Bush Knew Iraq Info Was False

[evil zach]

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines03/0710-12.htm


Published on Thursday, July 10, 2003 by CBS News
Bush Knew Iraq Info Was False
by David Martin

Senior administration officials tell CBS News the President’s mistaken claim that Iraq tried to buy uranium from Africa was included in his State of the Union address -- despite objections from the CIA.

Before the speech was delivered, the portions dealing with Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction were checked with the CIA for accuracy, reports CBS News National Security Correspondent David Martin.

CIA officials warned members of the President’s National Security Council staff the intelligence was not good enough to make the flat statement Iraq tried to buy uranium from Africa.

The White House officials responded that a paper issued by the British government contained the unequivocal assertion: “Iraq has ... sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa.” As long as the statement was attributed to British Intelligence, the White House officials argued, it would be factually accurate. The CIA officials dropped their objections and that’s how it was delivered.

“The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa,” Mr. Bush said.

The statement was technically correct, since it accurately reflected the British paper. But the bottom line is the White House knowingly included in a presidential address information its own CIA had explicitly warned might not be true.

Today at a press conference during the President’s trip to Africa, Secretary of State Colin Powell portrayed it as an honest mistake.

“There was no effort or attempt on the part of the president or anyone else in the administration to mislead or to deceive the American people,” said Powell.

But eight days after the State of the Union, when Powell addressed the U.N., he deliberately left out any reference to Iraqi attempts to buy uranium from Africa.

“I didn’t use the uranium at that point because I didn’t think that was sufficiently strong as evidence to present before the world,” Powell said.

That is exactly what CIA officials told the White House before the State of the Union. The top CIA official, Director George Tenet, was not involved in those discussions and apparently never warned the President he was on thin ice.

Secretary Powell said today he read the State of the Union speech before it was delivered and understood it had been seen and cleared by the intelligence community. But intelligence officials say the director of the CIA never saw the final draft.

[WithStamin]

CNN.com
The White House said earlier that the CIA had approved the statement in Bush's State of the Union address that Iraq was planning to buy uranium from Africa.

I've heard from multiple sources that the CIA approved the speech. I guess it just depends on who you trust...

[WithStamin]

ENTEBBE, Uganda — Both President Bush and his national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, on Friday defended the inclusion of suspect material in January's State of the Union address, saying that the entire speech had been cleared by the CIA.

At a press conference with Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni, Bush was repeatedly asked about the faulty intelligence, which seemed to show that Iraq had been trying to obtain uranium from Africa.


"I gave a speech to the nation that was cleared by the intelligence services," Bush said. "And it was a speech that detailed to the American people the dangers posed by the Saddam Hussein regime. And my government took the appropriate response to those dangers. And as a result, the world is going to be more secure and more peaceful."

The controversy centers on a single sentence, one of several in Bush's Jan. 28 speech that detailed charges against the then-Iraqi government: "The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa."

American and British intelligence officials have said they already had been suspicious of the documents the report was based on, and further examination, after both Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair had cited the report, showed at least some of the documents to be forgeries.

Earlier in the day, Rice was more forceful in her defense of the White House's decision to use the material.

According to her, the CIA had mentioned the claim — that Iraq was seeking to buy uranium from the West African country of Niger — in a classified National Intelligence Assessment, which is given periodically to the president.

If CIA Director George Tenet had had any doubts about the truthfulness of Bush's claim in the State of the Union address, "he did not make them known" to the White House.

Speaking to reporters aboard Air Force One during a flight to Uganda from South Africa, Rice said that if Tenet had had an objection, the line would have been removed.

"If the CIA — the director of central intelligence — had said 'Take this out of the speech,' it would have been gone," Rice said. "We have a high standard for the president's speeches."

In fact, Rice added, the CIA did remove from the speech a specific reference to Niger.

On Thursday, senior American officials said that before and after the State of the Union speech, American intelligence officials had expressed doubts about the British report.

The report indicated that Iraq had attempted to buy a significant quantity of "yellow cake" uranium from Niger. But British intelligence personnel were suspicious of the documents the report was based on and alerted British officials.

The doubts were allegedly passed to people at several agencies of the U.S. government before Bush gave his speech.

But Rice said Friday that "the CIA cleared the speech in its entirety."

The agency objected only to the single "yellow cake uranium" sentence, she said. As a result, "some specifics about amount and place were taken out," Rice added.

"With the changes in that sentence, the speech was cleared," she said. "The agency did not say they wanted that sentence out."

Rice added that she was not blaming the incident on Tenet.

Asked whether Bush had confidence in the intelligence agency, Rice replied, "Absolutely."

Rice made the defense of the White House during a 50-minute meeting with reporters. Questions about the allegations in Bush's January speech have followed him on his five-day trip through Africa.

When queried on reports that the CIA expressed concern to the White House about the allegation, she suggested that Tenet should be asked directly.

"The president did not knowingly say anything that we knew to be false," she said. "We wouldn't put anything knowingly in the speech that was false."

Rice noted that after the speech Secretary of State Colin Powell held reservations about the report and chose not to mention the allegations in his presentation to the U.N. Security Council a few days later.

Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., said Friday he was concerned about the reports.

"It is apparent now that one of the statements, and a very important statement made by the president in January, was not technically accurate," he said.

The Congress should be concerned, he said, "if the intelligence agencies come up with reliable information which is then distorted by political operatives at the White House."

The Democratic National Committee this week began running an ad on its Web site calling for an independent investigation into the use of the false information. The ad was planned for later television broadcast.

Rice did say that the State Department's intelligence division considered the uranium-purchasing allegations dubious, and this was also noted in a footnote in the intelligence assessment given to Bush.

Powell, however, did not discuss his misgivings with her or anyone on her staff between the time of the State of the Union address and Powell's presentation to the United Nations, she said.

Other U.S. officials said Thursday that before and after Bush claimed in January that Iraq was seeking uranium in Africa, American intelligence officials expressed doubts about the British intelligence report that Bush cited to back up his allegation.

American news organizations reported Thursday that CIA officials who saw a draft of Bush's speech questioned whether his statement was too strong, given the quality of the British intelligence. But the remark was left in, and attributed to the British.

The reports surfaced as Durbin and other Democrats kept up a drumbeat of criticism of the administration's justifications for going to war.

Much of the criticism has focused on Bush's contention that Saddam Hussein's government had chemical and biological weapons and was working to build more of them and develop nuclear bombs. No such weapons have been found in Iraq.

Critics also have attacked the administration's characterizations of the current outlook in Iraq, where the war's former commander, Gen. Tommy Franks, told a House panel Thursday that U.S. troops likely will have to remain in Iraq for at least one year.

Officials contacted by The Associated Press declined to discuss the nature of discussions between the White House and CIA just before Bush's State of the Union speech. But they noted that the CIA's own assessment before the Iraq war about Saddam's efforts to make weapons of mass destruction did not give strong credence to the British report about Africa.

U.S. officials have said the doubts about the uranium allegations dated back to early 2002, when a retired diplomat asked by the CIA to investigate the reports went to Niger to speak with officials who denied having any uranium dealings with Iraq.

Though the U.S. officials expressed their doubts to the British, the British included their information in a public statement on Sept. 24, 2002, citing intelligence sources, that said Iraq "sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa."

About a month after Bush's speech, the United Nations determined the uranium reports were based primarily on forged documents initially obtained by European intelligence agencies.

[Matthew]

Originally posted by WithStamin
I've heard from multiple sources that the CIA approved the speech. I guess it just depends on who you trust...

But the information is now revealed to be false. So the CIA lied or was wrong. That fact remains unchanged.

[trogdor]

Yeah I read the one that withstamin posted first, so it does depend on who you trust. I wouldn't make a huge fuss over this though, since it wasn't exactly the most crucial part of Bush's argument anyways.

[yeat182]

no where in that article does it say that Bush knew the info was false, only that the CIA gave objections to the National Security Council.

[Charlito Cafe]

Originally posted by cal1082
head of the CIA Tenet says the CIA is to blame

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20030712/ap_on_go_pr_wh/us_iraq&cid=544&ncid=716

Duh, do you think Bush himself is gonna take the fall for this?
What kind of politician would he be if he held himself responsible for the actions of his underlings?