SENATE-HRG-IRAQ-INTEL,
sked,0500
Sen. Carl Levin Holds A
Hearing On The Defense Department Inspector General'S Report On The Activities
Of The Office Of Special
Sen. Carl Levin Holds A
Hearing On The Defense Department Inspector General'S Report On The Activities
Of The Office Of Special
xfdtr SENATE-HRG-IRAQ-INTEL sked xfdsu
TRANSCRIPT
COMMITTEE HEARING
SEN. CARL LEVIN
CHAIRMAN
SENATE ARMED SERVICES
COMMITTEE
WASHINGTON, D.C.
SEN. CARL LEVIN HOLDS A HEARING ON THE DEFENSE
DEPARTMENT
INSPECTOR GENERAL'S REPORT ON
THE ACTIVITIES OF THE OFFICE OF SPECIAL
PLANS PRIOR TO THE WAR IN
IRAQ
CQ Transcriptions, LLC
1255 22nd Street N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20037
Transcript/Programming: Tel.
Sales: Tel.
sales@cq.com
www.cq.com
Copyright 2007 CQ
Transcriptions, LLC
All materials herein are protected by United
States copyright law
and may not be reproduced, distributed,
transmitted, displayed,
published or broadcast without the prior
written permission of
CQ Transcriptions. You may not alter or
remove any trademark,
copyright or other notice from copies
of the content.
U.S. SENATE ARMED SERVICES COMMITTEE HOLDS
A HEARING ON
THE DEFENSE DEPARTMENT INSPECTOR GENERAL'S
REPORT ON
THE ACTIVITIES OF THE OFFICE OF SPECIAL
PLANS PRIOR TO
THE WAR IN IRAQ
SPEAKERS:
SEN. CARL LEVIN, D-MICH.
CHAIRMAN
SEN. EDWARD M. KENNEDY, D-MASS.
SEN. ROBERT C. BYRD, D-W.VA.
SEN. JOSEPH I. LIEBERMAN,
I-CONN.
SEN. JACK REED, D-R.I.
SEN. DANIEL K. AKAKA, D-HAWAII
SEN. BILL NELSON, D-FLA.
SEN. BEN NELSON, D-NEB.
SEN. EVAN BAYH, D-IND.
SEN. HILLARY RODHAM CLINTON,
D-N.Y.
SEN. MARK PRYOR, D-ARK.
SEN. JIM WEBB, D-VA.
SEN. CLAIRE MCCASKILL, D-MO.
SEN. JOHN MCCAIN, R-ARIZ.
RANKING MEMBER
SEN. JOHN W. WARNER, R-VA.
SEN. JAMES M. INHOFE, R-OKLA.
SEN. JEFF SESSIONS, R-ALA.
SEN. SUSAN COLLINS, R-MAINE
SEN. JOHN ENSIGN, R-NEV.
SEN. SAXBY CHAMBLISS, R-GA.
SEN. LINDSEY GRAHAM, R-S.C.
SEN. ELIZABETH DOLE, R-N.C.
SEN. JOHN CORNYN, R-TEXAS
SEN. JOHN THUNE, R-S.D.
SEN. MEL MARTINEZ, R-FLA.
WITNESSES:
THOMAS GIMBLE,
ACTING DEFENSE DEPARTMENT
INSPECTOR GENERAL
LEVIN:
Good morning, everybody.
First, let me welcome Tom Gimble, the
acting inspector general of
the Department of
Defense.
Thank you for coming this morning to brief us
on a matter which
you've been looking into for
some time.
More than two years ago, in October of
2004, I issued a report on
the alternative analysis of
the Iraq-Al Qaida relationship which was
prepared and disseminated by
the Office of Undersecretary of Defense
for Policy under the
leadership of Douglas Feith.
My report documented a number of actions
taken by Undersecretary
Feith and his staff to
produce an alternative intelligence analysis of
the alleged relationship
between Iraq and Al Qaida in order to help
make the case to go to war
against Iraq.
My report concluded the following, back in
2004, quote, "An
alternative intelligence
assessment process was established in the
Office of Undersecretary for
Policy Douglas Feith that was predisposed
to find a significant
relationship between Iraq and Al Qaida.
"His staff then conducted its own
review of raw intelligence
reports, including reporting
of dubious quality or reliability.
Drawing upon both reliable
and unreliable reporting, they arrived at
an alternative interpretation
of the Iraq-Al Qaida relationship that
was much stronger than that
assessed by the intelligence community and
more in accord with the
policy views of senior officials in the
administration," close
quote.
For example, the Feith office promoted the
view that a meeting
allegedly took place in
Prague in April of 2001, five months before
9/11, between the lead 9/11
hijacker, Mohammed Atta, and an Iraqi
intelligence officer.
The Feith office took the position that
this alleged meeting was
key evidence of Iraqi
involvement in the 9/11 attacks, despite the
fact that the intelligence
community was skeptical that the meeting
ever happened, and reported
its skepticism in intelligence reports
prepared for the highest
officials in our government.
LEVIN:
This morning, the Department of Defense inspector general
will deliver both a
classified report and an unclassified executive
summary on the pre-Iraqi war
activities of the undersecretary of
defense for policy.
The executive summary confirms what I
alleged about the Feith
office two years ago. The inspector general's report this morning
states, quote: "The Office of the Undersecretary of
Defense for
Policy developed, produced
and then disseminated alternative
intelligence assessments on
the Iraq and Al Qaida relationship which
included some conclusions
that were inconsistent with the consensus of
the intelligence community to
senior decision-makers."
The inspector general also finds that the
Office of the
Undersecretary of Defense for
Policy, quote, "was inappropriately
performing intelligence
activities of developing, producing and
disseminating that should be
performed by the intelligence community,"
close quote.
In response to some of my specific
questions, the inspector
general confirms today the
following.
One, the Feith office produced its own
intelligence analysis of
the relationship between Iraq
and Al Qaida and presented its analysis
to other offices in the
executive branch, including the secretary of
defense and the staffs of the
National Security Council and the Office
of the Vice President.
Two, the intelligence analysis produced by
the Feith office
differed from the
intelligence community analysis on the relationship
between Iraq and Al Qaida.
Three, the Feith office presented a
briefing on the Iraq-Al Qaida
relationship to the White
House on September 2002 -- unbeknownst to
the director of central
intelligence -- containing information that
was different from the
briefing presented to the DCI, not vetted by
the intelligence community,
and that was not supported by the
available intelligence,
parenthesis, (for example, concerning the
alleged Atta meeting) without
providing the intelligence community
notice of the briefing or an
opportunity to comment.
LEVIN:
Four, the briefing drew, quote, "conclusions or findings
that were not supported by
the available intelligence, such as the
conclusion 'intelligence
indicates cooperation in all categories,
mature symbiotic
relationship, or that there were multiple areas of
cooperation and shared
interest in pursuit of WMD and some indications
of possible Iraqi
coordination with Al Qaida, specifically related to
9/11.'"
The inspector general finds that these,
quote, "inappropriate
activities" of the Feith
office were authorized by the secretary of
defense or the deputy
secretary of defense.
These findings of the inspector general
reinforce a conclusion
that I reached in my report
more than two years ago: that the Office
of the Undersecretary of
Defense for Policy generated its own
intelligence analysis
inconsistent with the views of the intelligence
community in order to support
the policy goals of the administration.
Two recently confirmed senior
administration officials have
publicly expressed their
concerns about these activities of the Feith
office.
LEVIN:
On May 18th, 2006, General Michael Hayden, now the
director of the Central
Intelligence Agency, testified at his
nomination hearing that he
was not comfortable with the Feith's office
approach to intelligence
analysis.
Similarly, on
defense, testified at his
nomination hearing that he understands that
the Feith office was
producing its own intelligence analysis and,
quote, "I have a problem
with that."
The inspector general found it unnecessary
to make any
recommendations in his report
because changed relationships between
the Department of Defense and
the intelligence community, in his
words, "significantly
reduce the opportunity for the inappropriate
conduct of intelligence
activities outside of intelligence channels in
the future."
Well, unfortunately, the damage has
already been done. Senior
administration officials used
the twisted intelligence produced by the
Feith office in making the
case for the Iraq war.
As I concluded in my October 2004 report,
quote, "Misleading or
inaccurate statements about
the Iraq-Al Qaida relationship made by
senior administration
officials, were not supported by the
intelligence community
analyses, but more closely reflected the Feith
policy office views.
"These assessments included, among
others, allegations by the
president that Iraq was an
ally of Al Qaida, assertions by the
national security adviser,
Rice, and others that Iraq, quote, 'had
provided training in WMD to
Al Qaida,' and continued representations
by Vice President Cheney that
Mohammed Atta may have met with an Iraq
intelligence officer before
the 9/11 attacks, when the CIA didn't
believe the meeting took
place."
LEVIN:
In November of 2003, the top secret report of the Feith
office was leaked to the
Weekly Standard. Shortly thereafter,
Vice
President Cheney said
publicly that the article in the Weekly Standard
was the, quote, "best
source," close quote, of information about the
relationship between Iraq and
Al Qaida.
The bottom line is that intelligence
relating to the Iraq-Al
Qaida relationship was
manipulated by high-ranking officials in the
Department of Defense to
support the administration's decision to
invade Iraq when the
intelligence assessments of the professional
analysts of the intelligence
community did not provide the desired
compelling case.
The inspector general's report is a
devastating condemnation of
inappropriate activities by
the DOD policy office that helped take
this nation to war.
I want to thank the inspector general for
his report and
completing this review, and
his independence. I am concerned,
however, that only a two-page
executive summary of the inspector
general's report is available
in unclassified form, and I plan to work
with the inspector general
and others to obtain declassification of
this report.
Senator Inhofe?
INHOFE:
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
First of all, you can read the same report
and come up with
different conclusions, which
is quite obvious and will be obvious.
And I think that we, of
course, want to hear from Mr. Gimble on the
report so we can come to our
own conclusions.
I don't think in any way that his report
could be interpreted as
a devastating condemnation,
as you point out, Mr. Chairman.
INHOFE:
You know, I've talked to the chairman of the
Intelligence Committee, Pat
Roberts, on numerous occasions about this.
And they've gone over it and
over it and over it; had the Intelligence
Committee, which is
bipartisan; the bipartisan WMD committee --
Silberman and our former
colleague Chuck Robb -- separately examine
these matters in detail. Each concluded unanimously that no
intelligence analysts were
pressured.
The Intelligence Committee also found that
there was no basis for
any allegations that have
been made against the undersecretary.
Roberts wrote to the Department of Defense
inspector general --
now, he was the first one to
make this request, and he did so for this
reason -- this is his quote
now: "The committee is concerned
about
persistent and, to date,
unsubstantiated allegations that there was
something unlawful or
improper about the activities of the Office of
Special Plans with the Office
of the Undersecretary. I have not
discovered any credible
evidence or unlawful or improper activity.
And yet the allegations
persist."
In attempt to stop these allegations once
and for all, he had
made the request to the
inspector general's office.
I
would have to say, also, Mr. Chairman, that these matters have
been scrutinized at least
three times in the last three years by
bipartisan, nonpartisan
groups. The Intelligence Committee
unanimously reported that it
found that this process, the policy-
makers' probing questions,
actually improved the CIA's process.
In other words, what they were doing in
getting into this thing
and bringing these issues up
caused the intelligence community to go
back and relook and to
reexamine and to do a better job than they were
going to do otherwise.
Some intelligence analysts even told the
committee that policy-
makers' questions had -- and
I'm quoting now -- "questions had forced
them to go back and review
the intelligence reporting," and that
during this exercise they
came across information that they had
overlooked in the initial
readings. In other words, they actually
provided a service by
bringing these things up.
As I mentioned to you, Mr. Chairman, I'll
be leaving in 20
minutes to catch a plane, so
I won't be bothering you too long here.
Thank you very much.
LEVIN:
Thank you very much, Senator Inhofe.
We will make a part of the recorded at
this time the Intelligence
Committee's decision that the
Feith investigation would be left to
phase two. They have not completed their investigation
or even
undertaken their
investigation of the Doug Feith operation because, by
its own decision, that was
left to a future investigation called phase
two. We will make that decision of the
Intelligence Committee part of
the record.
LEVIN:
Mr. Gimble?
GIMBLE:
Mr. Chairman, thank you for the opportunity to come
before you today to brief the
results of our review.
On September the 9th of 2005, Senator Pat
Roberts, chairman of
the Senate Select Committee
on Intelligence, requested that my office
review whether the Office of
Special Plans, OSP, at any time conducted
unauthorized, unlawful or
inappropriate intelligence activities.
Later that month, on September 22nd, 2005, Mr.
Chairman, you
requested that my office also
review the activities of the Office of
the Undersecretary of Defense
for Policy, including the Policy
Counterterrorism Evaluation
Group and the Policy Support Office, to
determine whether any of
their activities were either inappropriate,
improper and, if so, provide
recommendations for remedial action.
GIMBLE:
And also you provided a list of 10 questions.
Our objective in this review was to determine
whether the Office
of Undersecretary of Defense
Policy activities of any of the former
OSP or PTAG (ph)
organizations at any time conducted unauthorized,
unlawful or inappropriate
intelligence activities, from the time of
2001 through June 2003.
We performed this review from November
2005 through November
2006, in accordance with the
quality standards for federal offices of
inspectors general.
To achieve the objective, we interviewed
75 current or former
personnel. We reviewed unclassified and classified
documentation
produced and available from
September 2001 through June 2003. It
included DOD directives,
testimony, guidance, procedures, reports,
studies, briefings, message
traffic, e-mails, firsthand accounts,
memoranda, and other official
data on pre-intelligence in the specific
areas of the inquiry posed by
Congress.
We assessed information from the Senate
Select Committee on
Intelligence and documents
also from the undersecretary of defense
policy.
We found that the Office of the
Undersecretary of Defense for
Policy developed, produced
and then disseminated alternative
intelligence assessments on
Iraq and Al Qaida relations which included
conclusions that were
inconsistent with the consensus of the
intelligence community and
these were presented to senior decision-
makers.
While such actions are not illegal or
unauthorized, the actions,
in our opinion, were
inappropriate, given that all the products did
not clearly show the variance
with the consensus of the intel
community, and in some cases
were shown as intel products.
The condition occurred because the role of
the Office of the
Undersecretary of Defense
Policy was expanded from the mission of
doing defense policy to
analyzing and disseminating alternative
intelligence. As a result, the office did not provide the
most
accurate analysis of
intelligence to the senior decision-makers.
I would, at this point, like to just
briefly in an unclassified
version give a response to
the 10 questions that you proposed to us,
and the first being: Did the Office of the Undersecretary Feith
produce its own intelligence
analysis of the relationships between
Iraq and Al Qaida and present
its analysis to other offices in the
executive branch, including
the Office of Secretary of Defense and the
staffs of the National
Security Council and the Office of the Vice
President?
Yes, in our report, we discuss that
members of USD Policy
produced a briefing on
terrorism based on intelligence reports and
provided such report to the
executive branch.
Second question: Did the intelligence analysis produced by
Undersecretary Feith's office
differ from the intelligence community
analysis on the relationship
between Iraq and Al Qaida?
GIMBLE:
Yes, the undersecretary's office announced -- has
included some conclusions
that differed from those of the intelligence
community.
Third question: Was the alternative OSP policy intelligence
analysis supported by underlying
intelligence?
We concluded: Partially.
Alternative intelligence analysis that
the policy office produced
were not fully supported by underlying
intelligence.
Fourth question: Did the undersecretary, Feith, send CIA ORCON
material to the Senate Select
Committee on Intelligence in October of
2003 without CIA approval to
release it, even though such approval is
required by executive order?
Yes.
However, both CIA and the undersecretary for policy believe
that CIA had approved the
ORCON material before sending it to the SSI
in October of 2003.
Fifth question: Did Secretary Feith mislead Congress when he
read to several congressional
committees in January 2004 revised ORCON
materials that were
represented as containing CIA's requested changes
to the October 2003 documents
but which were not fully and accurately
reflect the CIA's requested
changes?
No.
The undersecretary did not mislead Congress when he sent the
revised ORCON material to the
congressional committees in January of
2004.
Sixth question was: Did the Office of the Undersecretary of
Defense prepare and present
briefing charts concerning the
relationship between Iraq and
Al Qaida that went beyond available
intelligence by asserting
that alleged meeting between lead 9/11
hijacker Mohammed Atta and
the Iraq intelligence office in Prague on
April 2001 was a known
contact?
GIMBLE:
Yes, the Policy Office produced a briefing assessing the
relationship between Iraq and
Al Qaida in which one slide discussed
alleged meeting in Prague
between Mohammed and the Iraqi intelligence
office as a known
contact.
Did the staff of the undersecretary
present a briefing on the Al
Qaida relationship to the
White House on September 2002 unbeknownst to
the director of central
intelligence containing information that was
different from the briefing
presented to the director of central
intelligence not vetted by
the intelligence community and that was not
supported by available intelligence
-- for example, the alleged Atta
meeting -- without providing
the intelligence community notice of the
briefing or an opportunity to
comment?
Yes, the undersecretary presented three
different versions of the
same briefing, of which some
of the information was supported by
available intelligence, to
the secretary of defense, the director of
central intelligence, the
deputy national security adviser and the
chief of staff, the Office of
the Vice President.
GIMBLE:
Question number eight: Did the
staff of undersecretary
of policy undercut the
intelligence community in its briefing to the
White House staff with a
slide that said there were fundamental
problems with the way the
intelligence community was assessing
information concerning the
relationship between Iraq and Al Qaida and
inaccurately suggesting that
the intelligence community was requiring
legal evidence to support a
finding while not providing the
intelligence community a
notice of the briefing or an opportunity to
comment?
Yes, we believe that the slide undercuts
the intelligence
community by indicating to
the recipient of the briefing that there
were fundamental problems
with the way that the intelligence community
was assessing the
information.
The ninth question you proposed was: Did the Office of the
Undersecretary of Policy
briefing to the White House draw conclusions
or findings that were not
supported by the available intelligence,
such as 'The intelligence
indicates cooperation in all categories as
mature, symbiotic
relationship or that there were multiple areas of
cooperation, shared interest
and pursuit of WMD, and some indications
of possible Iraqi
coordination with Al Qaida specifically related to
9/11'?
Yes, the briefing did draw conclusions
that were not fully
supported by the available
intelligence.
The final question was: Did the undersecretary of policy staff
prepare and did the
undersecretary, Feith, send to the secretary of
defense and the deputy
secretary of defense a written critique of a
report entitled "Iraq
and Al Qaida: Interpreting a Murky
Relationship" that was
prepared by the director of central
intelligence Counterterrorism
Center, stating that the CIA's
interpretation ought to be
ignored without providing CIA notice or
opportunity to respond?
Yes, however, there is no requirement to
provide an internal OSP
document to CIA for their
review.
That concludes my statement. I would -- subject to
classification, I'd be
willing to entertain your questions that I
could.
LEVIN:
Thank you, Mr. Gimble.
We will start with six-minute rounds, and
then we will have more
than one round. But this is to accommodate the number of
members who,
I believe, have to leave
immediately.
Mr. Gimble, in my letter of September
2005, I asked you to look
into whether the alternative
intelligence assessments of the Feith
office differed from the
intelligence community analysis which was
provided to the Office of the
Vice President and to the National
Security Council, and whether
it differed on the relationship between
Iraq and Al Qaida. Your report says that it did differ, and I
want to
ask you about a few
specifics.
Did the intelligence community agree with
the following Feith
conclusions: one, that it was known that Mohammed Atta,
the lead
hijacker, and an Iraq
intelligence agent met in Prague in April 2001?
GIMBLE:
There was a difference. The
intelligence community
thought that that was not a
verifiable meeting. And subsequently, it
was proven that it did not
occur. But prior to that, there was
questions as to whether it
did or didn't. It was not as presented.
LEVIN:
It was not a known contact.
GIMBLE:
Right.
LEVIN:
Did the intelligence community agree with the following
Feith conclusion: that the relationship between Iraq and Al
Qaida was
a mature, symbiotic
relationship?
GIMBLE:
It did conclude that.
LEVIN:
Sorry?
GIMBLE:
It did conclude that.
LEVIN:
The intelligence community did agree with that or did
not?
GIMBLE:
It did not agree with that.
LEVIN:
Did the intelligence community agree with the following
Feith conclusion: that intelligence indicates cooperation in all
categories between Iraq and
Al Qaida? Did they agree?
GIMBLE:
Did the intelligence agree? No,
they did not.
LEVIN:
Did the intelligence community agree that Iraq and Al
Qaida had a shared interest
in pursuit of WMD?
GIMBLE:
The answer is no.
(UNKNOWN):
I didn't hear what he said.
LEVIN:
The answer is no, you said?
GIMBLE:
Correct.
LEVIN:
So on four critical issues, you have found -- your report
-- that the intelligence
community did not agree with the Feith
finding and its alternative
intelligence assessment presented to the
highest policymakers in this
country; that it was known that Atta met
with the -- the lead hijacker
-- met with Iraqi intelligence agency;
that there was a symbiotic relationship
between Iraq and Al Qaida;
that intelligence indicates
cooperation in all categories between Iraq
and Al Qaida; that Iraq and
Al Qaida had a shared interest in pursuit
of WMD.
I can't think of much more devastating
commentary on an analysis
which was presented to the
highest levels of this government than what
you have found.
And I will stand by the statement that
this is devastating
because, without the
knowledge of the intelligence community, we have
an alternative intelligence
analysis being presented on war or no-war
issues whether or not the
people who attacked us on 9/11 had a
connection to Saddam
Hussein.
These issues are as critical as any issues
I have ever seen in
the intelligence
community. These issues and these
assessment that
were provided to the
highest-level policymakers backed a decision to
go to war.
LEVIN:
What is more important than that?
I can't think of anything.
What is more devastating than a commentary
that we had the second
route of intelligent
assessments going to the vice president of the
United States and the
National Security Council?
What commentary can be more essential to
the life of this nation
and to our citizens than
that?
I can't think of many things.
And then when you track the statements
made by the policymakers,
which made out a greater
connection between Al Qaida and Saddam
Hussein than was supported by
the intelligence community; and when the
American people were told
that there was a likely meeting between the
lead hijacker and Iraqi
secret service in Prague, when the
intelligence community did
not believe that meeting took place, had
grave doubts that that
meeting took place, and always did; this is as
serious a matter, I believe,
as this committee has considered.
And I know the Intelligence Committee has
before it, yet undone,
a phase two investigation of
the operations of the Feith office. That
phase two investigation by
the intelligence community lies ahead of
it.
But these matters, it seems to me, are of
the utmost seriousness
to this nation. And we are very, very grateful for your
decision to
look into these and to give
us your own independent assessment.
Now, I said there was going to be a
six-minute round. I don't
want to overdo because I know
Senator Inhofe has to leave.
LEVIN:
So, Senator Inhofe?
INHOFE:
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Gimble, as I understand it, the
routing that took place of
the information that
Secretary Feith had went from him to Wolfowitz
and Rumsfeld, DOD, and it
went from them to Tenet and Jacoby, the DCI
and DIA, and then it went on
to Hadley.
Is this the routing that you believe took
place?
GIMBLE:
Yes, sir. If you'd like some
dates, I can probably
provide some of that.
INHOFE:
All right.
If this routing, instead of going from
Feith to DOD and then to
DCI, DIA, if it had gone to
DCI, DIA first, then to DOD and then to
Hadley, would that have been
more appropriate?
GIMBLE:
Let me explain what happened based on the documentation
that we see.
There was a tasking put out in January of
2002 from the deputy
secretary to Undersecretary
Feith to assess the links between Al Qaida
and Iraq.
Then the next point where there was a
decision point was in July
25th, there was a group of
detailees in the policy shop, intel
analysts that were detailed
over. They compiled a position paper
that
was later translated into a
briefing, OK?
That briefing was on August the 8th,
presented to the secretary.
At that time, he gave
direction to give it to DCI Tenet.
GIMBLE:
And before the -- and that was given on August 15th, but
on the time frame of August
9th through 14th, the intel community
players, that included DIA,
CIA and a number of other intel community
people, looked at that July
25th memo and critiqued it. And they had
significant
disagreement. There was some agreement,
but there was
significant disagreement. There was, like, 26 points.
And, essentially, they disagreed with more
than 50 percent of it
and either agreed or
partially agreed with the remainder.
And I can get into that in the
classified...
INHOFE:
Well, all right. That's not
necessary. I'm just trying
to get, in my...
GIMBLE:
Well, here's the other part of the flow of the
information.
When they had the August 15th briefing,
there's reported in some
cases where the DCI agreed
with the things, saying "This is a useful
presentation." And he did, in fact, do that. He said it was useful.
In our interviews with him, he later said
-- he only said it was
useful because he didn't
agree with it and he was just trying to, you
know, nicely end the meeting.
As a result of that meeting, he called
together all the analysts,
which, on August 20th, the
intel community and the policy group all
met together and they debated
the agreements and disagreements.
What happened at that roundtable was the
CIA did do some changes
on some of their reports --
some minor changes, as I understand it.
The other part of it was is
that they offered to footnote those
disagreements, which is our
issue in our report, is you can have
different opinions, but you need
-- if there's differences, you should
-- if you don't vet them, you
should at least identify them where the
decision-makers...
INHOFE:
All right. We're using up...
GIMBLE:
Then the next thing was is that after that they chose
not -- the policy group went
and did the final briefing to the
national security deputy, the
National Security Council, and they
didn't make the changes that
were talked about in that August 20th
meeting.
So that's, kind of, my view of the flow of
information.
INHOFE:
All right.
As I read this material, and I have been
around long enough to
recognize this when I see it,
I see a lot of turf battle taking place
here.
INHOFE:
And on July the 9th of '04, Senator Rockefeller
insinuated that Mr. Feith may
have been executing intelligence
activities which are not
lawful. He said that they were not
lawful.
Did you have any evidence that Mr. Feith
did anything illegal?
GIMBLE:
We had no evidence that he did anything illegal nor did
he did anything that was not
authorized.
INHOFE:
Yes. Well, that was in your
report.
Real quickly, it's my feeling, and in my
opening statement, as I
stated, that these things
have been scrutinized many, many times over
the past few years. But the interesting thing that I found is
that
the Intelligence Committee
unanimously reported that it found that the
process of policymakers'
probing questions actually improved the CIA's
process.
Now, what they're saying is that there are
some things that were
improved as a result of being
forced to go back and look as a result
of whether this was improper
or proper, the activities of Mr. Feith.
Do you think that that individual was
right when he makes that
statement?
GIMBLE:
I think the statement is right in this respect: is I
think they did go back --
they didn't necessarily change the process
-- they went back and looked
at some of their information...
INHOFE:
That wouldn't have otherwise looked at perhaps.
GIMBLE:
Probably not.
And they did make some adjustments. And I understand those
adjustments were minor, but
that doesn't -- I have no opinion on that.
INHOFE:
All right.
Then it says some analysts even told the
committee that the
policymakers' questions had
forced them to go back and review the
intelligence reporting and
that during this exercise they came across
information that they had
overlooked in the initial findings.
INHOFE:
Is that what you're saying also?
GIMBLE:
I'm saying that they went back -- it did cause them to
go back and look, as I
understand, and there was some adjustments
made.
INHOFE:
Your report says that this was not illegal; that in fact
it's rather benign the way it
characterized the actions of Mr. Feith.
Would you say that his
actions were -- or that your report is a
devastating condemnation
against Secretary Feith?
GIMBLE:
My report is -- what I view it is as a flat, fact-based
report of the events that
occurred. I don't have an opinion as to
whether it's devastating or
not devastating.
INHOFE:
Thank you, Mr. Gimble.
Thank you very much.
LEVIN:
Thank you very much, Senator Inhofe.
Senator Webb?
WEBB:
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
And thank you, Mr. Gimble, for being here
and also for your
service, not only in the
Pentagon, but in
be noted: You were wounded as a soldier in
respect for your service.
I would like to strongly associate myself
with the comments of
the chairman. I think this is an issue that is vitally
important not
only in retrospect, but also
today, in terms of how it relates to the
health of our society and the
functioning of our government.
I was one of those many people outside
government as this process
was going on. But as someone who had five years in the
Pentagon and
watching these assessments
come out, I and a number of people were
actively skeptical and
troubled by some of the information that was
coming out.
And when you indicate in here that these
actions were not illegal
or unauthorized -- and I want
to get to the unauthorized part in a
minute -- but that were
inappropriate, you made the point here this
morning -- I'm going to quote
you as saying that, "In some cases, they
were shown as intelligence
products."
WEBB:
That seems to be your demarcation on the appropriateness
of the level. And I would say, that was extremely damaging,
not only
to the process of government
but to the public's understanding of the
stakes in the invasion of
And that's a misunderstanding that
persists to this day and
affects the debates that are
going on right now.
So I thoroughly agree with the chairman
here that this is
something that we need to
continue to look at in terms of
accountability and the health
of the process.
I was reading through a list of follow-on
questions and answers.
If the chairman doesn't mind,
I'd like these -- these came from the
chairman, but there are a
couple here that I would like to ask you a
question about.
The first is, when we talk about the
notion of being authorized
or unauthorized, your answer
here was that -- in terms of these
actions being unauthorized,
is that you said in your written answer,
"Many of the activities
were authorized by the secretary or deputy
secretary. Therefore the activities were not
unauthorized."
What does that mean for the ones that
weren't authorized by the
secretary or deputy
secretary?
GIMBLE:
The ones that we looked at, we concluded that they were
authorized. It was a broad, go forward and do an
alternate intel
assessment, even though they
didn't use that term.
And we thought the secretary and the
deputy secretary have the
authority, under DOD
Directive 5111.1, to other duties as assigned,
essentially.
If you go back to the January 22nd
memorandum that went from Dr.
Wolfowitz to Undersecretary
Feith, it was interesting to us that
you're doing -- analyzing and
establishing links that were, in our
opinion, as an intelligence
activity -- it was interesting that that
was directed through the
policy shop and not back through either, at
the time, assistant secretary
of defense CCCI, which is the intel
group, or through the
director of intelligence in the DIA.
GIMBLE:
It went down a policy channel; it was taken out of the
intel channels. And it
appeared to be for us -- and alternative
intelligence assessment.
We think that was authorized. We think it's legal. The issue
for us -- we said it was
inappropriate was we think when you have
differing views and unvetted
information that it's the responsibility
of the presenter to present
both sides of it. And that's where we
come with our determination
that this is inappropriate.
WEBB:
Just so I can understand this, you're saying that there
were activities that had not
been authorized by the secretary or
deputy secretary but in your
view had been authorized by other
portions of the...
GIMBLE:
No, sir, we think that what they did was authorized by
the department.
WEBB:
All.
GIMBLE:
I'm not aware of any offhand. The
major thrust -- it
was all authorized. There may be one or two that the secretary
didn't, or deputy
secretary...
(CROSSTALK)
WEBB:
In your answer you say "many" rather than "all."
GIMBLE:
I really think that's an imprecise answer on my part in
the written.
WEBB:
OK.
You also, at another place here, Q4, state
that there were a
number of documents -- being
loyal to my chairman here -- that were
denied access and that three
of these documents were relevant to the
review, but none were
relevant to the finding.
WEBB:
But your finding essentially seems to say that the overall
problem has been fixed with
the new sophistication in the process.
But how were they relevant to the review
and not to the finding?
GIMBLE:
There were 58 documents that were in question and we had
access to all 58
documents. And when we look at the
specific question
that we're dealing with on
this particular report, 55 of them didn't
deal with these issues.
Three of them did deal with them, but they
were, kind of,
background-related. But at the end of the day, they didn't have
any
impact on our assessment or
finding. They were just...
WEBB:
But would they have an impact, in your view, on the
public's understanding of how
we got into this?
GIMBLE:
No, sir, I don't believe they would.
Otherwise, we
would have incorporated the
results of them into our review.
WEBB:
I thank you.
LEVIN:
Thank you, Senator Webb.
Senator Chambliss?
CHAMBLISS:
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Let me just say, after listening to
everything I've heard this
morning, I'm truing to figure
out why we're here. We're beating this
horse one more time.
But let me see if I can, Mr. Gimble, get
the record straight.
Did the Office of Special Planning at the
Department of Defense
gather any intelligence?
GIMBLE:
They had access to intelligence databases...
CHAMBLISS:
Did they gather any intelligence?
GIMBLE:
You mean like in a...
CHAMBLISS:
Mr. Gimble, did they gather any intelligence? It's a
simple question.
GIMBLE:
No, they did not go out and do first-source gathering.
CHAMBLISS:
So they did not gather intelligence.
They analyzed
intelligence that had been
gathered by the CIA, the DIA, our
intelligence community.
CHAMBLISS:
Is that correct?
GIMBLE:
That's correct.
CHAMBLISS:
All right.
Now, there were a lot of people doing
analysis of that
information -- is that
correct? -- within the CIA, with the DIA, and
the other aspect of the
intelligence community.
GIMBLE:
Yes, sir.
CHAMBLISS:
Part of the information that was obtained by the
intelligence community was a
report with respect to contact between
Atta and the Al Qaida. Is that correct?
GIMBLE:
Correct.
CHAMBLISS:
Now, where'd that come from?
GIMBLE:
I need to go back and do that in closed session. That'd
be classified. If we could defer that, I'd be more than
happy to.
LEVIN:
We will have a closed session immediately after this.
CHAMBLISS:
I don't believe that's classified.
It's been pretty
public that it came from the
Czech service. Is that correct?
GIMBLE:
That's one place, yes.
CHAMBLISS:
That's one place? So it came from
more than one
place.
GIMBLE:
It came from the Czech service.
Basically the position
of the intel community is it
was not verifiable and there were some
questions about the...
CHAMBLISS:
There was a question -- there was a question in the
analysis as to whether it was
right or not. Isn't that correct?
GIMBLE:
Yes.
CHAMBLISS:
Some people in the intelligence community thought it
was correct; others thought
it was incorrect.
GIMBLE:
The consensus...
(CROSSTALK)
LEVIN:
Excuse me. What was the answer?
GIMBLE:
The consensus of the intel community thought it was not
verifiable.
CHAMBLISS:
Well, the Czech service was pretty confident about
their source, were they not?
GIMBLE:
They were.
CHAMBLISS:
Can you tell me when the Czech service finally said
that they thought their
source was not correct?
GIMBLE:
It was 2006.
CHAMBLISS:
January of 2006; so some, I don't know, six years
after the fact.
And
my point being that the intelligence community is not exact
science. There are differences of opinion.
CHAMBLISS:
In our report that the Senate Select Committee on
Intelligence made, of which
Senator Levin was a member of at the same
point in time that I was, we
had what I think is a correct conclusion,
that Senator Levin and I
agreed on: that the intelligence
provided by
the intelligence community to
policymakers and decision-makers pre-
the conflict in
And one of the reasons it was flawed is
because there were folks
at the State Department who
had access to information that was
different from the
information that the CIA had and the DIA had.
Do you recall that?
GIMBLE:
Not the State Department.
CHAMBLISS:
Well, suffice it to say that's correct.
It's in the
report.
And there was a disagreement within the
intelligence community as
to what the reliability of
the sources were -- and I'll mention
Curveball, because
everybody's read about Curveball, now.
And that
source, at the end of the
day, it turned out to be unreliable. But
at
the time the information was
taken by the CIA, they thought he was
reliable. But it turns out he was unreliable.
So, again, my point is that this is not
exact science.
Now, the I.G. report that you issued cites
as evidence Senator
Levin's, quote, "report
of an inquiry into the alternative analysis of
the issue of
That report claims that administration
officials made statements
which do not accurately
reflect the intelligence assessments that were
provided by the intel
community.
Now, the community provided to the Senate
Intel Committee over
40,000 intelligence
assessments on
community which support the
administration's statements.
Did you examine the full scope of the
intelligence community
documents to enable you to
conclude that public statements made
included information which
did not come from the intelligence
community?
GIMBLE:
What our issue was -- and I think we're getting a little
off-point here -- is the
briefing was -- for example, the meeting
you're talking about was a
briefing that was provided without the
caveats.
In other words, all we're saying is, we're
not -- we don't have a
conclusion which side was
right or which is wrong.
What we're concluding is if you have
disagreements -- significant
disagreements, it's the
responsibility of the presenter to make those
aware -- make the people
you're presenting to aware of those
disagreements.
CHAMBLISS:
Which is exactly the point that Senator Levin and I
made in our report of the
intelligence leading up to the conflict in
Now, the most famous comment that came out
of the issue of WMD
and
as to whether or not there
were WMD in
dunk." Do you recall that?
GIMBLE:
I saw that on TV, yes.
CHAMBLISS:
Is there anything in your investigation that
indicates that statement by
Director Tenet was made based upon
information obtained from Mr.
Feith?
GIMBLE:
We didn't look at that, WMD. We
looked at the
relationship between
CHAMBLISS:
At the time that Mr. Feith made his investigation and
gave a briefing, who did he
give the briefing to first?
GIMBLE:
The first briefing of the series of three was to the
secretary and deputy
secretary.
GIMBLE:
And that, as I was saying earlier, the secretary told
them to go brief the DCI,
which they did. And then...
CHAMBLISS:
Wait, wait, wait, wait a minute.
You briefed the
secretary of defense and the
secretary of defense said, "This is
interesting. Go brief George Tenet, the head of the
CIA."
GIMBLE:
Right.
CHAMBLISS:
And did he go brief George Tenet?
GIMBLE:
He went and briefed -- yes, he did.
CHAMBLISS:
And did Director Tenet make any comment after the
briefing?
GIMBLE:
The comment that we had in the subsequent interview was
is that he told the -- he
dismissed the meeting, saying, "This is
useful." And then he immediately kept back the Intel
group to include
Admiral Jacoby and put together
the meeting that came up on August the
20th to get the analysts
together to vet out the differences or
disagreements. He thought -- his position, the CIA's
position was
that they didn't agree with
the undersecretary's position.
CHAMBLISS:
OK, so once again, we had a disagreement in the
community over issues of
intelligence, is that correct?
GIMBLE:
That's correct.
CHAMBLISS:
OK.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
LEVIN:
Thank you, Senator Chambliss.
Senator Reed?
REED:
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
The opinion of the intelligence community
in the fall of 2002,
with respect to that meeting,
the alleged meeting with Atta in
GIMBLE:
That's correct.
REED:
Mr. Feith was aware of that?
GIMBLE:
They were aware of that.
REED:
His conclusion at his briefing was that this was known, it
was a fact. Is that correct?
GIMBLE:
That's correct.
REED:
So that was a significant departure from the conclusion of
the intelligence community,
deliberately made by Secretary Feith?
GIMBLE:
There was a difference between the consensus opinion of
the intel community.
REED:
Now, in the series of briefings that Mr. Feith gave, did
he provide identical
information at every briefing?
GIMBLE:
There were some variations of the briefing.
REED:
And what are the most significant variations?
GIMBLE:
Let me get that -- capture this correctly, because I
want...
REED:
Can you please bring the microphone?
GIMBLE:
Let me get this. I need to make
sure what's not
classified in this.
Senator, this is marked secret. I mean, I understand the...
(CROSSTALK)
REED:
I don't want to go into -- I don't want to go into secret
matters here because that's
inappropriate.
But in a general sense, he changed the
briefing for his audience.
REED:
Is that correct?
GIMBLE:
Sorry?
REED:
He changed the briefing for his audience?
GIMBLE:
There were adjustments made depending on the audience.
REED:
Well, why would he do that? Why
would he change
significant -- and without
going into details; this is not just
paragraph and grammatical
changes -- why would he make changes based
on the audience?
GIMBLE:
I don't think I'm in a position to make a comment on why
he would do what he did.
REED:
Did you interview Mr. Feith under oath?
GIMBLE:
We interviewed Mr. Feith. It was
not under oath.
REED:
Why would you not interview him under oath?
GIMBLE:
Because this is a review, not an investigation. We
typically don't -- unless
we're doing either administrative or
criminal investigation, we typically
don't swear people in.
REED:
Right.
So Mr. Feith has never, under oath,
responded to any of these
questions.
You specifically did not ask him why he
would change briefings
for different audiences. Is that correct?
GIMBLE:
Not under oath.
REED:
Not under oath.
Well, did you ask him, in terms of an
interview, why he changed
his briefing?
GIMBLE:
Well, one of the changes was that they took a slide out
of the briefing to the DCI,
to Mr. Tenet, because it was a critical of
the intel thing. And according to Secretary Feith, that was
the
reason they took it out.
REED:
Now, some of my colleagues have been talking about
improving the process. How do you improve the process when you have
a
chance to talk to the DCI and
you specifically do not criticize what
he's doing?
GIMBLE:
Again, I think the process is pretty good. There's a
vetting of -- there's a
process in place by regulation, and when you
have differences of opinion,
you stand -- the analysts stand those
interpretations or their
positions up and they either stand or fall on
their own merit.
If you still have significant
disagreements at the end of that,
it's the responsibility, I
think, to identify those and document them.
And that's actually what was
not done in this case.
REED:
Right.
I understand -- and you might have more
specificity -- that Mr.
Feith briefed the White House
in 2002, but Director Tenet was not
aware of that briefing until
approximately two years later. Is that
correct?
GIMBLE:
That's my understanding.
REED:
Pardon?
GIMBLE:
That is my understanding.
REED:
That's your understanding.
So when Mr. Feith briefs the DCI, my
presumption -- and your
advice would appreciated --
is that they would consider this as an
ongoing process of trying to
reconcile different viewpoints on
intelligence.
But unbeknownst to the director of
intelligence, a briefing,
which he might agree with or
disagree with, has already been given to
the White House in a manner
that suggests it's authoritative and
accurate.
Is that a fair assessment?
GIMBLE:
Let me clarify a couple points on this.
First of all, the briefing that was done
at the National Security
Council, that was attended by
the chief of staff of the vice president
-- Secretary Feith was not
present at that briefing. That was staff
that gave that briefing.
From looking at the charts, it was a
period that there was
briefed -- and I don't know
what the discussion was on, but it was
briefed and it was
authoritative, in my view, as "These are the
facts."
REED:
And your subsequent conclusion suggests that some of those
facts were in serious doubt
at that time.
GIMBLE:
The intelligence community had some serious issues with
some of the facts.
Again, I need to just remind everyone, we
didn't make an
assessment on the validity of
either side of this issue. We're just
merely saying that there was
a discrepancy out there and we don't
think it was reconciled and
presented, both sides of it, as the
briefings went on.
REED:
Well, I must say, I'm very troubled about this. And I
think everyone else here
understands that intelligence is sometimes an
art, not a science. But when you change the picture for your
audience, it's deeply
suspicious, your motives and you intentions.
Thank you.
LEVIN:
Thank you, Senator Reed.
I believe -- make sure I do this right --
Senator Sessions?
(CROSSTALK)
SESSIONS:
I'm not a part of the intelligence community and
haven't tried to master this
brouhaha that's been going on -- blame
somebody -- about all of our
intelligence issues, and have not tried
to fully master it.
I know my feeling about the
agreements they made after
the first
breaching the embargo. We were flying aircraft over them and
dropping
bombs on them and they were
shooting missiles at us on a weekly,
almost daily, basis. And we either had to get that brought to a
conclusion or not.
And I think my remarks at the time
indicate that that was my
primary concern. And I think it was a main concern of our
foreign
policy.
But these were matters of importance.
And so I ask, Mr. Gimble, isn't it true
that this -- some
staffers in Mr. Feith's shop
found some information in the
intelligence gathered by our
intelligence-gathering agencies that
indicated on the surface that
there was a connection between
Al Qaida?
GIMBLE:
They did find the information that they concluded that
there was.
SESSIONS:
And this had been even referred to in the intelligence
community assessments of
SESSIONS:
Isn't that right?
Even to dismiss it.
GIMBLE:
There was a lot of the information out there.
Specifically, you know, if
you have a specific point, we can go look
back...
SESSIONS:
This is the point. I'm just
trying to put myself in
Mr. Feith's shop. His staffers come to him and said, "We
found some
references to connections
between
the FBI report."
Isn't that basically what they briefed the
secretary of defense
about and pointed out some
other things that hadn't been brought forth
in the intelligence community
summary of the facts?
If I'm not -- if I'm mistaken, correct me.
GIMBLE:
Well, I think what happened there is that they have
information. There's a lot of reports out there. As someone said
earlier, there's, like,
40,000 pages (inaudible) the intel community
reviewed.
So, I don't know what's in each of those
40,000 pages. But what
our position is -- what my
report says -- is that there was a known
disagreement between the
intel community and the policy shop...
SESSIONS:
No, no, no. If you can't answer
this question, just
tell me.
But
my impression is that they found things that showed a
connection that were not
referred to in the intelligence community
summary and that they felt at
least should have been referred to. And
they shared that with the
secretary of defense. And the secretary
of
defense said, "Well, why
don't you go over and talk to the CIA and
talk to them about it, and
find out what the facts are?"
Isn't that basically what happened
(inaudible)?
GIMBLE:
They did. They went over and...
SESSIONS:
All right.
GIMBLE:
... the intel agencies disagreed with them.
SESSIONS:
All right.
And then they went and gave a briefing to
the national security
assistant director, Mr.
Hadley, and Mr. Libby, right?
GIMBLE:
They did.
SESSIONS:
And they showed some of the things they had found that
had not been referred to in
these reports.
GIMBLE:
They showed some conclusions that disagreed with...
(CROSSTALK)
SESSIONS:
OK, go ahead. Excuse me. I don't want to interrupt
you.
I think that's important, what you're
saying right...
(CROSSTALK)
GIMBLE:
I think that the information was all out there. It's
just how you interpret
it.
You know, intelligence is not an art, and
I think that was said
earlier. It's not an art. But the process of evaluating it should be
a pretty good science. You need to have rigid things to do.
And when you have disagreements between
legitimate people -- and
these were legitimate people,
they're hardworking people -- you have
disagreements between you,
the vetting should occur. And if there
still can't be agreement on
it, it's the responsible thing to let the
decision-makers know both
sides of the equation. That's...
(CROSSTALK)
SESSIONS:
I would assume that's what Mr. Feith's staff did when
they briefed the National
Security Council.
GIMBLE:
They did not show the other, dissenting side.
SESSIONS:
Well...
GIMBLE:
That's the issue that we had.
SESSIONS:
Well, Mr. Gimble, the National Security Council had
already been given the
intelligence community's consensus opinion,
hadn't they?
GIMBLE:
We didn't look at that. I'm sure
they did.
SESSIONS:
Well, I'm sure they had.
GIMBLE:
But the point is, is that if you're making a point, you
probably need to say,
"What we conclude is different from the people
that are engaged to do
intelligence collection and analysis."
All
we're saying is give the full
picture of it.
(CROSSTALK)
SESSIONS:
Well, I'm just trying to follow this through. I just
want to get to the bottom of
it.
So they go there to the national security
assistant, Mr. Hadley,
and Mr. Libby, and they
present their little presentation that
Director Tenet had already
said was useful, right?
GIMBLE:
And later said the reason he said it was useful because
he just wanted to courteously
dismiss the thing.
And he later said...
(CROSSTALK)
SESSIONS:
Well, in the minds...
LEVIN:
I'm sorry, I didn't hear the end of his answer.
You said it was useful and then...
(CROSSTALK)
LEVIN:
... what was the end of the answer?
GIMBLE:
He said the term "useful" for the briefing -- he said it
was useful -- this is our
interview with Mr. Tenet.
(CROSSTALK)
GIMBLE:
... it was a courteous way of ending the meeting. He
did not agree with the
position, nor did the CIA -- is what he told us
-- and he immediately kept Admiral
Jacoby back in there and he told
him to get this back into
analytical channels and get the analysts
talking.
Immediately after that, they called a
meeting -- they had the
intel analysts and Mr.
Secretary Feith's policy analysts. And
they
had a meeting to discuss the
differences. They did that.
The CIA made some changes -- categorized
to us as somewhat minor.
They made the changes in a
report. And then he offered to footnote
the remaining differences of
opinion that the policy folks had. The
policy folks said that they
didn't think that was appropriate for them
because they were
policymakers, not intel-makers.
GIMBLE:
And then when they didn't do that, approximately three
weeks later, the policy group
went up and briefed their story and
didn't put in the discussion
about what happened at that forum on
August the 20th to put the
other side of the story to get a balanced
picture.
And I go back: The only thing we said in our report is this,
is
that it's legitimate to have
disagreements. There's a vetting process
in the intelligence community
to work those disagreements, and you may
still have disagreements at
the end of the day,
But it's probably responsible -- in my own
personal opinion, it's
responsible for someone, if
you have differences of opinion, that you
show both sides of it so the
decision-makers know that the
disagreements are out there
and they can do their own assessment.
SESSIONS:
Well, I'll take a minute, Mr. Chairman.
I'd like to
complete this line of
thought.
So after they shared this with Mr. Tenet,
they went over and
shared the same findings that
they had with the national security
assistant, Mr. Hadley, now
the national security adviser, and shared
that.
You say they presented an authoritative
statement that, "These
are the facts," I
believe is what you said just a few moments ago. Is
that the way you understood
they presented it?
GIMBLE:
The way I understood they presented it.
SESSIONS:
Did you talk to Mr. Hadley?
GIMBLE:
He was interviewed as a...
SESSIONS:
And did he -- what about Mr. Libby?
GIMBLE:
I have to stand corrected. He was
not interviewed.
SESSIONS:
Mr. Hadley was not interviewed.
GIMBLE: Hadley was not
interviewed.
SESSIONS:
So, are you aware of what was on the slides there that
he presented to Mr. Hadley?
This was what I see -- I've been
told. And I don't know. This
is what I'm told he had on a
slide when he made the presentation,
quote, "fundamental
problems with how intelligence community is
assessing information,"
close quote.
GIMBLE:
I believe that's correct.
SESSIONS:
So it seems to me that the essence of it is that he
was raising with the national
security adviser that their staff -- and
only the staffers went over,
not even Mr. Feith -- that they had found
information they thought was
important relating to the Al Qaida-Iraq
connection that had not been
put in the intelligence community
summary.
Isn't that correct?
GIMBLE:
The correct -- the correct version, in my view, is that
there was a meeting to
reconcile differences on August the 20th, where
that meeting occurred. OK?
There was some -- the changes on the
intelligence side, it's my
understanding that those
briefing charts went over. There were a
couple of additions that were
not provided Mr. Tenet. And they were
presented.
There was 26 points in the underlying
buildup to the...
SESSIONS:
Well, I would -- my time is up. I
would just...
LEVIN:
Complete his answer.
SESSIONS:
All right. Go ahead.
GIMBLE:
Well, there was 26 underlying points that was in the
underlying premise of the
briefing. And there was over half of
them
that the intel community --
the consensus of the intel community did
not agree with. And that doesn't -- in my view, doesn't
reflect in
the charts that were
presented.
SESSIONS:
But the intelligence community after having been
confronted with information
that had not been concluded in a --
previously included in their
report, went back at Mr. Tenet's
direction and made some
changes that were positive and more accurate,
did they not?
GIMBLE:
I think there were probably some positive changes made.
SESSIONS:
My only conclusion is that these guys found some
things they were concerned
about. They shared it with the secretary
of defense. They shared it with the CIA. They shared it with the
national security adviser.
And I don't think there was any confusion
that they were trying
to present themselves as
authoritative intelligence officers, based on
this slide that they were
using, which indicated they were just
providing a critique about
total reliance on those assessments.
SESSIONS:
And as the senator said, sometimes there's a little
turf battle going on there,
perhaps.
And finally, we know that the CIA is not
always perfect, because
we didn't find the weapons of
mass destruction.
LEVIN:
Thank you, Senator Sessions.
Senator McCaskill?
MCCASKILL:
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Gimble, to some on this committee it
may be beating a dead
horse, but I'm new, and I've
been out there watching this from afar
over the last couple of
years.
And I'm very interested in an important
part of your report, and
that's the responses of this
part of the Department of Defense.
Whenever you do either a review as an
auditor or any audit, one
of the most instructive
things that you can learn, having done
hundreds and hundreds of
these things, is how the agency responds to
your report.
It's interesting to me that their first
response is what is very
common when you get a report
that's uncomfortable for you if you're
being looked at, is that you
ought not enter opinions.
I have looked at your report, and there is
no opinion in your
report. It is a factual recitation of what did and
didn't occur,
regardless of who was right
or wrong on either side.
The other thing that's really interesting
in their response is
they're quick to say that
they have nothing to do with intelligence
activities. In fact, in their response, they actually
say, by
definition they have nothing
to do with intelligence activities.
As has been pointed out, accurately, by
Senator Chambliss, this
group did not gather
intelligence. And this group in fact was
supposed to be directing
policy. And as part of their policy,
they
were trying to learn about
intelligence.
MCCASKILL:
It would seem to me that the better people to know
about what is right and wrong
about intelligence is, in fact, the
intelligence community that's
gathered the intelligence.
I mean, doesn't that seem pretty basic?
GIMBLE:
Yes, ma'am.
MCCASKILL:
So if I understand the timeline here, this
information is given to the
head of the CIA. He then calls the
intelligence community
together, the gatherers of intelligence
information, the people in
our government that are responsible for
intelligence. They have a meeting and say, "50 percent
of what you
are going to say, we believe
is wrong."
GIMBLE:
That's correct.
MCCASKILL:
And at that point and time, when the intelligence
gatherers and the intelligence
community tell, what is admitted in
this response, the policy
people, "50 percent of what you're saying is
wrong," and they, then,
did not share that with the National Security
Council?
Is that what your report says?
GIMBLE:
The report -- it does say that, in this respect, is that
there was -- the
counter-balance of the full picture, they didn't
identify that. So they just presented what they had and they
didn't
recognize that there was
significant disagreement with the consensus
within the intelligence
community on most of the 26 points that they
raised.
MCCASKILL:
And they were, in fact, reporting to the National
Security Council about
intelligence matters, correct?
GIMBLE:
I would characterize it as an intelligence --
alternative intelligence
product, OK?
They characterize it as a critique of
intelligence. Seems to me
like they were just -- it was
a statement of, "This is what" -- "These
are the issues we have and
this is the connection -- analysis of the
links," which ran
counter, in many respects, to the consensus within
the intelligence community.
And I don't think that's altogether
bad. I think that can be
useful.
However, I think the problem that we had
with it, as we say in
the report, if you do that,
you need to present both sides of the
thing to give a balanced
presentation.
MCCASKILL:
Particularly if both sides is going to, in fact,
include disagreements from
the intelligence gatherers. Is that a
fair
statement?
GIMBLE:
I think that when you do a presentation on intelligence,
you should give the full
picture. If there are agreements and
disagreements, you should
identify them...
MCCASKILL:
Lay them out.
GIMBLE:
... and, you know, just lay them out on the table.
MCCASKILL:
Was there anything in -- as we move forward, because
clearly in some respects,
this is -- mistakes have been made. But
the
purpose of these hearings,
obviously, is to try to make sure we don't
make them again.
Is there anything in the response from the
policy folks at
Defense that this report
involves -- is there anything in their
response that would indicate
to you, as the inspector general, that
they acknowledge that this
was not done correctly; that they
acknowledge that in the
future, whenever there are differing opinions
about an intelligence
assessment, when it relates to whether or not we
go to war, that in the future
they should always include both sides of
the issue, when it is given
to the ultimate policymakers in terms of a
recommendation of us going to
war or not going to war?
GIMBLE:
I think the proper way to look at that is there are
policies and procedures in
place in the intelligence community to
where you can identify and
have disagreements -- because you need --
it's a perfectly good thing
to have disagreements and vet those out.
The policies and procedures have been
there for a number of
years, that you vet those and
then you move forward to get the best
possible intelligence.
And as the senator's pointed out, this is
not a...
MCCASKILL:
Not a science.
GIMBLE:
... not a science, it's an art.
So you get the best
possible position.
In my opinion, I think the processes are
in place. You know,
these guys got assigned a
tasking, and they did it. They did it,
in
my view, as best they
could.
We don't argue with the fact they did it
nor how they did it.
What we are only pointing out
is this: is that they come to a hugely
different conclusion than
what the consensus of the intelligence
community was. That should have been -- as you moved that
forward,
that should have been
expressly explained.
Even though the people may have had
information and should have
had, we don't know that. The point is that when you have a --
something of this importance,
we think it's responsible to have both
sides of the picture out
there when there are disagreements, if they
can't be, you know, vetted
and come to a common agreement.
MCCASKILL:
My question to you, Mr. Gimble, is there anything in
their responses that would
indicate to you that they understand that
that is an important part of
this process that was not followed here
and that should be followed
in the future?
GIMBLE:
No. They view that I have the
wrong interpretation of
what constitutes intelligence
products. We just have a disagreement
on that.
MCCASKILL:
OK.
GIMBLE:
I think the system will take -- if properly followed,
and I think it is being
properly followed now, you wouldn't have it...
MCCASKILL:
Do you believe that this would not happen now?
GIMBLE:
I don't think it would.
But this is a fairly -- it's a single
incident in a universe of
many, many decisions and
intelligence reports and so forth that go
forward. You know, I don't have the crystal ball and I
can't tell you
that everything's
perfect. I think there's a system in
place that
will allow us to get the best
intelligence information if it's
followed in each and every
case.
MCCASKILL:
I would be a lot more comfortable if their responses
reflected that.
Thank you, Mr. Gimble.
LEVIN:
Just to be clear, when you say the "systems in place,"
you mean now in place?
GIMBLE:
It is in place.
There has always been a vetting
procedure. If you have it in the
intelligence channels,
there's been a -- you know, the executive
orders call it out, the DOD
directives call it out. There's a
process
that you vet and can have a
legitimate discussion and disagreement.
And, also, there's a legitimate way to
bring that forward and
say, "OK, here's our
best estimate," and it's based on if we have
disagreements you lay those
out.
I think there is a process in place to do
that, yes, sir.
LEVIN:
And was that process, then, not followed?
GIMBLE:
The part that we thought was inappropriate -- we thought
it was not followed because
we thought there should have been a full
reporting of both sides of
the issue on that.
Again, it goes back to -- we didn't think
anything was illegal or
unauthorized. We can clearly see that it was authorized by
people in
authority to authorize
it. So we don't have an issue with
that.
LEVIN:
Thank you.
Senator Warner?
WARNER:
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Your work product is of no greater value
than the thoroughness
with which you perform the
buildup to reach your conclusions. And I
want to direct my questions to
the process by which you reached your
conclusions.
You've indicated you did debrief Tenet and
you did debrief Feith.
Did you determine from those
debriefings that there were a level of
individuals beneath those two
principals that may have had a diversity
of opinion and that they,
then, failed to disclose that diversity in
such presentations that Feith
made. Is that correct?
GIMBLE:
There was a group of individuals under both.
I believe that Secretary Feith knew what
the position was. I
think he knew both sides of
the argument. I think the DCI, Mr.
Tenet,
knew both sides of it.
WARNER:
But we're focusing on Feith, though.
GIMBLE:
OK.
WARNER:
And it was his failure to disclose evidence that you
believe you now have that
there was an honest difference of opinion on
several or more significant
issues leading to the conclusions that
Feith presented.
WARNER:
Is that correct?
GIMBLE:
That is correct.
WARNER:
Well, now, I'm struck that you did not interview or
debrief Hadley. First you said you did, which I assume is
such an
integral, important part of
your presentation this morning that you
did it. And then you had to reverse that.
I find that somewhat troubling because
Hadley is a very
significant and pivotal
role-player in this.
Can you explain how you made that mistake
this morning?
GIMBLE:
Sir, I would not categorize that as a mistake.
WARNER:
I beg your pardon. You've got to
speak a little more
slowly and directly for
me. Thank you.
GIMBLE:
Senator, we requested an interview with Mr. Hadley. The
lawyers at the National
Security Council did not let us interview him.
So we requested and were
unable to.
Frankly, he is not a member of our
department, so we don't have
any authority to interview...
WARNER:
I understand that. But the simple
fact is you made a
request, for whatever
reason. On counsel's advice, he
declined.
GIMBLE:
Right.
WARNER:
But this morning you said you did it.
GIMBLE:
That was my mistake. And I...
WARNER:
(inaudible) serious mistake about a very pivotal member
of this administration.
Anyway, we'll accept that. You admit the mistake.
Now, my understanding is that Feith had
pulled together, in the
Department of Defense, a
cadre of presumably career civilians and
military officers, some of
whom were detailed to his staff from DIA.
Is that correct?
GIMBLE:
That's correct.
WARNER:
Now, having had some significant experience for many
years as Navy secretary, I
know how these things work in that
department. And I have a high degree of confidence in the
professionalism of those
level of workers, be they military or
civilian.
Did
you interview a wide cross-section of Feith's staff?
I know in the report you gave a figure
here.
Do you have any personal knowledge,
yourself, of the degree, or
shall we have this staff
member testify?
GIMBLE:
I'm just getting a list of the people that we
interviewed.
WARNER:
Right.
Can I be allowed a little additional time,
given that it's taken
the witness a period to get
his testimony...
LEVIN:
We will surely add that time. If
he takes more than
another minute, we'll add two
minutes.
(CROSSTALK)
GIMBLE:
We did interview the members of Mr. Feith's staff.
WARNER:
Well, how many were there?
GIMBLE:
There was...
WARNER:
Well, perhaps, Mr. Chairman, we need to bring to the
dais those persons that have
this knowledge so that we can directly
cross-examine them. Obviously, the witness is not in possession
of
the facts that I have...
GIMBLE:
We have 75 names that I'm trying to get to, Senator, and
they're not all in the employ
of Mr. Feith.
LEVIN:
We will be happy to interview the people that have not
been interviewed if you'll
give us the list. We have the list of
the
people who have been
interviewed so that we can check it out.
And if there's any that have not been
interviewed, we will
interview them, and we're
going to be interviewing a lot of folks,
including, I hope, by the
way, people who have refused to talk to you.
Because I think we will, indeed, want to
talk Mr. Hadley. We
will, indeed, want to talk to
the chief of staff of the vice
president. We will, indeed, want to talk to people who
you have not
been allowed to interview or
who you failed to interview.
So those interviews will take place.
And, Senator Warner, we agree with you
that if there's -- when
those names are submitted to
us, we'll check them out, and if there's
any there that are missing,
we will add those to the list.
WARNER:
Mr. Chairman, the point I'm trying to make is that these
are serious allegations. And I want to have a better understanding --
I think this committee does
-- of the process and the thoroughness in
which investigation was
conducted to reach these important
conclusions.
Now, again, in the interviews of those
staff members, did any of
them indicate that they gave
their work or performed it under
pressure, contrary to
exercise of their own free will?
GIMBLE:
They did not, Senator.
WARNER:
They did not what?
GIMBLE:
Were not pressured to perform or come to any
preconceived conclusion. And that comes across the consensus of the
interviews that I've looked
at.
WARNER:
They were able to give their best professional advise to
Secretary Feith and his
principal assistants. Is that correct?
GIMBLE:
That's correct.
WARNER:
Now, you have allegation to the effect that when
presentations were made
either by Feith or his senior staff that you
find fault in that they did
not provide the opinions which were
somewhat contradictory or at
variance to the principal points they
were stressing. Is that correct?
GIMBLE:
That's correct.
WARNER:
All right.
Now, at that point in time, did any of
these subordinate staff
members -- whom I accept for
the moment as being people of integrity
-- try to bring to anyone's
attention that they felt that their work
product was being
inaccurately portrayed to principals by their
principals to others?
GIMBLE:
We did not find evidence of that.
WARNER:
Did you inquire -- because I have to believe, given the
number of presentations that
were made by either Feith or his staff,
that sooner or later the
subordinates were of the opinion that the
whole story was not being
told. Did you make that inquiry?
GIMBLE:
We made the inquiry to see -- we believe that all the
staff was assigned to Mr.
Feith did, in good conscience, do what they
thought was right. And they had a position, and they probably
disagreed with the
counterposition.
All
we're pointing out is there's two groups of people that are
professional and
well-intentioned and hard-working servants of the
government and they had
differing conclusions. The process for
intelligence, though, is you
should marry those differences up and
reconcile them and vet
them. And that's what we think didn't
occur in
this.
WARNER:
I cannot believe that these persons, a number of them --
there's -- what? -- 30 or 40
them.
GIMBLE:
We interviewed 75.
WARNER:
Seventy-five -- that someone within that group, or some
individuals wouldn't say...
GIMBLE:
The 75 is...
WARNER:
Beg your pardon?
GIMBLE:
The 75 was the total interviews.
They didn't all work
for Mr. Feith.
WARNER:
All right.
But do you get my point? I'm trying to suggest that people have
good intentions at those
levels; they have their own self-respect, and
their own interest in
right.
Now, you said that some of those staff, or
members of Feith's
staff, did some of the
briefing, as opposed to Feith, which means that
staff were involved and they
intentionally, I presume, did not bring
forward the dissenting
opinions.
GIMBLE:
The briefings -- I think you've all seen the three sets
of charts. They speak for themselves.
They made their position. All we're saying is there were other
positions behind the
underlying analysis that there was considerable
disagreement with the very
community that were charged with providing
intel.
That's not to say that alternative
intelligence is not a viable
thing to do. We certainly agree that it is.
However, when you have a disagreement, our
position was, it
should be put into the
briefing when you make the presentation.
WARNER:
I understand that.
But the someone, or some several people,
made the decision not to
include the dissenting
opinions.
And was that done by Feith personally or
was it done by
subordinates or some of these
professional -- a structure (ph) that
worked with him?
GIMBLE:
Well, there's memo out that we can provide to you that
says that, "We don't
have to have a consensus."
WARNER:
All right. This is new
evidence. Where is this memo?
And who issued it? And what's the date-time group of it?
GIMBLE:
The date is August...
WARNER:
It's obviously not classified.
GIMBLE:
It is not classified.
WARNER:
August what?
GIMBLE:
Eighth, 2002. It is a sum-up of
-- "Today's Briefing"
is the subject -- a memo from
Paul Wolfowitz to Tina Shelton, Jim
Thomas, Chris Carney, Abe
Shulsky (ph), cc: Doug Feith.
"This is an excellent briefing. The secretary was very
impressed. He asked us to think about some next possible
steps so we
can eliminate the differences
between us and CIA. The goal is not to
produce a consensus product,
but to scrub each other's arguments."
It goes on: "One possibility would be to present the
briefing to
senior CIA people with their
"Another possibility would be for the
secretary and DCI to agree
on a small group with our
people combined with their people to work
through these points on which
we agree and those points on which
disagree, and then have a
session in which each side may make the case
for their assessment.
"Those are just suggestions. I would very much like to get the
ideas back from you when I
get together, some time after August 19th."
WARNER:
Mr. Chairman, let's put that in the record.
But we'll need to have that, Mr.
Chairman.
You're reading from a book marked
"secret," aren't you?
GIMBLE:
There's a -- we've got it bookmarked.
WARNER:
I beg your pardon? We're very
careful about classified
material on this committee.
GIMBLE:
We have secret material here, but that particular...
WARNER:
So you commingled classified and unclassified.
GIMBLE:
We have classified and unclassified.
LEVIN:
We will make that part of the record.
Thank you.
WARNER:
Are there other pertinent parts of this briefing book
which the committee does not
have at this time?
GIMBLE:
I'm not sure what you have. But I
would be more than
happy to take -- we can go
back in closed session and let you all
review it.
WARNER:
You'll see that that's done, Mr. Chairman?
LEVIN:
What we will do is, also, we are going to ask you to
provide us all of the
unclassified material that is in your report in
a single document, or to give
us the report redacting the classified
material -- one or the
other. Because most of that report that
you've
marked "classified"
is unclassified.
WARNER:
Now, back to the witness again...
LEVIN:
I think we have to go back to our time here, Senator
Warner.
WARNER:
Could I just ask one single additional question, Mr.
Chairman, because I got quite
a few interruptions?
Your conclusions are reached on the basis
of a number of
briefings given either by
Feith or his staff to principals within our
executive branch, correct?
GIMBLE:
Correct.
WARNER:
Do you know whether or not you have had the opportunity
to examine all the briefings,
or if not, how many of the briefings?
And for what reason did you
not, if you didn't, do all of the
briefings?
GIMBLE:
We examined each of the three briefings in question.
WARNER:
Are there only three briefings in question?
GIMBLE:
The three briefings -- we've got all the underlying data
that builds up to that, but
that's the...
(CROSSTALK)
WARNER:
Let me -- I'm having difficult listening to what you
say.
What's this again?
GIMBLE:
The basic issue and thrust of our report deals with the
events that were captured in
three briefings. It went, one, to the
secretary of defense, to the
DCI, Mr. Tenet, and then subsequently to
the national security...
WARNER:
Were there other briefings?
GIMBLE:
We have a lot of documentation, but these are the
briefings that we were
focused in on.
WARNER:
But if we're going to judge three, it seems to me in
fairness you might judge
other briefings so that you have the full
context and spectrum of the
briefings.
GIMBLE: These were the briefings
that when we did the tasking of
this particular task, it
evolved out to be these three briefings.
And there's a host of other reports,
memorandum. We have many,
many pages of documentation
that we went through. But when it all
boiled out to where you're
pushing things forward, it was captured in
three briefings.
WARNER:
In any of this other documentation, or to the extent you
examined other briefings, did
you find a similar pattern of what you
characterize as intentional
deception by virtue of not including
contradictory views?
GIMBLE:
We did not classify anything as intentional deception.
What we just said was it was an omission
that we thought should
have been in there to give
the balance.
WARNER:
So it was an error of judgment, then, by the principals
-- a good-faith error in
judgment...
GIMBLE:
One could categorize...
WARNER:
... or an intentional deception?
GIMBLE:
I wouldn't categorize -- I don't know whether it was
intentional or whether it was
good-faith judgment. That's not my
position and I wouldn't have
a thought on that.
All I can tell you is at the end of the
day when those things
went forward, there was two
sets of facts out there; one of them got
passed over, and it would
happen to be the one that's in the very
community that we look to to
have this kind of information.
WARNER:
I know my time is up. I thank the
chair.
But I do have serious reservations about
the manner in which it
was conducted and the
thoroughness. And I do hope...
LEVIN:
The manner that which was conducted?
WARNER:
The manner in which this investigation was conducted and
the thoroughness of it. And I do hope...
LEVIN:
Well, we will make up for any shortfalls. You can be
very sure. We will take your suggestion that any
shortfalls in this
investigation will be made up
for by this committee.
Mr. Gimble, you talked about three
different presentations.
There were three different
versions of the same presentation, is that
correct?
GIMBLE:
That's what I was referring to.
LEVIN:
All right.
So we -- instead of telling the CIA, when
this assessment was
given to the CIA, that the
Feith operation had, quote, "fundamental
problems with how the
intelligence community is assessing information"
-- that is the title of a
slide which was presented to the White House
-- that slide was left out --
was it not? -- when this assessment was
given to the CIA.
GIMBLE:
It was left out.
LEVIN:
Now, you can say that was a matter of judgment. You can
say that was
unintentional.
It's damn suspicious to me that, if you're
telling the CIA --
you're giving them an assessment
that disagrees in a number of
respects with theirs but
leave out a slide that says that you have
fundamental problems with how
intelligence community is assessing
information and you remove it
when you're talking to the CIA and then
you re-insert it when you
present this same assessment to the White
House, that's mighty bloody
suspicious.
LEVIN:
Now, I know, that's not your job to assess suspicion
or...
GIMBLE:
Suspicion of what?
LEVIN:
Suspicion of intent.
WARNER:
But it was his job to determine under what circumstance
(inaudible) who made the
decision...
(CROSSTALK)
LEVIN:
I agree with -- I couldn't agree with you more. And
we're going to talk to Mister
-- if you haven't asked Mr. Feith why
that was left out -- have
you?
GIMBLE:
I did.
LEVIN:
You did?
GIMBLE:
We did. Yes, sir.
LEVIN:
And what did he say?
GIMBLE:
He said it was left out because it was critical of the
intelligence community.
LEVIN:
Oh, he intentionally left it out.
There you go. How's
that for intention? That's not...
(CROSSTALK)
(UNKNOWN):
Allow the witness to...
LEVIN:
He intentionally let out this slide.
(LAUGHTER)
(UNKNOWN):
Oh, Lord.
(UNKNOWN):
Well, anyway...
LEVIN:
But wait a minute...
WARNER:
Can we have order in this...
LEVIN:
Yes, now, we're going to have order here.
Mr. Gimble, Mr. Gimble, did Mr. Feith say
he intentionally left
out this slide when
presenting this to the CIA?
WARNER:
Can we have the witness that interviewed Feith
address...
LEVIN:
I'll first ask Mr. Gimble, and then he can refer to her
if he wishes. And we will ask her to identify herself.
Mr. Gimble, did Mr. Feith tell you or your
staff that he
intentionally left this slide
out because it was critical of the CIA?
GIMBLE:
He said it was left out because it was critical of the
intelligence community.
LEVIN:
OK. That's all I said.
(UNKNOWN):
Of course.
LEVIN:
Oh, now, it's "of course."
Before there was question
about what's the relevance,
whether it was intentional or not
intentional.
The point is it was intentional.
Now, Mr. Gimble, was this slide reinserted
when this assessment
was given to the White House?
GIMBLE:
It was reinserted.
LEVIN:
All right. Next -- next question.
When the presentation was made, this
assessment was made, one of
the statements that was made
about the meeting in
not? -- in something called
"Summary of Known" -- Known -- "Known Iraq
Al Qaida Contacts" that
2001,
service -- Chief Alani (ph)
meets with Mohammad Atta in April. Flat-
out statement, right? Is that correct? Am I reading correctly from
that slide?
GIMBLE:
Yes, sir.
LEVIN:
All right.
Now, at the same time -- this isn't 2006
-- this is September of
2002, exact same time when
the slide show was being presented to the
White House, was it not true
that the intelligence community, in its
report called "Iraqi
Support for Terrorism," they had assessed that,
quote -- excuse me, I'm sorry
-- January 2003. January 2003 -- that
the CIA assessed that the
most reliable reporting to date cast doubt
on this possibility?
GIMBLE:
Yes, sir.
LEVIN:
Pardon?
GIMBLE:
Yes, sir.
LEVIN:
Thank you.
We're going to have a six-minute round
here, by the way.
Now, the reason we're here -- and that
question was raised, is
why are we here? -- is it not
true that we're here because the then-
chairman of the Intelligence
Committee, Senator Roberts, asked you to
undertake this
investigation? Is that correct?
GIMBLE:
He asked the -- at that time, the inspector general
wasn't me, but he asked our
office to undertake...
LEVIN:
Well, I mean your office.
GIMBLE:
Yes, sir.
LEVIN:
Your office was asked to undertake this investigation by
the Intelligence Committee
chairman, is that correct?
GIMBLE:
That's correct.
WARNER:
Might the record show he was at that time also a member
of this committee. Senator Roberts was a member of both
committees.
LEVIN:
The record will show that.
WARNER:
And as chairman, I was aware and supported his inquiry
on this matter.
LEVIN:
The record will reflect that statement.
Now, I asked you to investigate whether
the policy office
undercut the intelligence
community in its briefing to the White House
with a slide that said there
were fundamental problems with the way
the intelligence community
was assessing the relationship between
and Al Qaida.
And is it true that your report, on page
33, confirms that, in
fact, they did in that manner
undercut the intelligence community?
GIMBLE:
Yes, sir. That's what our report
says.
LEVIN:
The 9/11 Commission report -- this goes to a different
report -- discusses a meeting
of what they called the president's war
council. And it took place at
of 2001, just days after the
9/11 attacks.
LEVIN:
The report states that a Defense Department paper
produced for that meeting,
quote, "argued that
threat to the
terrorism was cited,"
close quote.
Now, a footnote in that 9/11 report cites
-- and again, this is
-- OK, cites a September 14th
Department of Defense -- this is
September 14th, 2001 --
Department of Defense memo from the Feith
office, entitled "War on
Terrorism: Strategic Concept."
That report, according to the 9/11
Commission, was presented to
the president at
Did you review the September 14th, 2001,
DOD memo that was
prepared by Secretary Feith?
GIMBLE:
I do not believe we reviewed that.
LEVIN:
Did you try to review that?
GIMBLE:
I'm just not familiar with that document, Senator.
LEVIN:
All right.
We will ask the secretary of defense for a
copy of the September
14th, 2001, Feith memo which,
according to the 9/11 Commission report,
was discussed at
We will ask that, not of you, but of the
secretary of defense.
My time is up.
WARNER:
Mr. Chairman, could the chair ask that this memorandum
which is in question and that
was read by the witness now be
duplicated and given to the
members of the committee so that, in our
next round, we might have the
benefit of that?
LEVIN:
Absolutely.
WARNER:
I think it would be helpful.
LEVIN:
Do you know which exactly -- what the document that
Senator Warner is talking...
GIMBLE:
Yes, the one I read -- yes, sir, we'll...
LEVIN:
OK.
Senator Chambliss?
CHAMBLISS:
Mr. Gimble, let's go back to this infamous slide
here.
You said that it was omitted from the DCI
briefing because it was
critical of the intelligence
community. Is that correct?
GIMBLE:
That's what Secretary Feith provided us in writing, yes,
sir.
CHAMBLISS:
OK. So he admitted that was the
case.
Now, even without that omitted slide, did
you form a conclusion
that it was very clear, from
the overall content, that the draft
briefing was suggesting
insufficient attention and analysis by the
intelligence community to a
number of intelligence reports on contacts
between
CHAMBLISS:
And is it not also correct that you concluded that
that point was explicitly
made at a subsequent meeting at the CIA on
GIMBLE:
I, kind of, got lost in your question.
CHAMBLISS:
Did you make any conclusion about the content of the
briefing as it related to
contacts between Al Qaida and
without the slide that was
left out of the briefing of the DCI?
GIMBLE:
Senator, we didn't conclude one way or the other.
The only thing we concluded: that there were differences of
opinion that were not
reported and not reconciled. And our
position
was that those differing
opinions, with the consensus of the
intelligence community,
should have been included and they were not
included.
CHAMBLISS:
OK.
Now, with all due respect to my colleague
from
have opinions in this
report. Did you conclude that there was
anything illegal about what
Mr. Feith's office did?
GIMBLE:
We concluded there was nothing illegal.
We also
concluded there was nothing unauthorized.
CHAMBLISS:
And you then went on to conclude that it was
inappropriate. And as I understand what you've said is that
it was
inappropriate because
alternative views were not included --
alternative views within the
intelligence community were not included.
GIMBLE:
That's correct.
CHAMBLISS:
Now, Mr. Gimble, can you tell this committee that
every time the director of
central intelligence gets a briefing, that
every alternative view on the
issue that he's being briefed on is
presented to him?
GIMBLE:
No, sir, I usually don't deal much with the director of
central intelligence.
GIMBLE:
I'm a DOD person, so I can't tell you that.
CHAMBLISS:
Well, let's go to DOD.
Can you tell this committee that every
time the secretary of
defense is briefed on an
issue, that every possible alternative view
is given to him?
GIMBLE:
I certainly cannot.
CHAMBLISS:
Then why are you -- you could criticize every single
briefing that's given to the
secretary of defense? If that's not the
case, could you...
GIMBLE:
We only looked at this one set of briefings; this one
briefing that was presented
in three versions. And we are reporting
what happened on that
briefing.
There were significant disagreements. The disagreements were not
posed and presented at the
same time and we thought that was
inappropriate.
And you're right. I do have an opinion and that was my opinion.
CHAMBLISS:
Lastly, it has been communicated to me that one of
the members of your staff
told a person that was being interviewed
during the course of this
investigation that, because of the political
nature of this inquiry, that
your office was going to have to balance
the results and that the
final report was going to have something for
everyone.
Are you aware of those comments?
GIMBLE:
No, sir, I'm not aware of those comments and I'd be very
interested in who made them
and who they made them to.
CHAMBLISS:
Is it appropriate for your staff to take political
sensitivities into account
when drafting a report?
GIMBLE:
No, sir. We take the facts and we
try to bring them
down to an objective
conclusion, and that's what we did in this
report.
CHAMBLISS:
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
LEVIN:
Thank you very much, Senator Chambliss.
Senator Webb?
WEBB:
Mr. Gimble, I want to clarify something that goes to the
exchange that Senator
McCaskill had with you and Senator Chambliss
just mentioned to you.
My understanding from reading your summary
here is that when
there was a finding of the
inappropriate nature of this activity, it
was not simply that it failed
to mention alternate views, that it was
specifically, as you said --
and I quoted you in the earlier round --
that in some cases -- I think
you were being very careful how you
answered that.
In some cases, this information was being
shown as intelligence
products from an office
that's a policy office rather than an
evaluation, an assessment of
intelligence products.
WEBB:
Was that correct?
GIMBLE:
That's correct.
WEBB:
So it is something more than simply not presenting both
sides. It is a policy office that is not an
intelligence office
presenting information as an
intelligence product.
I want to say something else, too, in
defense of your report to
the extent that it now
exists. There's been a lot of
conversation
here about Mr. Feith. But you specifically said, in a comment to
the
chairman here, that although
Mr. Feith is mentioned in the review,
he's not the subject of the
review. The review is focused on the
organization. I think that's very important for us to
continue to
understand here.
This is not a report that was directed
specifically at Mr. Feith.
It was directed at the
office, the total office -- and, in fact, how
the Department of Defense at
this level was evaluating information and
presenting it in a run-up to
the
Would you agree with that?
GIMBLE:
Senator, I would agree with that.
It was not directed
at any one individual. It was a review of the facts surrounding an
issue, a fairly narrow-scoped
issue. And it's how intelligence is...
WEBB:
I think that's important, from my perspective here, too.
I'm not sitting here in
direct condemnation of one individual. I
had
concerns, as I mentioned,
about how this information was presented.
And Mr. Feith will have to
accept accountability for his part in this,
but this is not directed at
him personally.
And it would seem to me, just from
listening to the exchange --
obviously not having been on
this committee in the preceding years --
that the two agreed upon --
perhaps there are others; my esteemed
senior senator from
glaring weaknesses in this
report seem to be that Mr. Feith was not
interviewed under oath, given
some inconsistencies, and that people
such as Mr. Hadley declined
to be interviewed at all.
WEBB:
Neither of those omissions would seem to argue in favor of
a report that further excused
the conduct in this office.
And, Mr. Chairman, that's all I have to
say.
LEVIN:
Thank you.
Senator Sessions?
SESSIONS:
Well, it seems to me that the only thing that would
justify a conclusion that
you've made would be the briefing to the
national security assistant,
Mr. Hadley.
Because, surely, there's nothing wrong
when a group of people in
the Department of Defense are
going to the secretary of defense and
saying that they're concerned
about the CIA product because they've
left out some things that
they have discovered in their evaluation of
the supporting data. Would you agree?
GIMBLE:
I think internally, in the Department of Defense, it's
OK to have the same views and
have discussion. When you disseminate
those, when you take it out
-- and I would say that when you take an
alternate intel assessment
outside the department...
SESSIONS:
Will you answer my question?
Now, he's going off to something else I
didn't ask, Mr. Chairman.
I asked him was it wrong to
share, and he said it wasn't anything
wrong to share that with the
secretary of defense.
Now, my question is, if you've got a
complaint with the CIA, and
you go and meet with the
director of the CIA and his staff, and you
raise those same complaints,
is anything wrong with that briefing?
GIMBLE:
The next part of that is, though, when he calls together
the community to vet this out
and then you vet it out and then you
carry the briefing further...
SESSIONS:
Well, then you're answering my question.
Is nothing
wrong with saying that to the
CIA director?
(CROSSTALK)
SESSIONS:
And the result of that...
LEVIN:
You allowed him to finish the answer to that question.
SESSIONS:
You can interpret it as you want to, Mr. Chairman. I
see it as a defensive answer,
not responsive to a plain and simple
question.
Go ahead.
GIMBLE:
Well, OK. Let me...
SESSIONS:
Yes or no: Is it OK to brief the
CIA on the problems
you have with their work
product?
GIMBLE:
It is OK to brief. But remember,
he took the chart out
saying they had a
problem. That's the...
SESSIONS:
So we're getting to that.
Now, the next briefing is the one you
complain about, right?
That's the one to the
National Security adviser. And you
contend that
in that briefing he did not
give a full analysis of the CIA's
competing views.
GIMBLE:
That's correct.
SESSIONS:
And I just -- forgive me if I think that's pretty
weak.
I mean, here Mr. Wolfowitz, assistant
secretary of defense, right
after the briefing to the
secretary of defense, said, "We need to meet
with the senior CIA people,
their Middle Eastern analysts. Another
possibility would be for the
director of Central Intelligence to agree
to set a small group of
people with our people to work through these
points on which we can agree
and those we can't agree."
Isn't that a responsible way to deal with
a problem of a very
important issue?
GIMBLE:
It's absolutely a very responsible way.
And when they
did that, and then when they
had the meeting on August the 20th, the
next line of briefing, they
didn't -- they chose to ignore those
things that were discussed.
And then when the points that were made of
disagreement, I think
it would have been
responsible to provide the decision-makers with
that alternate position.
SESSIONS:
All right.
Now, so the next event that occurred was
that they were asked,
these staffers -- as Senator
Warner has pointed out, these are
professionals. You've not doubted their integrity or their
honest
belief in what they discovered.
SESSIONS:
They were asked to go and share this information with
Mr. Hadley and Mr. Libby, and
they presented their information under a
slide entitled,
"Fundamental Problems with How the Intelligence
Community is Assessing
Information."
Now
that seems to me that they are sharing some concerns that
they have with the national
security adviser that he may not be
getting full and complete
information from CIA.
One of these turf, little, battles, but it
important matter
sometimes.
GIMBLE:
And I don't disagree with it.
It would seem to me, though, that if you
were going to make that
presentation, you'd do a
full-blown, "This is one side, this is the
other side."
SESSIONS:
Well, he was presenting the problems, it seems to me
if you read this.
And surely, Mr. Hadley was not unaware
that the CIA consensus
report, presumably, was
different, else he wouldn't be pointing out
what the differences were.
GIMBLE:
I'm not aware of what Mr. Hadley knew or didn't know.
SESSIONS:
This is important because Mr. Hadley -- isn't it true
that Mr. Feith, he didn't
even go to this briefing with Mr. Hadley?
His professionals, these young folks who
dug up this information,
made the briefing. And Mr. Feith contends vigorously -- does he
not?
-- and his staff, that the
purpose of that briefing was not to state
an intelligence estimate, but
to point out problems with the analysis
they were working from. Isn't their defense to your complaint that?
GIMBLE:
Our interpretation of that was, and it's my opinion,
that...
SESSIONS:
Wait a minute, no, now what -- isn't their position?
You stated it earlier.
Isn't it their position that they were not
stating an
intelligence estimate, they
were pointing out problems with a CIA
product?
GIMBLE:
One slide, they made that point.
SESSIONS:
All right. They made that
point. They shared that
with you when you asked them
about what was going on, did they not? I
mean, you said that earlier
in your remarks.
GIMBLE:
We had full access to all information, yes, sir.
SESSIONS:
Mr. Gimble, in your remarks earlier at this meeting,
you indicated that their
concern with your report about whether what
they did was appropriate or
not was that you didn't seem to understand
that they weren't, for many,
presenting an entirely new work product
to the assistant national
security adviser but they were pointing out
problems with the CIA work
product.
GIMBLE:
The reminder that comes to some pretty hard -- pretty
definitive conclusions about
intelligence. So they can say yes. They
can say -- they want to
characterize this as a critique, but it also
is characterized as an
alternate intelligence product...
SESSIONS:
You have concluded that. Now, the
people at the
briefing did not agree with
that, and Mr. Hadley had not been
interviewed.
So how have you made that conclusion?
GIMBLE:
I've got a copy of the report and the briefing. And
we've interviewed the people
that put it together. We've looked at
the degree of disagreement
within the community and how that was
handled. And that's really our issue, is the degree of
disagreement
and how it was handled.
SESSIONS:
I don't see a problem with it. To
me, it's right
(inaudible) then Senator
Levin says that this somehow undercut the
intelligence community. I don't see how it's undercutting the
intelligence community,
correct me if I'm wrong, if you point out
things they left out that
should have been in their analysis and that,
after they made these
references, a number of them were put in that
report, including the Atta --
was the Atta report from the Czech
Republic that he had met with
the Iraqi intelligence group in the CIA
report before it was dug up
by Feith's professional staff?
GIMBLE:
It's been in a number of reports.
The issue there is
that...
SESSIONS:
No.
GIMBLE:
The issue is, that briefing came to some conclusions
that were not supported by
the underlying intelligence community
assessments. That was our point.
SESSIONS:
Well, is there anything wrong with another group going
into Mr. Hadley and saying
we've got some disagreements, we've read
all these documents, we've
found things they've left out, and we're
not in agreement with it?
GIMBLE:
Well, it was not characterized that.
If you look at the
briefing charts, here are the
conditions and conclusions and there's
no thought about where the
same view is.
SESSIONS:
Look, the whole point was that they were raising
concerns with the CIA's
analysis is obviously, is a given, that they
were providing information
that was somewhat in disagreement with
parts of the CIA analysis?
GIMBLE:
Surely. When we were looking in
June, there was a
statement in the CIA reports
that says that this is contradictory.
So...
SESSIONS:
And I'll ask you one more time. I
think it's kind of
important. At the CIA, consensus opinion at the time
this all began
to occur did not include
reference to the Czech Republican matter.
Is
that correct?
GIMBLE:
It's incorrect.
WARNER:
Are we getting testimony from a witness who hasn't been
identified?
LEVIN:
Let's identify the lady to your left please.
GIMBLE:
This is Commander Tammy Harsett (ph).
She's one of our
senior analysts.
LEVIN:
You want to just say whatever you were saying and then
tell us...
WARNER:
She could just grab the other microphone and then both
of you can keep a mike.
Thank you.
We welcome you, Commander. And,
obviously, as a
Naval person, I can see that
you've had quite a distinguished career.
LEVIN:
Can you give us the answer you were giving us, Commander?
HARSETT (ph): Yes, sir.
The reports of the meeting, the Czechs,
before that you were
discussing.
WARNER:
I'm not able to hear.
LEVIN:
Can you talk a little louder, please?
HARSETT (ph): Yes, sir.
The Czech report of the meeting was in
a CIA product in June of
2002, prior to the production of the
briefings.
SESSIONS:
Well, obviously, because it was found by these people
in Mr. Feith's office.
SESSIONS:
But was it in their consensus analysis because they
had some doubt about it?
HARSETT (ph): It was described as being contradictory at
best.
SESSIONS:
In the...
HARSETT (ph): In the June...
SESSIONS:
In the analysis that Mr. Hadley would have had?
HARSETT (ph): I don't know, sir, what Mr. Hadley would have
had.
That was what was in the CIA
product on the 21st of June.
LEVIN:
Of what year? Sorry, what year?
HARSETT (ph): 2002.
SESSIONS:
Well, it's pretty obvious, would not you agree, that
the Feith staff presented,
based -- to Mr. Hadley, information that
came out of either raw
reports or CIA summaries and DIA information,
that put a different context
on some of the matters relating to the
Iraq-Al Qaida connection, or
lack of it?
HARSETT (ph): Yes.
SESSIONS: And I don't see how
that's inappropriate. And I don't
believe they are required to
present the whole CIA conclusion before
you present a contrary
conclusion, when people -- everyone hearing
would have known that this
represented a divergent view from the CIA.
And I think not only has Mr. Feith not
violated a law as you've
found, that he acted with
authority, but I think he acted
appropriately. I when you -- I think, perhaps, we ought to
-- I do
not believe the CIA has an
absolute right and a monopoly on
conclusions about
intelligence.
LEVIN:
Thank you, Senator Sessions.
Senator Warner?
WARNER:
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Could the witness remain that was
testifying? I might have a
question for you. Thank you.
But first, Mr. Gimble, I have the highest
respect for the whole
inspector general
system. I collaborated with the
preparation of the
various bills and so forth to
establish the laws. For the some many
years that I've been on the
committee with our distinguished chairman
-- we're in our 29th year --
we've seen and dealt with many very able
inspector generals.
WARNER:
So in no way am I trying to discredit in any way your
professionalism. But this is such an important case that we
have to
bear down and determine just
what procedure you use and so forth.
Would you say -- and given -- and you've
had a long career. How
many years, Inspector
General?
GIMBLE:
In the Inspector General's Office, I was moved over in
1976, and that was...
WARNER:
You've got to talk -- I'm sorry, but...
GIMBLE:
I've been with the DOD inspector general since the day
it was formed and I was in a
predecessor organization before that, so
I have over 35 years.
WARNER:
Thirty-five years. And we've
dealt together in years
past. And I have a high respect for you
professionally.
Would you regard this as one of the most
important cases that
you've dealt with?
GIMBLE:
I would.
WARNER:
Fine.
Did you personally interview any of the
witnesses, the principal
witnesses, given the
importance and the criticality of this?
GIMBLE:
I did not.
WARNER:
So you delegated all of that to others?
GIMBLE:
Correct.
WARNER:
Secretary Rice was then the head of the security
council. Was she -- her views sought?
GIMBLE:
We didn't attempt to interview her.
WARNER:
Beg your pardon?
GIMBLE:
We did not attempt to interview her.
I just need to make a quick point on --
when we get outside of
the Department of Defense
employees, it's, kind of, if they want to be
interviewed, we can. We don't really have any authority to
interview
anybody outside the
department. So we wouldn't necessarily
have any
authority to interview her.
WARNER:
Well, could you go to others to try and see whether or
not they could induce the
various principals to...
GIMBLE:
We've had some...
WARNER:
Go to the secretary and say, "Mr. Secretary, you're a
part of the department which
you operate. I'd like to interview some
witnesses but I'm having
difficulty. Would you assist me in
getting
those witnesses?"
GIMBLE:
We interviewed a lot of people outside the department,
and got -- without good
cooperation. We just did not attempt to
interview Secretary
Rice.
WARNER:
Did you interview Secretary Wolfowitz?
GIMBLE:
We did.
WARNER:
Now, this very able commander -- your portfolio. You
were detailed to the
Inspector General's Office. Is that
correct?
HARSETT (ph): Yes, sir.
I transferred there.
WARNER:
Now, you did a lot of the interviews and debriefings of
these principals
yourself.
HARSETT (ph): I did several...
WARNER:
A little louder.
HARSETT (ph): Yes, sir, I did...
(CROSSTALK)
WARNER:
I've had a cold, and some of the medicine's impaired the
hearing.
But what's that again?
HARSETT (ph): I did participate in some of the
interviews.
WARNER:
Which ones did you...
HARSETT (ph): None of the principals that you would
expect.
WARNER:
Well, who did the principals?
HARSETT (ph): We had representation from our former team
chiefs,
and also OGC went on several
of those interviews, as well.
WARNER:
So perhaps, Mr. Gimble, you want to clarify, who were
the principals under your
jurisdiction that did the actual interviews
of the principals?
GIMBLE:
Most of the interviews were done by Lieutenant Colonel
Eddie Edge (ph), who is...
WARNER:
Is he present today?
GIMBLE:
He is not.
WARNER:
Fine.
Well, the question that -- wait a minute,
you're getting advice
from your colleague. Did you want to get more information? I hear
him speaking to you. Did you finish your answer?
GIMBLE:
No, sir. We were just talking
about where Eddie was.
WARNER:
I beg your pardon?
GIMBLE:
We were just talking abut where Lieutenant Edge (ph) is.
He's in the process of retiring,
so that's the reason he's not here.
WARNER:
I see.
Well, Commander, let me just ask you a
question.
No one's questioning any patriotism. It seems to me we're
questioning judgment. And the issue was why did certain individuals
make the decision not to make
full disclosure of dissenting
perspectives on these
critical intelligence questions.
Do you agree that's, sort of, the issue
before us this morning?
HARSETT (ph): Why did certain...
WARNER:
I guess my question is, having listened very carefully
-- now, I've seen at least a
dozen exchanges between you and Mr.
Gimble, which is fine. I've occupied that seat in years past, when I
was secretary of the Navy,
and I know you have to rely on staff.
But
it was an unusual number of
consultations.
Do you have any information with which you
could give this
committee to explain why this
material was intentionally withheld in
the various briefings we've
talked about?
HARSETT (ph): I don't think I know anything that would
answer
that question, sir.
WARNER:
All right.
Do you know of any individual within the
staff that might have
knowledge -- Mr. Gimble's
staff -- that could help this committee
understand why certain
materials were deleted during these critical
briefings?
HARSETT (ph): As far as why the fundamental issue slide was
deleted for the DCI brief...
WARNER:
Yes.
HARSETT (ph): ... that I'm certain, because Mr. Feith
submitted
a written statement to us
prior to his debrief, or his interview.
And
in that statement...
WARNER:
Is that the statement that we're referring to today?
HARSETT (ph): No, sir.
Well...
WARNER:
It's another statement?
HARSETT (ph): It's other than what you have in front of you
there, sir.
WARNER:
And this is a document?
HARSETT (ph): Yes, sir.
It's a very...
WARNER:
Does the committee have possession of this document?
HARSETT (ph): Probably not.
But it's unclassified and can be
provided.
WARNER:
Well, do you know where it is?
HARSETT (ph): Yes, sir, it's in our building.
WARNER:
But it is not here in the hearing room today?
HARSETT (ph): No, sir.
WARNER:
Could we have that document?
LEVIN:
Of course.
Are you able to quote from that document?
GIMBLE:
We have that document.
HARSETT (ph): Pretty closely, sir.
And Mr. Feith has said in a number of
different letters, as well,
that the reason that slide
was removed was because it was critical in
tone and it may distract from
the dialogue between the analysts. He
said that more than once, in
writing.
WARNER:
Well, we'll need to explore that, Mr. Chairman.
I think the chair's anxious to go to the
second part of this
hearing. Is that correct?
LEVIN:
We're anxious, but we also have a few additional
questions which we're going
to ask. Each of us can perhaps take a
couple minutes.
First of all, you've made reference to the
fact that the Czechs
reached a conclusion in 2006
that the meeting did not take place, as a
matter of conclusion.
I would urge you to go back, look at the
classified material,
because I think you're wrong
on that. They suggested, or reached a
conclusion, long before 2006,
but it's classified as to when exactly
they did reach it.
So we would ask you to review, for the
record, the time in which
-- the point at which the
Czechs concluded that the meeting did not
exist. This is just a statement and a request.
Secondly, you indicated that at the
meeting following the slide
presentation, that there then
was, I believe, a date where the 26
points were identified -- the
date of that meeting with the CIA
personnel.
LEVIN:
What was the date of that?
GIMBLE:
August the 20th, 2002.
LEVIN:
And the identified the 26 points where they disagreed
with, perhaps half of what
the presentation said. Is that correct?
GIMBLE:
That is correct. But the 26
points were ferreted out
before then. This was the meeting when they came and had
the
discussion immediately after
the briefing with Mr. Tenet.
LEVIN:
OK.
And then after that meeting they had
another meeting. Is that
correct?
GIMBLE:
As a result, when they said, "Let's get this back in the
analytical channels,"
they had his analysts and the policy folks from
Mr. Feith's shop all gathered
up on August the 20th.
LEVIN:
August 20th, and the Feith shop folks were there?
GIMBLE:
Yes, sir.
LEVIN:
And they identified the differences?
GIMBLE:
It's my understanding they discussed the differences.
There were some things they
agreed on, things they didn't agree on.
There were some adjustments made,
and then there was still
disagreement at the end of
the day.
LEVIN:
All right.
Then were those disagreements identified,
presented, in any way
that you know of in the
slideshow that was presented to the National
Security Council?
GIMBLE:
No, sir.
LEVIN:
Now, when you answered my question that the slide
undercuts the intelligence
community by indicated to the recipient of
the briefing that there are
fundamental problems with the way the
intelligence community was assessing
information, you gave as evidence
of the fact that that slide
undercut the intelligence community, you
said, by observing the vice
president's words during an interview in
which he describes a
memorandum that was obtained and published by the
Weekly Standard that was a
memorandum from the undersecretary of
defense, Mr. Feith, to
members of the SSCI -- which is the
Intelligence Committee of the
Senate -- as quote, "your best source of
information."
Is that correct? That was your answer to my question?
GIMBLE:
Yes, sir. That was (inaudible).
LEVIN:
Now, I'm going to put in the record at this time the
statement of Vice President
Cheney that you make reference to.
And here's what he said: "With respect to the general
relationship" -- he's
referring to whether there was one, et cetera,
between Al Qaida and Saddam
-- "on place you ought to go
look," the
vice president said, "is
an article that Stephen Hayes did in the
Weekly Standard. That goes through and lays out in some
detail, based
on an assessment that was
done by the Department of Defense and
forwarded to the Senate
Intelligence Committee some weeks ago.
That's
your best source of
information."
That's significant for a number of
reasons. Number one, that's
what he said was the best
source of information.
LEVIN:
Number two, he described the report of the Feith
operation as an
"assessment." The vice
president, himself, called
that an assessment.
So when there's argument here from some of
my colleagues as to
whether you're correct in
calling that an assessment, it seems to me
it was understood as an
assessment by as high a person as the vice
president of the
something else, but an
assessment.
And what you have told us here today, Mr.
Gimble, is that
intelligence products,
intelligence assessments are supposed to
indicate where there are
disagreements. Is that correct?
GIMBLE:
They are supposed to be vetted and if there are
disagreements...
LEVIN:
They're supposed to be vetted?
GIMBLE:
Right, to reconcile and mitigate any disagreements. But
at the end of the day if
there are disagreements, both points should
be presented.
LEVIN:
Thank you.
Can we, perhaps, each have a few more
questions if you'd like,
Senator Chambliss?
CHAMBLISS:
Sure. Just very quickly, Mr.
Chairman.
Mr. Gimble, let me just go back to this
slide and your answer to
question number eight from Senator
Levin.
Your answer is that: "We believe the slide undercuts the
intelligence community by
indicating to the recipient of the briefing
that there are fundamental
problems with the way that the intelligence
community was assessing
information."
Fact is, Mr. Gimble, that's a very, very
accurate statement, is
it not?
GIMBLE:
I'm sorry, Senator, I was trying to read this.
CHAMBLISS:
In your response to question number eight from
Senator Levin, you say that
the slide that's referenced in that
question "undercuts the
intelligence community by indicating to the
recipient of the briefing
that there are fundamental problems with the
way that the intelligence
community is assessing information."
And now, we know, because of what happened
on September 11, and
because of the intelligence
that was given to the decision-makers
prior to the decision of
whether or not to go into
statement is absolutely
truthful, is it not?
GIMBLE:
I think the statement's truthful, yes.
CHAMBLISS:
There were fundamental problems with the way the
community was assessing
information. Is that right?
GIMBLE:
I don't think that's what our answer says. We were just
saying that the slide that
was put out there, saying that it -- were
fundamental problems.
CHAMBLISS:
But my question is, is that not a very, very accurate
statement that there were
fundamental problems?
GIMBLE:
You can find examples of having problems. I'm not sure
that I can make an overall
assessment of the overall intelligence
processes based on this one
review.
CHAMBLISS:
Let me go back to your comment in response to Senator
Webb, when he asked you as to
whether or not this was an intelligence
product. Are you contending that is actually the case
now, Mr.
Gimble, that the Feith report
was an intelligence product?
GIMBLE:
Yes, sir. I am contending that.
CHAMBLISS:
Well, now, I thought you told us that he did not
gather any intelligence.
GIMBLE:
He didn't, but it was analyzed and disseminated, and
when you do the production,
that results in an intel product.
CHAMBLISS:
And that's what you would consider an intelligence
product?
GIMBLE:
Yes, sir.
CHAMBLISS:
OK.
And, lastly, the commander and you both
stated that you utilize
the Office of General Counsel
to participate in the interview process.
Now, OIG has independent
authority. Why would you go to the
Office of
General Counsel for
assessments?
GIMBLE:
That's our Office of General Counsel.
CHAMBLISS:
I got you. OK.
That's all I have, Mr. Chairman.
GIMBLE:
Thank you, Senator Chambliss.
Senator Sessions?
SESSIONS:
There seem to be implicit in your remarks that there's
some sort of sanctity given
to the CIA conclusions and that to
criticize those or disagree
with those is improper. You're not
saying
that though, are you?
GIMBLE:
No, we're not saying that at all.
It's proper to
criticize, but when you have
a vetted intelligence product and you
have somebody who's doing an
alternate intelligence product, if
there's differences, we think
those should be discussed.
SESSIONS:
All right.
Now, so isn't it true that after the
policy staffers found some
of this information and when
they took it to the CIA, defensive as any
agency is -- and I've been in
the federal government for many years as
a
know people are defensive --
they accepted a good deal of what they
asked them and pointed out to
them, did they not?
GIMBLE:
There was common agreement on issues...
SESSIONS:
They accepted a good deal of what they suggested there
had not been in their
previous reports and estimates.
GIMBLE:
There was 26 points of discussion.
And a little less
than half of them were agreed
to.
SESSIONS:
OK.
So a little bit less than half of these
26, they admitted that
they could have put in there
and would have given a better report, and
they accepted that. Some they didn't accept.
But some of the guys in the Feith shop
disagreed on that. They
thought they should have been
accepted, correct?
GIMBLE:
The points that -- what happened, there was a paper put
together. The analysts went and looked at it, critiqued
it, came up
with 26 points that they had
either agreement on or disagreement on.
And those, the best I can
tell, didn't change any of the Feith
briefings.
SESSIONS:
Well, I'll just draw my own conclusion.
My own conclusion is that they raised a
number of points and that
the CIA admitted a number of
those points were valid and accepted, and
it made the report
better. And the report would not have
been made
better had it not been for
Feith's staff digging into the raw
documents and finding this
information and bringing it forward.
Then I do not see anything unusual that
they would not want to --
when they talked to the CIA
about their disagreements, that they would
not have a slide that said
"Fundamental Problems With how the
Intelligence Community is
Assessing Information" -- I'd say it's just,
sort of, a matter of courtesy
that you might not do that.
But I think, if you have a concern that CIA
is not properly
assessing information, you
should take it to the national security
adviser and maybe be a little
but more explicit when you make that
briefing.
And as I understand the difference in you
-- let me back up.
So you've said they've done nothing
illegal. You said they acted
with authority.
You say that this briefing at the national
security adviser, the
assistant, Mr. Hadley, was
inappropriately done, in your opinion,
because they did not give
both sides of all these issues, and that's
based on, fundamentally, the
slides that you had?
You don't know the exact words these
staffers used?
GIMBLE:
The exact words of the briefing?
SESSIONS:
Yes.
GIMBLE:
I wasn't there.
SESSIONS: All you had was the slides.
GIMBLE:
We got the slides and we got the detail that underlies
the slides.
And the issue is...
SESSIONS:
Wait a minute now, wait a minute now, wait a minute.
So, but you don't know what they said.
GIMBLE:
I was not in the room.
SESSIONS:
But they say to you that the nature of the briefing
was not to present a
counter-case or a counter-substantive analysis of
these issues, but a
fundamental raising of concerns about the CIA
analysis and pointing out
some of the errors they thought the CIA had
made. Isn't that what they say?
GIMBLE:
They say that. They do.
SESSIONS:
That's what they say. OK.
And so I don't know -- surely, the
national security adviser, Mr.
Hadley, the deputy, was aware
that this -- by its very nature of the
briefing, it was more of a
critique and objection to some of the
things in the CIA analysis.
PROTESTER:
(OFF-MIKE)
LEVIN:
Excuse me, excuse me. We will not
allow any additional
outbreaks. I would ask that you now leave. And I'm going to have to
ask whoever did that to
please leave the room now.
SESSIONS:
And I would just say, Mr. Chairman, thank you. I
guess that's the appropriate
thing to do.
But I think there are a group of people
that think that somehow
these staffers were part of
some cabal to start a war for oil or some
such thing as that and that
they weren't committed to the decency and
the -- of America and try to
make country better.
PROTESTER:
(OFF-MIKE)
SESSIONS:
And that they cooked up all of this stuff.
PROTESTER:
(OFF-MIKE)
SESSIONS:
I think your report shows that is absolutely untrue
and that there were basis for
what these issues were raised. These
issues are often in dispute
and difficult to know what the real facts
are.
And we had an open discussion. And the secretary of defense and
the assistant secretary of
defense ordered that they get with CIA and
work out the differences and
discuss them. And I'm sure the results
of that eventually found its
way to policymakers.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
LEVIN:
Thank you, Senator Sessions.
Senator -- I think we'll go back and forth
here now...
(CROSSTALK)
LEVIN:
Senator Webb? You have
additional...
(CROSSTALK)
LEVIN:
Senator Warner?
WARNER:
Let the record reflect my conversation with my colleague
from Virginia was relating to
a state matter, not this hearing. We
rescheduled a meeting that we
have together here today.
LEVIN:
The record will so reflect.
WARNER:
Beg your pardon?
(LAUGHTER)
LEVIN:
The record will now so reflect.
WARNER:
Right.
We keep coming back to this very pivotal
phrase, that you
rendered a professional
judgment that the conduct of certain
principals in the
administration was inappropriate with regard to the
compilation, preparation and
ultimate delivery of briefings.
To what extent in your work did you go down
into the system to
try an find out why they did
this?
WARNER:
Because I still visualize a cadre of very patriotic,
very loyal members of the --
I assume most of them professional staff
of the Department of Defense,
detailed officers from the Defense
Intelligence Agency, and that
that was the team that brought up the
information that came to
Secretary Feith's office.
And did you probe? Did they have knowledge that some of their
conclusions was not being
delivered and, if so, what were their
opinions, why their
principles were not doing this?
In other words, to support your
conclusion, it would seem to me
you would have wound up going
back into the system to find out why
this occurred.
GIMBLE:
Well, let me just characterize it this way.
First off, we weren't looking it
individuals. We were looking at
the end product, the process,
OK?
I agree with you. We have no reason to doubt the
professionalism, the
dedication of all the employees, because we think
they are, and they do things
with good intentions. We have no problem
with it. It's not an issue for us.
What we've reported is that when the
process came up and the
decision came up, there was a
disagreement -- there were known
disagreements on both sides
-- and when it funneled down to go up to
the final presentation to the
policymakers, one side didn't appear in
these briefings.
And we're saying that, in our view, that
that was inappropriate.
It should have been balanced
because you had a non-intel operation
that was doing intel
analysis, and that's probably OK. We
don't have
a problem with it. We thought, because the secretary and deputy
secretary authorized it, that
was fine.
However, you've got the professional
intelligence community, and
then you can say that people
disagree with what they do or don't do.
That's OK too.
We're just saying that when you get the
two fairly different
opinions on a number of
issues going forward to a decision-maker, we
think it's important to have
a balance on that and to do less than
that would be considered...
WARNER:
No, we understand that and you've presented that in your
charts.
But take, for example, the briefing that
was conducted by Mr.
Feith's staff. I have to assume that those who conducted
that
briefing were out of this
cadre of what I call dedicated career
professionals. But they are equally culpable in the sense
that they
didn't present the other
side.
Did you ask why they didn't do it? Were they told not to do it?
Or did they draw on their own
professional expertise and decide not to
do it?
In other words, the wrong -- if it is a
wrong -- alleged by you
was performed by human
beings. Why did they do what they did?
GIMBLE:
I believe that what they did...
WARNER: