said the newspaper."
Source
http://www.arabtimesonline.com/arabtimes/world/Viewdet.asp?ID=332&cat=b

[GretchenM]

Let us always remember, when reading things such as the above, who was in charge of national intelligence efforts for eight years before 2001.

[Right Wing Assault]

And I suppose they were a peaceful country and had no connections with any terrorists anywhere.

[operation clinton cleanup]

Although Sabri was in Saddam's inner circle, his cosmopolitan ways also helped him fit into diplomatic circles.

Perhaps he sipped mint tea with Joe Wilson at some point??/

[woofie]

ping

Do you know others who might think this interesting?

(CIA /WMD/ Wilson/Libby)or am I reading too much into it?

[PigRigger]

The MSM is deperate....their jig is blown....they are scrambling now.....

The next few months are going to get very interesting...

[Enchante]

"Everyone in the Iraq government said that. Why would this bozo be any more credible than the rest of the regime that had been proven to be liars many times over."

Exactly. This guy was a professional liar for Saddam's regime. You certainly try to gether all the intel you can, but no rational person (obviously not our MSM) would give this guy's words any absolute credibility, especially when he was in a situation in which he had such powerful incentives to lie to try to get Saddam's regime out of the crisis. ALSO, there is no good reason to believe that even the most senior Iraqi diplomats would have been "in the loop" on matters like WMDs. Saddam had to be very suspicious of all of them, given their contacts with the West and other Arab governments, etc. No way would a dictator like Saddam necessarily share his most sensitive secrets with his diplomatic corps.

[Enchante]

"The MSM is deperate....their jig is blown....they are scrambling now....."

Yes, there must be a steady meltdown going on in the all the editorial offices and reporters' brains of the MSM right now. Why on earth would they come out with a trivial story like this right now, trying desperately to distract attention from the content of recent document releases, unless they were desperate to maintain their fraudulent stories???

[finnman69]

from powerline

http://powerlineblog.com/archives/013497.php

It Helps to Read Past the Headline...

...of this report by NBC on the CIA's secret source within Saddam's inner circle: Foreign Minister Naji Sabri. The headline and subhead read: "Iraqi diplomat gave U.S. prewar WMD details. Saddam’s foreign minister told CIA the truth, so why didn’t agency listen?


You have to read deep into the story to learn that Sabri told the CIA that Iraq had large stockpiles of chemical weapons:

Sabri said Iraq had stockpiled weapons and had "poison gas" left over from the first Gulf War. Both Sabri and the agency were wrong.

So NBC had a legitimate scoop, and they buried it in a single sentence beneath a grotesquely misleading headline.

Obviously, if Saddam's Foreign Minister admitted that Iraq had large stockpiles of chemical weapons and leftover poison gas, that would have been seen as the final confirmation of what everyone in the intelligence community already believed. And Sabri's statement that Saddam "desperately wanted a [nuclear bomb]" but would need more than a few months to a year to build one--bizarrely presented as exculpatory by NBC--would hardly have been reassuring.

It's worth noting, too, that NBC's story is based on leaks by anonymous intelligence officials, who, consistent with their usual practice, no doubt spun the story in as anti-Bush a direction as they could. We don't know exactly what Sabri told the CIA.

By rights, this should be the last nail in the coffin of the "Bush lied!" left. But of course it won't be; the "Bush lied!" theory has been deader than a doornail for a long time, but that hasn't prevented it from being retailed by the left.

[Enchante]

"Sabri said Iraq had stockpiled weapons and had "poison gas" left over from the first Gulf War. Both Sabri and the agency were wrong."

So obviously NBC's 'scoop' is 180 degrees opposite of what they claim: the headlines should be screaming that Iraq's own Foreign Minister confirmed in late 2002 that Iraq retained large stocks of "poison gas" and that Saddam 'desperately' wanted to make nuclear weapons but was certainly more than a year away from having them.

[finnman69]

It's the equivalent of Colin Powell coming to tell you "we have WMD".