http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/01/politics/01weapons.html?th&emc=th
Spy's Notes on Iraqi Aims Were Shelved, Suit Says
By JAMES RISEN
Published: August 1, 2005
WASHINGTON, July 31 - The Central Intelligence Agency was told by an
informant in the spring of 2001 that Iraq had abandoned a major
element of its nuclear weapons program, but the agency did not share
the information with other agencies or with senior policy makers, a
former C.I.A. officer has charged.
In a lawsuit filed in federal court here in December, the former
C.I.A. officer, whose name remains secret, said that the informant
told him that Iraq's uranium enrichment program had ended years
earlier and that centrifuge components from the scuttled program
were available for examination and even purchase.
The officer, an employee at the agency for more than 20 years,
including several years in a clandestine unit assigned to gather
intelligence related to illicit weapons, was fired in 2004.
In his lawsuit, he says his dismissal was punishment for his reports
questioning the agency's assumptions on a series of weapons-related
matters. Among other things, he charged that he had been the target
of retaliation for his refusal to go along with the agency's
intelligence conclusions.
Michelle Neff, a C.I.A. spokeswoman, said the agency would not
comment on the lawsuit.
It was not possible to verify independently the former officer's
allegations concerning his reporting on illicit weapons.
His information on the Iraqi nuclear program, described as coming
from a significant source, would have arrived at a time when the
C.I.A. was starting to reconsider whether Iraq had revived its
efforts to develop nuclear weapons. The agency's conclusion that
this was happening, eventually made public by the Bush
administration in 2002 as part of its rationale for war, has since
been found to be incorrect.
While the existence of the lawsuit has previously been reported,
details of the case have not been made public because the documents
in his suit have been heavily censored by the government and the
substance of the claims are classified. The officer's name remains
secret, in part because disclosing it might jeopardize the agency's
sources or operations.
Several people with detailed knowledge of the case provided
information to The New York Times about his allegations, but
insisted on anonymity because the matter is classified.
The former officer's lawyer, Roy W. Krieger, said he could not
discuss his client's claims. He likened his client's situation to
that of Valerie Wilson, also known as Valerie Plame, the clandestine
C.I.A. officer whose role was leaked to the press after her husband
publicly challenged some administration conclusions about Iraq's
nuclear ambitions. (The former officer and Ms. Wilson worked in the
same unit of the agency.)
"In both cases, officials brought unwelcome information on W.M.D. in
the period prior to the Iraq invasion, and retribution followed,"
said Mr. Krieger, referring to weapons of mass destruction.
In court documents, the former officer says that he learned in 2003
that he was the subject of a counterintelligence investigation and
accused of having sex with a female contact, a charge he denies.
Eight months after learning of the investigation, he said in the
court documents, the agency's inspector general's office informed
him that he was under investigation for diverting to his own use
money earmarked for payments to informants. He denies that, too.
The former officer's claims concerning his reporting on the Iraqi
nuclear weapons program were not addressed in a report issued in
March by the presidential commission that examined intelligence
regarding such weapons in Iraq. He did not testify before the
commission, Mr. Krieger said.
A former senior staff member of the commission said the panel was
not aware of the officer's allegations. The claims were also not
included in the 2004 report by the Senate Select Committee on
Intelligence on prewar intelligence. He and his lawyer met with
staff members of that Senate committee in a closed-door session last
December, months after the report was issued.
In his lawsuit, the former officer said that in the spring of 2001,
he met with a valuable informant who had examined and purchased
parts of Iraqi centrifuges. Centrifuges are used to turn uranium
into fuel for nuclear weapons. The informant reported that the Iraqi
government had long since canceled its uranium enrichment program
and that the C.I.A. could buy centrifuge components if it wanted to.
The officer filed his reports with the Counter Proliferation
Division in the agency's clandestine espionage arm. The reports were
never disseminated to other American intelligence agencies or to
policy makers, as is typically done, he charged.
According to his suit, he was told that the agency already had
detailed information about continuing Iraqi nuclear weapons efforts,
and that his informant should focus on other countries.
He said his reports about Iraq came just as the agency was
fundamentally shifting its view of Iraq's nuclear ambitions.
Throughout much of the 1990's, the C.I.A. and other United States
intelligence agencies believed that Iraq had largely abandoned its
nuclear weapons program. In December 2000, the intelligence agencies
issued a classified assessment stating that Iraq did not appear to
have taken significant steps toward the reconstitution of the
program, according to the presidential commission report concerning
illicit weapons.
But that assessment changed in early 2001 - a critical period in the
intelligence community's handling of the Iraqi nuclear issue, the
commission concluded. In March 2001, intelligence indicating that
Iraq was seeking high-strength aluminum tubes from China greatly
influenced the agency's thinking. Analysts soon came to believe that
the only possible explanation for Iraq's purchase of the tubes was
to develop high-tech centrifuges for a new uranium enrichment
program.
By the following year, the agency's view had hardened, despite
differing interpretations of the tubes' purposes by other
intelligence experts. In October 2002, the National Intelligence
Estimate, produced by the intelligence community under pressure from
Congress, stated that most of the nation's intelligence agencies
believed that Iraq was reconstituting its nuclear program, based in
large part on the aluminum tubes.
The commission concluded that intelligence failures on the Iraqi
nuclear issue were as serious and damaging as any other during the
prelude to the Iraqi war. The nation's intelligence community was
wrong "on what many would view as the single most important judgment
it made" before the Iraq invasion in March 2003, the commission
report said.
Mr. Krieger said he had asked the court handling the case to
declassify his client's suit, but the C.I.A. had moved to classify
most of his motion seeking declassification. He added that he
recently sent a letter to the director of the F.B.I. requesting an
investigation of his client's complaints, but that the C.I.A. had
classified that letter, as well.
Most of the details of the case, he said, "were classified by the
C.I.A., not to protect national security but to conceal politically
embarrassing facts from public scrutiny."
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