News-Info-Alerts

To: ALL

From: Andi Wolos & Bob Necci
(POW-MIA InterNetwork)

Re: Bob Smith on Redacted SNIE Report

Date: August 27, 1998

UNITED STATES SENATE
WASHINGTON, DC 20610-2903

Statement by Senator Bob Smith (R-NH)
on Vietnam POW/MIA National Intelligence Estimate

August 27, 1998

"President Clinton has certified to Congress that Vietnam is fully cooperating in good faith on the POW/MIA issue based on all information available to the US Government. The declassified portion of the estimate released this week contradicts the President. There has not been good faith full disclosure by Hanoi.

While I welcome the estimate's judgment in that regard, I must say that I still have very serious concerns with the rest of the estimate. After I convinced National Security Advisor Sandy Berger to order this estimate last year, I received subsequent assurances from CIA Director George Tenet and DIA Director Lt. Gen. Pat Hughes that they would conduct "the most thorough and objective review possible." Instead, in many areas, the final product is not thorough, is not objective, and contains serious analytical flaws.

I have already conveyed some of my concerns personally to John Gannon, the Chairman of the -National Intelligence Council, in a closed-door meeting earlier this summer. Currently, I am preparing my own review of this estimate which will further illustrate its many inaccuracies and shortcomings, and provide additional evidence of Vietnam's continued stonewalling on key POW/MIA issues, such as the documents uncovered in former Soviet archives in 1993. It is my hope that the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence will step up its own review of this estimate in the coming weeks, in view of the Bipartisan concerns raised by that committee last Year."

Sen. Smith serves as US Chairman of the Joint U.S.-Russia Commission on POW/MIA Vietnam War Working Group, and is a senior Member of the Senate Armed Services Committee. He co-chaired the temporary Senate Select Committee on POW/MIA Affairs in 1992.