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INTERVIEW: PORTER GOSS ON WHETHER US INTELLIGENCE AGENCIES OVERSTATED DANGERS FROM AL-QAEDA AND SADDAM HUSSEIN'S IRAQ
All Things Considered: October 5, 2003
Goss Casts Doubt on Iraq Data
STEVE INSKEEP, host:
But, first, a key lawmaker says the US intelligence agencies might have overstated the danger posed by al-Qaeda and also overstated the danger posed by Saddam Hussein's Iraq. Republican Congressman Porter Goss of Florida is the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee.
Representative PORTER GOSS (Republican, Florida; Chairman, House Intelligence Committee): I think that our intelligence community--in fact, our nation; in fact, the world--has underestimated the venality of the terrorist operatives, and that would include Saddam because he clearly was in that camp. And I think that we have overestimated their capabilities.
INSKEEP: Porter Goss spoke in an interview with NPR. His committee oversees the CIA and other agencies as they hunt for Osama bin Laden and for Iraq's weapons of mass destruction. It has been a week since the publication of a letter that Goss wrote with his Democratic counterpart. That letter asked if the CIA used outdated information to evaluate the Iraqi threat, and it fueled questions about whether the agency distorted intelligence to support the Bush administration's drive toward war.
In his first extended comments about that letter, the Republican tried to explain. He says he does not think the agency deliberately misled anyone, but he says its information was not good enough.
Rep. GOSS: What the letter actually said was that the staff had looked into numerous allegations that had been made primarily by opponents of the Bush administration. What we had reported was that we had reviewed those allegations and come to no conclusion.
INSKEEP: Well, let's walk through this a little bit. It does sound like you, the people who are responsible for overseeing the intelligence community, looked at the information that intelligence agencies were able to provide about Iraq in the years before the war against Iraq, and you found that you weren't very satisfied with that product.
Rep. GOSS: Well, it wasn't just the years before the war with Iraq. Actually, we sort of took a look at the whole case. It's a continuum, and it goes back into the late '80s. The basis of much of what we have from Iraq comes from earlier times, and part of the issue was: Was that information sufficiently reviewed and challenged that came from earlier times? In other words, were we just reading our own assessments of years ago and falling into the trap, `That must be true, and therefore this is what we should...'
INSKEEP: Just assuming it must still be true.
Rep. GOSS: Yeah. And that was the question we raised in the letter, and we raised it pretty much as an observation and said, you know, `We hope you've challenged it.' And the agencies have come back with a very loud and clear response saying, `Of course we have challenged those. You can be satisfied on that point that we have done our analysis properly.' In fact, I had a conversation with the director himself about that, and he has persuaded me that his analysts have, indeed, done an excellent job.
INSKEEP: Well, you raise an interesting point about the use of intelligence, Congressman, because I do recall in the months before the war against Iraq that Defense Secretary Rumsfeld, in public statements, said again and again--and I'm paraphrasing somewhat here, but I believe this is the essence of what Rumsfeld was saying: `We do not have a lot of current information about what is going on in Iraq, but we know that Saddam Hussein has done terrible things in the past, and, therefore, we should assume that bad things may well be going on now.'
Rep. GOSS: Well, I think you certainly have to take into consideration the past, but I think you have to challenge whether or not there's been a continuum, and that's exactly what we did. And I think Secretary Rumsfeld probably feels the same way I feel--is that our intelligence analysts did the best with what we had, but we didn't have enough. And then the question is: Why didn't we?
INSKEEP: Why didn't you?
Rep. GOSS: That's really the $24 question right now--is: Why didn't we have more and better information? And the answer is because we didn't pursue it.
INSKEEP: Is it correct that the United States had hardly any assets on the ground, spies inside Iraq, in the years leading up to the war?
Rep. GOSS: I'm afraid that I can't answer that question right now. I'm not sure that I have clearance. I do know the answer to the question. I'm not going to be able to answer that question directly. I'm going to be able to tell you that almost everybody who is in the oversight business has come to the conclusion that we did not have enough humint at that time in that place.
INSKEEP: So in that general sense, you won't say there were none, but you'll say that there were not enough.
Rep. GOSS: In the general sense, I'm going to say that was a severe capability weakness.
INSKEEP: Isn't it reasonable to conclude by now that Iraq just did not have any major, ongoing weapons program or any major stockpile of weapons, even if they may have been thinking about it?
Rep. GOSS: I think that'd be a very dangerous conclusion. I have no way of knowing the truth of that. But it's not only just the question of actually having the weapons on hand. It's also the question of having the capability to develop them and bring them on hand quickly.
INSKEEP: Porter Goss is a Republican congressman from Florida, a former CIA agent and now the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee.
Congressman, thanks very much for taking the time.
Rep. GOSS: My pleasure.
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