CIA Director George Tenet wants to clear up some "downright inaccuracies" in what some have asserted about the intelligence community's prewar estimates on Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, officials say.
Tenet has been publicly quiet on the debate in the 13 days since one of his advisers, David Kay, resigned as the CIA's top weapons inspector in Iraq. Kay's statements that former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein's purported weapons didn't exist at the time of the US invasion have sparked an intense debate over the prewar intelligence which the George W. Bush administration used to justify the war.
Tenet was scheduled to speak yesterday at Georgetown University, his alma mater, to discuss the prewar intelligence on Iraq, the intelligence community's counter-proliferation work and the inherent difficulties of the intelligence business.
He planned to address what one senior intelligence official called "misperceptions and downright inaccuracies" concerning what the intelligence community reported -- and didn't report -- in its prewar assessments on Iraq.
"He is going to point out that it is premature to jump to conclusions," the official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity.
Tenet began exploring themes for the speech last week. He is expected to describe some of the intelligence community's succ-esses, something Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld encouraged at a hearing Wednesday.
"The reality is we have had some wonderful successes, and some of them not public," he said. "The failures are very visible, and that's always the case."
Even as Bush and his aides have backed away from their predictions that weapons would be found, Rumsfeld said he thinks Iraq may have had weapons of mass destruction before US troops invaded and inspectors need more time to search for them.
Rumsfeld also denied assertions by Democrats that Bush administration officials manipulated intelligence to push for war.
At least five inquiries into the US intelligence on Iraq are under way, and Bush was expected to announce another commission this week to review the intelligence community.
Meanwhile, the Senate Intelligence Committee scheduled a meeting yesterday to study a 200-plus-page report compiled by committee staff on the prewar intelligence.
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