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Key House ally chides Bush for lack of briefing

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WASHINGTON — The chairman of the House Intelligence Committee accused U.S. intelligence chief John Negroponte's office Thursday of downplaying the significance of chemical-weapons finds in Iraq.

Rep. Peter Hoekstra, a Michigan Republican, said in a letter to Negroponte that intelligence officials at a press briefing Wednesday organized by his office misled journalists about the significance of 500 munitions containing mustard and sarin nerve agents discovered since May 2004.

Intelligence officials at the briefing told journalists the weapons predated the 1991 Gulf War, were too degraded to be used as originally intended and posed no threat to U.S. forces deployed in the region during the run-up to the 2003 invasion.

"I am very disappointed by the inaccurate, incomplete, and occasionally misleading comments made by the briefers," Hoekstra said in the letter, a copy of which was released by his office.

"Because this call was organized by your office, I assume that you authorized and were familiar with its content. I would appreciate an explanation and correction of these inaccurate and misleading assertions," he told the national intelligence director.

Negroponte's office was not immediately available for comment.

Lt. Gen. Michael Maples, director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, said Thursday that the U.S. military has found more Iraqi weapons in recent months, in addition to the 500 chemical munitions recently reported by the Pentagon.

He did not specify if the newly found weapons were also chemical munitions. But he said he expected more.

"I do not believe we have found all the weapons," he told the House Armed Services Committee, offering few details in an open session that preceded a classified briefing to lawmakers.

When asked by a Democrat to confirm the weapons pose a risk to troops in Iraq, not Americans at home, Maples said, "Yes."

The 500 weapons, revealed in declassified excerpts of an April report by the Army's National Ground Intelligence Center, have been cited by Republicans including Hoekstra as examples of the weapons of mass destruction the Bush administration used to justify the March 2003 invasion of Iraq.

Democrats say Republicans are using the munitions to shore up voter support for vulnerable Republican incumbents during a midterm election year in which public opinion has soured on the Iraq war.

The White House asserted on the eve of the invasion that Saddam Hussein possessed WMD potent enough to threaten his neighbors and U.S. interests.

U.S. weapons inspectors have officially reported no such weapons have been found in Iraq and that Saddam ceased WMD production after the 1991 Gulf War.

Pentagon officials, including Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, have described the munitions as "weapons of mass destruction," but say the gravest danger they pose would be to U.S. troops in Iraq and Iraqi nationals, if obtained by insurgents.