By Gerald Helguero: Subscribe to Gerald's RSS feed
February 8, 2011 10:57 AM EST
Six months ahead of the 2003 invasion of Iraq, the United States had little hard evidence and relied heavily on analytic assumptions and judgment in assessing what it knew about Iraq's Weapons of Mass Destruction Programs, according to declassified U.S. intellilgence report.
The September 5, 2002 report from the Glen Shaffer, the Director of Intelligence - which was initially classified as "secret" - at the time showed the U.S. knew about Iraq's internal expertise in building nuclear weapons, biological weapons, chemical weapons and ballistic missiles.
Click here to see full document.
The letter, which was declassified on January 6, 2011, was available on the website of former U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, who is releasing a new book titled "Known and Unknown," which includes Rumsfeld's views on his life and career.
In a memo by Rumsfeld on September 9, 2002 at 9:47 a.m., Rumsfeld informed the Chairman of the Joints Chiefs of Staff Richard Myers about the report.
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"Please take a look at this material as to what we don't know about WMD. It is big," Rumsfeld said.
At a February 12, 2003 press conference, Rumsfeld said Iraq was "engaging in the development of weapons of mass destruction," according to a transcript from the Defense Department.
On March 20 in 2003, the United States and a coalition of allies invaded Iraq.
President George W. Bush said two days later in his weekly radio address that the cause the coalition was pursuing was "the security of the nations we serve and the peace of the world."
"And our mission is clear, to disarm Iraq of weapons of mass destruction, to end Saddam Hussein's support for terrorism, and to free the Iraqi people," he said.
September 5, 2002 Report
Shaffer wrote on September 5, 2002 that he had been asked by Rumsfeld what the U.S. did not know in terms of percentage about Iraq's WMD program.
"We've struggled to estimate unknowns, and the attached briefing sumps up our best J2 sense," he said. J2 is an intelligence group supporting top level U.S. defense officials.
"We range from 0 % to about 75 % knowledge on various aspects of their program," he said.
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