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Think Tank: U.S. Overstated Iraqi Threat
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Think Tank: U.S. Overstated Iraqi Threat

By BARRY SCHWEID
AP Diplomatic Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Iraq posed no imminent threat to the United States
and there was no solid evidence that President Saddam Hussein was
cooperating with the al-Qaida terror network, a private think tank
maintained Thursday.

The administration systematically misrepresented a weapons threat from
Iraq, and U.S. strategy should be revised to eliminate the policy of
unilateral preventive war, said Jessica T. Mathews, Joseph Cirincione
and George Perkovich of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

Years of U.N. inspections to determine whether Saddam was harboring
weapons of mass destruction were working well, and the United States
should set up jointly with the United Nations a permanent system to
guard against the spread of dangerous technology, the report said.

It recommended that consideration be given to making the job of CIA
director a career post instead of a political appointment.

Mathews is president, Cirincione is director of the proliferation
project, and Perkovich is vice president for studies at Carnegie, an
independent research group.

Citing the CIA and other U.S. intelligence offices, the Bush
administration claimed before attacking Iraq that Saddam had potent
caches of weapons of mass destruction and plans to produce more of
them.

The Carnegie report said the U.S. intelligence process failed on Iraq
and that Bush administration officials dropped qualifications presented
to them by U.S. intelligence analysts.

Several U.S. allies, including France, Germany and Russia, sought
continuation of U.N. weapons searches, but President Bush went ahead
with the war that toppled Saddam and thrust the United States into
trying to steer the oil-rich country through reconstruction and toward
democracy.

In the weeks before the war, the administration also intensified its
allegations of links between Saddam and the al-Qaida terror network
headed by Osama bin Laden and believed responsible for a series of
attacks on the United States, including those against the World Trade
Center in New York and the Pentagon on Sept. 11, 2001.

Since May, when Bush declared an end to major combat, 357 U.S. service
personnel have died in attacks on them and in accidents.

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