By Walter Pincus
Former CIA director John M. Deutch told Congress yesterday that failure to find chemical or biological weapons in Iraq would represent "an intelligence failure . . . of massive proportions."
"It means that . . . leaders of the American public based
support for the most serious foreign policy judgments -- the decision to go to war -- on an incorrect intelligence judgment," Deutch said during testimony before the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence.
The impact, he said, would be felt "the next time military intervention is judged necessary to combat the spread of weapons of mass destruction -- for example in North Korea -- there will be skepticism about the quality of our intelligence."
(snip)
Deutch said "it seems increasingly likely" that Iraq may have not continued its chemical and biological weapons programs after the 1991 Persian Gulf War. But Deutch and another former CIA director, R. James Woolsey, told the panel that they expected U.S. forces eventually would turn up evidence of chemical and biological weapons production, perhaps along with stocks of chemical and biological agents or weapons.
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