Former CIA Director George Tenet wrote: “We knew plenty of countries that were working on WMD programs and desperately trying to conceal that fact. But we had no previous experience with a country that did not possess such weapons but pretended that it did. Saddam made a speech in June 2000 in which he said you cannot expect Iraq to give up the rifle and live only with a sword when his neighbor [Iran] has a rifle. After his capture in December [13] 2003, Saddam was asked by George Piro, an FBI Special Agent, what he had meant by that statement. Saddam said that he had two audiences in mind. One was the UN Security Council, as Saddam wanted the disarming of Iraq to be part of a broader disarming of the Middle East. The other audience was Iran. Saddam then said, ‘You guys just don’t understand. This is a rough neighborhood.’ “ [The 15th of the month used for date sorting purposes only.]
– George Tenet with Bill Harlow, At the Center of the Storm, Page 332