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Washington DC - CIA director Maxwell Smart testified before congress
today on recent intelligence lapses within the agency. Director Smart's
tenure as head of the agency has been marked with controversy. Among
other lapses, Smart has insisted the Soviet Union was the most powerful
nation on Earth the day before the Berlin Wall fell and that neither
Pakistan nor India had nuclear programs just as they both detonated
nuclear weapons. Below is a transcript of Smart's testimony.
Smart: Senator, Iraq has nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons
and the capacity to attack the United States in 45 minutes.
Senator Clinton: Mister Smart, with almost
a year spent searching for these weapons of mass destruction and
discovering nothing, I
find this hard to believe.
Smart: Would you believe weapons of mass
destruction related program activity?
Senator Clinton: No.
Smart: Would you believe a junior chemistry
set and a guy with a bad cough?
Senator Boxer: Director Smart! This is
an intelligence failure of monumental proportions.
Smart: Well don't tell me that Iraq has
no WMDs at all!
Senator Boxer: Director Smart, Iraq has
no WMDs at all.
Smart: I asked you not to tell me that.
Senator Byrd: It appears that Iraqi scientists
who were just reporting that they had WMDs to
appease Saddam
misled
us.
Smart: Ah, the old pretend-we-have-WMD's-to-confuse-intelligence-and-
appease-the-dictator trick.
Senator Chafee: Director
Smart! Do you realize that you have led the
nation into war
and caused
our nation
to invade another sovereign
state under false pretenses?
Smart: And loving it!
Senator Reid: How could you miss the
possibility that Iraq had no WMDs when
the matter of leading
the country to
war was at stake?
Smart: Missed it by that much.
Senator Nelson: But because of
this war, we have lost all international
credibility
also
hundreds
of billions
of
dollars and thousands upon
thousands of lives. What do you have
to say for yourself?
Smart: Sorry about that chief. Other intelligence failures Smart reported include:
- The loss of surveillance capability resulting from a camera
disguised as a potato chip being eaten by a security guard.
- The lack of human intelligence related to agent 13's inability
to extract himself from a rolltop desk in one of Saddam's
palaces.
- Difficulty interrogating prisoners due to consistent
technical problems with the agency's "Cone of Silence."
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