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WASHINGTON (AFP) - Months before the Iraq war, Iraq's foreign minister gave the CIA more accurate information about Saddam Hussein's alleged unconventional weapons program than the US agency had, for which he was paid more than 100,000 dollars, a news report said.
Naji Sabri, for a short time beginning with a UN General Assembly in September 2002, was the highest-ranking Iraqi informant on the CIA's payroll. He communicated with CIA officials through an intermediary at a New York hotel room, intelligence sources said to NBC News.
In exchange for 100,000 dollars in "good-faith money," Sabri relayed information about Saddam's actual capabilities that was far more accurate than the proclamations he made at the United Nations and closer to reality than the CIA's estimates.
According to the sources, all of whom requested anonymity, Sabri said Saddam had no significant biological weapons program, wanted a nuclear bomb but needed much more time to build one than the several months the CIA had estimated, and had poison gas left over from the Gulf War.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20060321/pl_afp/usiraqintelligencefm