February 12, 2003: Democratic Senators Accuse Tenet of Sabotaging Weapons Inspections

Democratic Senators on the Senate Armed Services Committee accuse CIA Director George Tenet of sabotaging the weapons inspections by refusing to supply the inspectors with the intelligence they need to do their work. [Independent, 2/14/2003] Senator Carl Levin tells the Washington Post that according to declassified letters he has obtained from the CIA, dated Jan. 24 and Jan. 28, the agency has not provided inspectors with information about a “large number of sites of significant value.” Furthermore, the senator charges, the letters contradict on-the-record statements made by Tenet who on February 11 claimed that the US had provided inspectors with all the information it had concerning “high value and moderate value sites.” Commenting on this, he says, “When they’ve taken the position that inspections are useless, they are bound to fail,” adding, “We have undermined the inspectors since the beginning.” [Washington Post, 2/13/2003; Independent, 2/14/2003] Tenet will later acknowledge to Senator Levin—after the US invasion of Iraq—that his comments were not entirely accurate. [New York Times, 2/21/2004]