Committee staff asked a U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) polygraph expert with 29 years of experience with polygraph examinations about the possibility of a "false negative" resulting from a polygraph examination. A false negative is when a subject who is telling the truth is judged to be deceptive on a polygraph. The DoD polygraph expert told Committee staff that in regard to polygraph examinations, "anything could always be a false positive or a false negative. The polygraph is not 100 percent accurate and will never be 100 percent accurate, because we're dealing with the psychology and the physiology of the individual." As previously discussed, a March 2002 report from the INC source, stated that in mid-1996 Iraq decided to establish mobile laboratories for BW agent research to evade UNSCOM inspections. The NIE described the source by name and noted that he was an "Iraqi defector associated with the Iraqi National Congress." He had defected from Iraq in late 2001, and was brought to the attention of the DIA by Washingtonbased representatives of the INC in February 2002. After several meetings with the INC source, a DIA debriefer assessed that some of the information he provided "... seemed accurate, but much of it appeared embellished." The DIA debriefer believed that "... the source had been coached on what information to provide." The DIA's report from the INC source, however, described him as a "first time reporter who is considered reliable" and does not note the debriefer's concerns that he had been coached or that he had embellished information. The report also stated that the "source passed a DHS-administered polygraph regarding information included in this report." In April 2002, the CIA published an assessment of the INC source that stated that DHS had terminated contact with him after four meetings because of suspicions he was a fabricator. In May 2002, DIA issued a "fabrication notice" which said that the information the INC source provided was "assessed as unreliable and, in some instances, pure fabrication." A DIA investigation of this source that resulted in the fabrication notice, questioned the source's truthfulness and noted that the "... information is now considered suspect." Although the source passed "an issue-specific DIA administered polygraph examination, DIA's discussions with the examiner indicate that some areas were not fully explored, which could account for the potential fabrication." In July 2002, the National Intelligence Officer for Near East and South Asia provided the Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs with an assessment of Iraqi defectors who had been brought to the attention of the IC by the INC and noted the concerns the DIA and the had about the source's reliability. Despite the April 2002 CIA assessment, the May 2002 fabrication notice and the July 2002 assessment suggesting the source may have fabricated information, the source was highlighted in the October 2002 NIE, and he was one of the four HUMINT sources specifically referred to in the part of Secretary Powell's February 2003 speech before the UN Security Council that discussed the mobile BW production units. 5. Although he was not specifically referenced in the text of the NIE, the IC also provided the Committee with an intelligence report from the debriefing of another Iraqi asylum seeker The June 2001 report, which is the only report from this source that discussed mobile BW units, stated that there were transportable facilities for the production of biological weapons mounted on trailers at a special armaments factory in Iraq, and that there were other Iraqi sites where biological weapons were produced. The detailee also expressed concern about this source in his e-mail concerning Secretary Powell's UN speech. He noted that the source was but one whose reliability nor reporting has been evaluated," and said the reporting had inconsistencies that needed further checking. The detailee added, "we sure didn't give much credence to this report when it came out. Why now?" The detailee's e-mail was written four months after the NIE was published. 6. Intelligence Community Mind Set Concerning Mobile BW Programs An INR BW analyst told Committee staff that "... as a community the U.S. BW analysts generally think that BW programs historically have shifted from large-scale fixed facilities producing large quantities of BW agents being stockpiled to smaller dual-use facilities that can be mobilized. So it's very appealing to the analysts to learn about a mobile BW program. It fits with what we think the state of the BW program worldwide are heading toward. It's kind of like a built-in bias." A CIA Directorate of Operations (CIA/DO) officer told the Committee that when he began serving as the Deputy Chief of the CIA Iraq WMD Task Force in the summer of 2002, the Iraqi BW program was not the focus of the Iraq WMD Task Force's efforts because, while many questions existed about other issues such as Iraq's nuclear weapons program, analysts felt fairly certain that they knew what the BW program looked like and believed the issue was largely "wrapped up." He noted that although there was always a lot of ambiguity with these sources, the CIA's lead analyst on Iraq's BW program was adamant about the existence of the Iraqi mobile BW platforms. He noted that was "a bull dog with these sources." The CIA/DO officer told Committee staff that the CIA BW analyst and the Department of Defense detailee who was assigned to CIA/DO had "locked horns" over the reliability of the mobile BW HUMINT sources. The CIA/DO officer noted that he had several conversations with the CIA BW analyst about the detailee's concerns over the reliability of the mobile BW HUMINT sources. In one of these conversations, the CIA BW analyst discounted the detailee's concerns by stating that the Weapons Intelligence, Nonproliferation, and Arms Control Center (WINPAC) had multiple sources reporting on the program, and that the detailee was not aware of all of this reporting. C. Baghdad Has Been Able to Renovate and Expand its Fixed Dual-Use BW Agent The introduction of the BW section of the NIE said that, "Baghdad has been able to renovate and expand its fixed dual-use BW agent production facilities . . . .” Later in the NIE, however, the reference to renovation of fixed facilities said, “we are increasingly concerned that Baghdad's renovation and expansion of its fixed, dual-use facilities that served as Iraq's BW agent production capability prior to the Gulf War are part of an effort to increase significantly Iraq's BW agent holdings." The second version of this assessment makes it more clear that the dual-use facilities were not known to be BW agent facilities, but that the IC had concerns about their potential use as BW facilities because they had been used for BW agent production prior to the Gulf War. To support this assessment, the NIE discussed renovation and expansion activity at three fixed, dual-use facilities: the Amiriyah Serum and Vaccine Institute, the Habbaniyah I Castor Oil Plant, and the Dawrah Foot and Mouth Disease Vaccine Production Plant. 1. Amiriyah Serum and Vaccine Institute The NIE noted that increased activity and construction at Iraq's Amiriyah Serum and Vaccine Institute has been observed since at least 2000 "suggesting more than pharmaceutical production or distribution is taking place." The IC provided the Committee a National Imagery and Mapping Agency (NIMA)24 report that described of Amiriyah from April 1999 to November 2001, which stated that the facility remained active during this period and may have increased its level of operations. The report said that these changes may represent changes in the facility's operations. The NIE's discussion of Amiriyah also states that "Iraqi scientists reportedly conducted quality testing at this site on BW agents produced in the mobile production units, A HUMINT report from CURVE BALL, who provided the majority of the intelligence reporting concerning the mobile BW program, In discussions with Committee staff, both CIA and DIA BW analysts said they at the facility suggested Amiriyah was active, but said the assessed that the changes 24NIMA has recently been renamed the National Geospatial- Intelligence Agency (NGA). |