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Report: CIA paid Saddam's foreign minister

WASHINGTON, March 22 (UPI) -- The CIA paid Saddam Hussein's foreign minister for information that raises new questions about U.S. pre-Iraq war intelligence, NBC News reported.

The CIA paid more than $100,000 to former Iraqi Foreign Minister Naji Sabri, who privately provided information in 2002 about Saddam's capabilities while publicly denouncing the United States.

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The information turned out to be far more accurate than the CIA believed at the time of a September 2002 meeting brokered by French intelligence agents, sources told NBC.

During the meeting, a Sabri intermediary was accurate in telling the CIA that Saddam had neither a biological weapons program nor the capability to produce a nuclear weapon.

Sabri was inaccurate, however, in asserting that Saddam had leftover stockpiles of poison gas from the Gulf War.

Despite Sabri's information, the CIA in October 2002 asserted that Saddam had an active biological weapons program and had obtained enriched uranium.

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