sisyphusshrugged (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
sisyphusshrugged) wrote2003-07-14 09:58 am
sisyphusshrugged) wrote2003-07-14 09:58 am
O wad some Power the giftie gie us To see oursels as ithers see us!*
I'm putting this behind a cut because it's very, very long.
I love Google News. Just saying.
*Robert Burns, To A Louse
Chicago Sun-Times
Blame Tenet? He's just trying to please his boss
BY MARK BROWN SUN-TIMES COLUMNIST
You almost wonder if you should feel sorry for CIA Director George Tenet, who is taking the blame for President Bush's little pre-war fib to the American people about Iraq trying to buy uranium from Africa, theoretically for use in nuclear weapons.
After all, with all the hooey the Bush administration was spreading around in those days, how was Tenet supposed to know that this was the one questionable assertion where somebody would draw the line?...
I cannot tell a lie: It's all their fault
BY ZAY N. SMITH SUN-TIMES COLUMNIST
News Item: "President Bush refused to take the blame for using flawed data on Iraq's nuclear program in his State of the Union speech, saying the CIA cleared it before it was delivered."
The buck stops there.
Ask not . . .
News Item: "President Kennedy refused to take the blame for the Bay of Pigs invasion, saying the CIA cleared it before it was launched."
Sorry. Made this one up.
Kids, ask your grandpa about the time when presidents took responsibility.
---
The Salt Lake Tribune, syndicated from the Washington Post
Officials hedge on Bush's address blunder
Two top senior Bush administration officials Sunday defended the president's use of British intelligence about Iraq seeking uranium from Africa in his State of the Union address and suggested it might yet turn out to be true.
Appearing on Sunday television shows, National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, both confirmed that the CIA had voiced its doubts about the allegation that was included in a September 2002 British dossier published on Saddam Hussein's weapons programs. But they said the British had sources beyond those of the U.S. intelligence agency and that London continued to stand by its story.
... Rice said on CBS' "Face the Nation" that "it was a mistake about a single sentence, a single data point. And I frankly think it has been overblown."
---
The BBC
Core of weapons case crumbling
BBC News Online world affairs correspondent
Of the nine main conclusions in the British government document "Iraq's weapons of mass destruction", not one has been shown to be conclusively true.
The confusion evident about one of the claims, that Iraq sought uranium from Niger despite having no civilian nuclear programme, is the latest example of the process under which the allegations made so confidently last September have been undermined.
The CIA has admitted that the claim should not have been in President Bush's State of the Union speech.
It turns out that the CIA and the British intelligence agency MI6 passed each other like ships in the night and did not share information.
Correspondents attending a Foreign Office briefing last week were astounded when an official remarked that there had been no duty on Britain to pass its information on Niger, which it obtained from "a foreign intelligence service", to Washington as it was "up to the other intelligence service to do so."
Apparently there is a protocol among intelligence services which could not be broken despite the grave nature of the information and the use to which it was put - in this case, to help justify going to war.
Even a CIA statement of explanation issued late last week was not quite correct.
It said that the President's famous 16 words were accurate in that the "British Government report said that Iraq sought uranium from Africa."
Mr Bush did not in fact simply mention a British "report" on the uranium.
He actually said that the British had "learned" that Iraq had sought these supplies. He therefore hardened up the position...
---
CNN
U.S. in damage control over Iraq
Rice: Disputed charge doesn't change justification for war
The White House is insisting the U.S. president did not manipulate intelligence over Iraq during his now controversial State of the Union address.
CIA Director George Tenet has taken responsibility for allowing a claim that Iraq tried to obtain uranium from Africa to be included in the January speech.
Tenet now says the allegation — based on British intelligence sources — should not have been included.
Some opposition Democrats, however, are accusing President George W. Bush of deliberately misleading the country in order to justify war.
---
Time
Tale Of The Cake
Since March 2002, CIA officials had known the Niger tale wasn't credible. So why did it resurface?
By MITCH FRANK
2001: The Italian government came into possession of half a dozen letters and other documents that purported to show Iraqi officials attempting to buy uranium yellowcake from Niger government officials. In the '80s, Saddam Hussein bought several hundred tons of yellowcake, which can be enriched in gas centrifuges to produce weapons-grade uranium.
2001: The Italians' evidence about Iraq and the uranium yellowcake was shared with both the British and U.S. intelligence officials.
FEBRUARY 2002: The CIA hears from Dick Cheney's office; he wants to know more. The agency sends former ambassador Joseph Wilson to Niger to investigate.
MARCH 2002: After an eight-day trip to Niger, Wilson returns and reports to the CIA that he believes the allegations are "bogus and unrealistic."...
---
The Statesman (India)
White House in drive
Agence France Presse
The White House today launched a damage control drive as it reels from mounting criticism over its use of an erroneous claim that Iraq sought to acquire uranium from Africa for its nuclear program in justifying the war to oust Mr Saddam Hussein.
CIA director Mr George Tenet on Friday took responsibility for the now-discredited allegation in the President’s State of the Union speech in January, but that did little to calm the political storm over the statement, which has taken a toll on President George W Bush’s popularity.
“It is ludicrous to suggest that the President went to war on the question of whether Mr Hussein sought uranium from Africa,” national security adviser Ms Condoleezza Rice said...
---
The Christian Science Monitor
Political arc of a faulty prewar claim
Growing doubts about the US progress in Iraq are feeding the controversy over a line in President Bush's State of the Union speech
By Liz Marlantes | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor
President Bush's State of the Union claim - now discredited - that Iraq tried to purchase nuclear materials from Africa was only one item in a long list of charges making the case for war. But it has sparked one of the biggest political firestorms of Mr. Bush's tenure - which, despite the administration's strenuous efforts to quell it, shows little sign of fading away.
Although CIA director George Tenet has taken responsibility for failing to excise the charge from the president's address, a number of questions remain unanswered, such as why the information was included in the first place, given that Mr. Tenet reportedly had struck a similar line from a presidential speech three months earlier.
And while polls show so far few Americans know much about the incident, the ongoing reverberations have the potential to damage Bush politically on a number of levels...
---
NPR
Sen. Jay Rockefeller: WMD Flap 'Far From Over'
Democrat Calls Rice 'Dishonorable' for Blaming CIA Director
In a conversation with NPR's Steve Inskeep, Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) -- the ranking Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee -- says the White House unfairly made CIA director George Tenet the scapegoat for faulty intelligence on Iraq.
Rockefeller also told Inskeep that National Security Advisor Condoleeza Rice "had to have known" a year before Bush's 2003 State of the Union address that intelligence claiming Iraqi agents were attempting to purchase uranium from African officials was bogus.
Referring to recent White House and CIA statements meant to defuse the controversy, Rockefeller said, "I think it raises more questions than it settles, and I think it's far from over.
"I cannot believe that Condi Rice... directly, from Africa, pointed the finger at George Tenet, when she had known -- had to have known -- a year before the State of the Union."
"The entire intelligence community has been very skeptical about this from the very beginning," Rockefeller says. "And she has her own director of intelligence, she has her own Iraq and Africa specialists, and it's just beyond me that she didn't know about this, and that she has decided to make George Tenet the fall person. I think it's dishonorable."...
---
Bangkok Post
CIA `blocked comments on Niger'
Agency stepped in to stop Bush using claim
The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) intervened in October of last year to prevent United States President George W. Bush from making a reference to Iraq seeking uranium from Niger, senior US officials said yesterday.
Three months earlier, a less specific reference to the same intelligence was used in President George W. Bush's State of the Union address in January, although CIA Director George Tenet had argued it should not be used because it came from only a single source, a senior official reportedly said.
Another senior official with knowledge of the intelligence said the CIA had doubts about the accuracy of the documents underlying the allegations, which turned out to be forged.
It is unclear why Mr Tenet had personally intervened to prevent the intelligence about Niger being cited in the earlier presidential speech but did not do so again for the State of the Union address in January...
---
Reuters
Bush Aides Seek to Put Out Credibility Firestorm
By Thomas Ferraro
Top aides to President Bush insisted on Sunday he did not hype Iraq's suspected weapons of mass destruction as they sought to put out a political firestorm ignited by a disputed statement he made in his case for war.
But questions about Bush's credibility persisted, threatening to further erode public support for the U.S.-led occupation of Iraq and create more difficulty at home for U.S. ally British Prime Minister Tony Blair.
Appearing on Sunday television shows, national security adviser Condoleezza Rice and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld repeated that it was a mistake for Bush to cite in his State of the Union address a British finding -- one that U.S. intelligence has been unable to confirm -- that former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein sought to buy uranium from Africa for Iraq's nuclear program.
The White House first acknowledged the error last week. CIA Director George Tenet accepted responsibility, saying his agency should not have signed off on the one-sentence inclusion in the president's speech last January.
But Rice and Rumsfeld brushed off suggestions Bush had manipulated intelligence in making his case for war...
---
The Age (Australia)
CIA axed earlier Iraq nuclear claim
By Walter Pincus, Mike Allen
CIA director George Tenet removed a reference to Iraq seeking uranium from Niger from a presidential speech last October, three months before President George Bush referred to the same intelligence report in the State of the Union address, according to senior Bush Administration officials.
Mr Tenet argued personally to White House officials that the material should not be used because it came from just one source, according to a senior official.
Another senior official said the CIA had doubts about the accuracy of the documents underlying the allegation. They were later found to be forgeries.
The new disclosure suggests how eager the White House was in January to make Iraq's nuclear program a part of its case against Saddam Hussein even in the face of earlier objections by its own CIA director.
It also appears to raise questions about the Administration's explanation of how the false allegations came to be included in the State of the Union speech.
---
News24
Uranium debacle deepens
The CIA struck a reference to Iraq seeking to buy nuclear materials from Niger from a presidential speech in October 2002, three months before President George W. Bush mentioned it in his State of the Union address, the Washington Post reported on Sunday.
CIA Director George Tenet, who Friday took responsibility for use of the now-discredited allegation in the president's January 2003 speech, intervened personally with White House officials to have the reference deleted in October, the newspaper said.
Tenet argued that the allegation, contained in a September 2002 intelligence briefing, should not be used because it came from only a single source, a senior administration official told the Post...
---
Toronto Star
Al Qaeda claims exaggerated: analysts
Intelligence unable to find connection
'No significant pattern of co-operation' U.S. overplayed links, analysts say
NICOLAAS VAN RIJN
STAFF REPORTER
A new firestorm of controversy threatens to engulf U.S. President George W. Bush after senior American intelligence analysts accused the administration of trying to justify the war against Iraq by overplaying links between Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda. The charge comes just as Bush finds himself under increasing fire for overplaying another assertion Ñ that the Iraqi leader was attempting to buy uranium in Africa as part of a program to develop nuclear weapons.
On Friday, Bush retreated from his uranium claim and blamed the Central Intelligence Agency for misinforming him; hours later, CIA Director George Tenet stepped forward to shoulder the blame.
However, the Washington Post reported today that Tenet successfully intervened with White House officials to remove a reference to Niger in a speech...
---
St Augustine Record, via AP
Laying blame
Bush, Tenet say CIA cleared erroneous claim about Iraq deal
By JOHN SOLOMON
Associated Press Writer
Before and after President Bush claimed in January that Iraq was seeking uranium in Africa, U.S. intelligence officials expressed doubts about the British intelligence report that Bush cited to back up his allegation, senior U.S. officials said.
Those doubts were relayed to British officials before they made them public and across several agencies of the federal government before Bush gave his State of the Union speech, the officials said.
CBS, ABC and CNN reported Thursday that CIA officials who saw a draft of Bush's speech even questioned whether his statement was too strong given the quality of the British intelligence. But the remark was left in, provided it was attributed to the British.
---
The Daily Telegram (MI)
War mongers or just lazy?
Commentary by Dan Meisler
America is either populated with lazy people with attention spans shorter than that of a mouse, or we are a war-mongering country so intent on flexing our military muscle that we don't need any real justification.
Those are the only two conclusions possible considering the collective reaction of the country to the disclosure that a key assertion of the Bush administration leading up to the war in Iraq -- that Saddam recently tried to obtain uranium for nuclear weapons from the African country of Niger -- is based on forged documents and is completely false. Worse, the assertion was known by many in the intelligence community to be false before President Bush made it in his State of the Union address in January.
---
The Baltimore Sun
Smoke and mirrors?
Originally published July 13, 2003
THE ADMISSION by the Bush administration last week that the president was wrong in his State of the Union address when he said Iraq was pursuing development of nuclear weapons would have been troubling enough, given that the assertion was one of the reasons American and British soldiers were sent to war some two months later.
But far more troubling is that it is only the most recently discovered among a pattern of unsubstantiated claims by President Bush and his administration -- claims that taken together were responsible for this country's entry into a deadly, expensive, protracted and perhaps unnecessary conflict.
As everyone tiptoes around the word "lies" -- and well they should, for it is a harsh and unforgiving characterization when applied to the president of the United States -- there can be no doubt that this administration has practiced the art of misinformation and obfuscation in ways far more egregious than any in recent memory...
---
The Minnesota Daily
Discredited assertions regarding uranium sales to Iraq are beginning to dog the Bush administration
By John Troyer
The President has moved on,” White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said to reporters at a news conference on Saturday when asked about the continuing attention being given to false intelligence information used in President George W. Bush’s January State of the Union Address. I take Fleischer at his word - the president really, really wants to stifle any scrutiny directed towards the administration’s use of intelligence information before occupying Iraq. I do not think, however, moving on is going to be so easy for President Bush, Vice President Cheney or senior White House officials. Even though a statement released last Friday by CIA Director George Tenet takes responsibility for allowing information about uranium sales between Africa and Iraq to appear in the State of the Union Address, I think the Bush administration’s problems are just beginning.
---
Hartford Courant (via Newsday)
CIA Doubted Key Report
By Knut Royce, WASHINGTON BUREAU
The CIA "from day one" was highly skeptical of reports that Iraq had been shopping for uranium ore in Africa, and the State Department also was highly suspicious, according to intelligence officials.
A key reason for the CIA's skepticism, according to a senior intelligence officer, was, "What do they need this [the ore] for? They've got tons of it already in Iraq."
Yet in an October National Intelligence Estimate, the CIA understated its suspicions while the State Department, in a lengthy dissent in back of the 80-page report, concluded that the claims were probably bogus, the intelligence officials said. It was that document the White House says it relied on for a passage in President George W. Bush's State of the Union address in January.
---
The Globe and Mail (Canada)
Bush blames own spies for Iraq uranium claims
By PAUL KORING
Seeking to avert a credibility meltdown that could pose the first serious threat to his presidency, George W. Bush blamed his own spies yesterday, saying they had approved a now-discredited claim that Iraq tried to buy uranium for a nuclear-weapons program.
Mr. Bush and some of his top cabinet members fought a spirited rearguard action for a second day as their tour of Africa - designed to boost the U.S. President's image - was again overshadowed by the weapons brouhaha...
---
Palm Beach Post
Pre-war assertions false; what about the postwar?
Palm Beach Post Editorial
For all of President Bush's talk about Iraq's alleged biological and chemical weapons, he had not sold doubters in the United States, much less the rest of the world, on his plan to invade. So Mr. Bush upped the ante in his Jan. 28 State of the Union speech. Saddam Hussein, he said, had "sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa" to restart Iraq's nuclear weapons program.
But a CIA representative sent last year to Niger to investigate had told Vice President Dick Cheney what the CIA and State Department already knew -- that the claim was bogus, based on forged documents. This week, the administration admitted that the accusation was false but tried to duck responsibility for making it. Secretary of State Colin Powell said allegations that Mr. Bush misled Congress and the country are "overwrought and overblown." He said, "There was sufficient evidence floating around at the time that such a statement was not totally outrageous." Yet Mr. Powell did not make the Iraq uranium-shopping claim in his own Feb. 5 speech to the United Nations because the information "was not standing the test of time."
In fact, most of the administration's statements about Iraq aren't holding up...
---
Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Tenet accepts CIA blame for Bush Iraq allegation
By BOB DEANS
Atlanta Journal-Constitution Staff Writer
CIA Director George Tenet accepted blame Friday for the erroneous charge President Bush made in his State of the Union speech that Baghdad had sought nuclear weapons material from Africa.
But Tenet also said the agency had tried to warn the White House the information was questionable.
"These 16 words should never have been included in the text written for the president," Tenet said in a carefully worded statement issued from CIA headquarters.
Bush earlier in the day told reporters traveling with him on a visit to Africa that intelligence agencies had approved the speech in advance.
Tenet said CIA officials had repeatedly warned the administration "about the fragmentary nature" of the intelligence behind the allegation.
He conceded he should have been more forceful in insisting that Bush not include the charge in his speech...
---
CNN
Dean: Bush's 'intelligence-handling a disaster'
The White House said a claim in the president's State of the Union address that Iraq sought large quantities of uranium in Africa was not accurate.
CIA Director George Tenet issued a statement late Friday saying his agency made a mistake in clearing the language in the president's speech.
Democrats have stepped up their criticism of Bush in recent days over the statement and the president's reasons for going to war.
CNN congressional correspondent Jonathan Karl talked to Democratic presidential candidate Howard Dean about the dispute Friday before Tenet's statement was released:
KARL: The president and his national security adviser are saying that the CIA, and George Tenet specifically, cleared this speech and signed off on it. Does that get the president off the hook?
DEAN: We don't know that. The fact is that [former U.S.] Ambassador [to Niger Joseph] Wilson, in a public statement in The New York Times, has indicated that his report showing that there was no involvement between Niger and Iraq in terms of the uranium deal went to the office of the vice president, the secretary of state and the CIA. So I don't know what the president knew and when the president knew it, but I know that this intelligence-handling is a disaster for the administration at best, and either no one got to the secretary of defense or the president, or his own senior advisors withheld information.
So this is a serious credibility problem, and it's a lot deeper than just the Iraq-Niger deal, it has to do with assertions by the secretary of defense that he knew where weapons were that turned out not to be there, it has to do with assertions by the vice president there was a nuclear program that turned out not to exist, and assertions made by the president himself, not just about the acquisition of uranium, but also about the ability of [deposed Iraqi President] Saddam [Hussein] to use chemical weapons on the United States. We need a full-blown public investigation not held in Congress but by an outside bipartisan commission...
---
The Guardian (UK)
White House turns on CIA over uranium claim
Richard Norton-Taylor
The CIA and the White House were embroiled in a dispute yesterday concerning the allegation that Iraq was trying to buy uranium from Niger to build nuclear weapons.
The information was passed to Washington by MI6. President George Bush cited British intelligence when he included it in his state of the union address in January to argue the case for war.
It emerged this week that the CIA had independently concluded it was false but did not inform the White House.
Yesterday Condoleezza Rice, Mr Bush's national security adviser, put further pressure on the CIA. She insisted the agency had cleared the claim in the president's speech. If CIA director, George Tenet, had any misgivings, "he did not make them known".
Ms Rice was responding to reports in the US media that the CIA had questioned the British claims that Iraq was seeking uranium from the African country and suggested it should be excluded from Mr Bush's address to Congress.
The Washington Post said the CIA had also tried, unsuccessfully, to persuade the British government to drop the claims. It sent Joe Wilson, a former diplomat to Niger, to investigate the matter. He concluded it was false...
---
The New York Times
The Uranium Fiction
We're glad that someone in Washington has finally taken responsibility for letting President Bush make a false accusation about Saddam Hussein's nuclear weapons program in the State of the Union address last January, but the matter will not end there. George Tenet, the director of central intelligence, stepped up to the issue yesterday when he said the C.I.A. had approved Mr. Bush's speech and failed to advise him to drop the mistaken charge that Iraq had recently tried to import significant quantities of uranium from an African nation, later identified as Niger. Now the American people need to know how the accusation got into the speech in the first place, and whether it was put there with an intent to deceive the nation. The White House has a lot of explaining to do.
So far, the administration's handling of this important = and politically explosive - issue has mostly involved a great deal of finger-pointing instead of an exacting reconstruction of events and an acceptance of blame by all those responsible. Mr. Bush himself engaged in the free-for-all yesterday while traveling in Africa when he said his speech had been "cleared by the intelligence services." That led within a few hours to Mr. Tenet's mea culpa.
It is clear, however, that much more went into this affair than the failure of the C.I.A. to pounce on the offending 16 words in Mr. Bush's speech. A good deal of information already points to a willful effort by the war camp in the administration to pump up an accusation that seemed shaky from the outset and that was pretty well discredited long before Mr. Bush stepped into the well of the House of Representatives last January.
---
The Independent (UK)
Did CIA warn UK to drop Niger claim?
By Andrew Buncombe in Washington and Ben Russell
The Government was accused yesterday of refusing a request from the CIA to drop references to Iraq's alleged efforts to buy uranium from Africa in its dossier of "evidence", despite the US agency warning that the claim could not be substantiated.
US officials said that last September as Tony Blair was discussing Iraq with George Bush at Camp David senior figures in the CIA tried to persuade Britain not to include the claim. The officials said Britain ignored the request, stating Saddam Hussein "sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa". A senior Bush administration official said: "We consulted about the paper and recommended against using that material."...
I love Google News. Just saying.
*Robert Burns, To A Louse
Chicago Sun-Times
Blame Tenet? He's just trying to please his boss
BY MARK BROWN SUN-TIMES COLUMNIST
You almost wonder if you should feel sorry for CIA Director George Tenet, who is taking the blame for President Bush's little pre-war fib to the American people about Iraq trying to buy uranium from Africa, theoretically for use in nuclear weapons.
After all, with all the hooey the Bush administration was spreading around in those days, how was Tenet supposed to know that this was the one questionable assertion where somebody would draw the line?...
I cannot tell a lie: It's all their fault
BY ZAY N. SMITH SUN-TIMES COLUMNIST
News Item: "President Bush refused to take the blame for using flawed data on Iraq's nuclear program in his State of the Union speech, saying the CIA cleared it before it was delivered."
The buck stops there.
Ask not . . .
News Item: "President Kennedy refused to take the blame for the Bay of Pigs invasion, saying the CIA cleared it before it was launched."
Sorry. Made this one up.
Kids, ask your grandpa about the time when presidents took responsibility.
---
The Salt Lake Tribune, syndicated from the Washington Post
Officials hedge on Bush's address blunder
Two top senior Bush administration officials Sunday defended the president's use of British intelligence about Iraq seeking uranium from Africa in his State of the Union address and suggested it might yet turn out to be true.
Appearing on Sunday television shows, National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, both confirmed that the CIA had voiced its doubts about the allegation that was included in a September 2002 British dossier published on Saddam Hussein's weapons programs. But they said the British had sources beyond those of the U.S. intelligence agency and that London continued to stand by its story.
... Rice said on CBS' "Face the Nation" that "it was a mistake about a single sentence, a single data point. And I frankly think it has been overblown."
---
The BBC
Core of weapons case crumbling
BBC News Online world affairs correspondent
Of the nine main conclusions in the British government document "Iraq's weapons of mass destruction", not one has been shown to be conclusively true.
The confusion evident about one of the claims, that Iraq sought uranium from Niger despite having no civilian nuclear programme, is the latest example of the process under which the allegations made so confidently last September have been undermined.
The CIA has admitted that the claim should not have been in President Bush's State of the Union speech.
The British Government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa --- President George W Bush in State of the Union address
It turns out that the CIA and the British intelligence agency MI6 passed each other like ships in the night and did not share information.
Correspondents attending a Foreign Office briefing last week were astounded when an official remarked that there had been no duty on Britain to pass its information on Niger, which it obtained from "a foreign intelligence service", to Washington as it was "up to the other intelligence service to do so."
Apparently there is a protocol among intelligence services which could not be broken despite the grave nature of the information and the use to which it was put - in this case, to help justify going to war.
Even a CIA statement of explanation issued late last week was not quite correct.
It said that the President's famous 16 words were accurate in that the "British Government report said that Iraq sought uranium from Africa."
Mr Bush did not in fact simply mention a British "report" on the uranium.
He actually said that the British had "learned" that Iraq had sought these supplies. He therefore hardened up the position...
---
CNN
U.S. in damage control over Iraq
Rice: Disputed charge doesn't change justification for war
The White House is insisting the U.S. president did not manipulate intelligence over Iraq during his now controversial State of the Union address.
CIA Director George Tenet has taken responsibility for allowing a claim that Iraq tried to obtain uranium from Africa to be included in the January speech.
Tenet now says the allegation — based on British intelligence sources — should not have been included.
Some opposition Democrats, however, are accusing President George W. Bush of deliberately misleading the country in order to justify war.
---
Time
Tale Of The Cake
Since March 2002, CIA officials had known the Niger tale wasn't credible. So why did it resurface?
By MITCH FRANK
2001: The Italian government came into possession of half a dozen letters and other documents that purported to show Iraqi officials attempting to buy uranium yellowcake from Niger government officials. In the '80s, Saddam Hussein bought several hundred tons of yellowcake, which can be enriched in gas centrifuges to produce weapons-grade uranium.
2001: The Italians' evidence about Iraq and the uranium yellowcake was shared with both the British and U.S. intelligence officials.
FEBRUARY 2002: The CIA hears from Dick Cheney's office; he wants to know more. The agency sends former ambassador Joseph Wilson to Niger to investigate.
MARCH 2002: After an eight-day trip to Niger, Wilson returns and reports to the CIA that he believes the allegations are "bogus and unrealistic."...
---
The Statesman (India)
White House in drive
Agence France Presse
The White House today launched a damage control drive as it reels from mounting criticism over its use of an erroneous claim that Iraq sought to acquire uranium from Africa for its nuclear program in justifying the war to oust Mr Saddam Hussein.
CIA director Mr George Tenet on Friday took responsibility for the now-discredited allegation in the President’s State of the Union speech in January, but that did little to calm the political storm over the statement, which has taken a toll on President George W Bush’s popularity.
“It is ludicrous to suggest that the President went to war on the question of whether Mr Hussein sought uranium from Africa,” national security adviser Ms Condoleezza Rice said...
---
The Christian Science Monitor
Political arc of a faulty prewar claim
Growing doubts about the US progress in Iraq are feeding the controversy over a line in President Bush's State of the Union speech
By Liz Marlantes | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor
President Bush's State of the Union claim - now discredited - that Iraq tried to purchase nuclear materials from Africa was only one item in a long list of charges making the case for war. But it has sparked one of the biggest political firestorms of Mr. Bush's tenure - which, despite the administration's strenuous efforts to quell it, shows little sign of fading away.
Although CIA director George Tenet has taken responsibility for failing to excise the charge from the president's address, a number of questions remain unanswered, such as why the information was included in the first place, given that Mr. Tenet reportedly had struck a similar line from a presidential speech three months earlier.
And while polls show so far few Americans know much about the incident, the ongoing reverberations have the potential to damage Bush politically on a number of levels...
---
NPR
Sen. Jay Rockefeller: WMD Flap 'Far From Over'
Democrat Calls Rice 'Dishonorable' for Blaming CIA Director
In a conversation with NPR's Steve Inskeep, Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) -- the ranking Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee -- says the White House unfairly made CIA director George Tenet the scapegoat for faulty intelligence on Iraq.
Rockefeller also told Inskeep that National Security Advisor Condoleeza Rice "had to have known" a year before Bush's 2003 State of the Union address that intelligence claiming Iraqi agents were attempting to purchase uranium from African officials was bogus.
Referring to recent White House and CIA statements meant to defuse the controversy, Rockefeller said, "I think it raises more questions than it settles, and I think it's far from over.
"I cannot believe that Condi Rice... directly, from Africa, pointed the finger at George Tenet, when she had known -- had to have known -- a year before the State of the Union."
"The entire intelligence community has been very skeptical about this from the very beginning," Rockefeller says. "And she has her own director of intelligence, she has her own Iraq and Africa specialists, and it's just beyond me that she didn't know about this, and that she has decided to make George Tenet the fall person. I think it's dishonorable."...
---
Bangkok Post
CIA `blocked comments on Niger'
Agency stepped in to stop Bush using claim
The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) intervened in October of last year to prevent United States President George W. Bush from making a reference to Iraq seeking uranium from Niger, senior US officials said yesterday.
Three months earlier, a less specific reference to the same intelligence was used in President George W. Bush's State of the Union address in January, although CIA Director George Tenet had argued it should not be used because it came from only a single source, a senior official reportedly said.
Another senior official with knowledge of the intelligence said the CIA had doubts about the accuracy of the documents underlying the allegations, which turned out to be forged.
It is unclear why Mr Tenet had personally intervened to prevent the intelligence about Niger being cited in the earlier presidential speech but did not do so again for the State of the Union address in January...
---
Reuters
Bush Aides Seek to Put Out Credibility Firestorm
By Thomas Ferraro
Top aides to President Bush insisted on Sunday he did not hype Iraq's suspected weapons of mass destruction as they sought to put out a political firestorm ignited by a disputed statement he made in his case for war.
But questions about Bush's credibility persisted, threatening to further erode public support for the U.S.-led occupation of Iraq and create more difficulty at home for U.S. ally British Prime Minister Tony Blair.
Appearing on Sunday television shows, national security adviser Condoleezza Rice and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld repeated that it was a mistake for Bush to cite in his State of the Union address a British finding -- one that U.S. intelligence has been unable to confirm -- that former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein sought to buy uranium from Africa for Iraq's nuclear program.
The White House first acknowledged the error last week. CIA Director George Tenet accepted responsibility, saying his agency should not have signed off on the one-sentence inclusion in the president's speech last January.
But Rice and Rumsfeld brushed off suggestions Bush had manipulated intelligence in making his case for war...
---
The Age (Australia)
CIA axed earlier Iraq nuclear claim
By Walter Pincus, Mike Allen
CIA director George Tenet removed a reference to Iraq seeking uranium from Niger from a presidential speech last October, three months before President George Bush referred to the same intelligence report in the State of the Union address, according to senior Bush Administration officials.
Mr Tenet argued personally to White House officials that the material should not be used because it came from just one source, according to a senior official.
Another senior official said the CIA had doubts about the accuracy of the documents underlying the allegation. They were later found to be forgeries.
The new disclosure suggests how eager the White House was in January to make Iraq's nuclear program a part of its case against Saddam Hussein even in the face of earlier objections by its own CIA director.
It also appears to raise questions about the Administration's explanation of how the false allegations came to be included in the State of the Union speech.
---
News24
Uranium debacle deepens
The CIA struck a reference to Iraq seeking to buy nuclear materials from Niger from a presidential speech in October 2002, three months before President George W. Bush mentioned it in his State of the Union address, the Washington Post reported on Sunday.
CIA Director George Tenet, who Friday took responsibility for use of the now-discredited allegation in the president's January 2003 speech, intervened personally with White House officials to have the reference deleted in October, the newspaper said.
Tenet argued that the allegation, contained in a September 2002 intelligence briefing, should not be used because it came from only a single source, a senior administration official told the Post...
---
Toronto Star
Al Qaeda claims exaggerated: analysts
Intelligence unable to find connection
'No significant pattern of co-operation' U.S. overplayed links, analysts say
NICOLAAS VAN RIJN
STAFF REPORTER
A new firestorm of controversy threatens to engulf U.S. President George W. Bush after senior American intelligence analysts accused the administration of trying to justify the war against Iraq by overplaying links between Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda. The charge comes just as Bush finds himself under increasing fire for overplaying another assertion Ñ that the Iraqi leader was attempting to buy uranium in Africa as part of a program to develop nuclear weapons.
On Friday, Bush retreated from his uranium claim and blamed the Central Intelligence Agency for misinforming him; hours later, CIA Director George Tenet stepped forward to shoulder the blame.
However, the Washington Post reported today that Tenet successfully intervened with White House officials to remove a reference to Niger in a speech...
---
St Augustine Record, via AP
Laying blame
Bush, Tenet say CIA cleared erroneous claim about Iraq deal
By JOHN SOLOMON
Associated Press Writer
Before and after President Bush claimed in January that Iraq was seeking uranium in Africa, U.S. intelligence officials expressed doubts about the British intelligence report that Bush cited to back up his allegation, senior U.S. officials said.
Those doubts were relayed to British officials before they made them public and across several agencies of the federal government before Bush gave his State of the Union speech, the officials said.
CBS, ABC and CNN reported Thursday that CIA officials who saw a draft of Bush's speech even questioned whether his statement was too strong given the quality of the British intelligence. But the remark was left in, provided it was attributed to the British.
---
The Daily Telegram (MI)
War mongers or just lazy?
Commentary by Dan Meisler
America is either populated with lazy people with attention spans shorter than that of a mouse, or we are a war-mongering country so intent on flexing our military muscle that we don't need any real justification.
Those are the only two conclusions possible considering the collective reaction of the country to the disclosure that a key assertion of the Bush administration leading up to the war in Iraq -- that Saddam recently tried to obtain uranium for nuclear weapons from the African country of Niger -- is based on forged documents and is completely false. Worse, the assertion was known by many in the intelligence community to be false before President Bush made it in his State of the Union address in January.
---
The Baltimore Sun
Smoke and mirrors?
Originally published July 13, 2003
THE ADMISSION by the Bush administration last week that the president was wrong in his State of the Union address when he said Iraq was pursuing development of nuclear weapons would have been troubling enough, given that the assertion was one of the reasons American and British soldiers were sent to war some two months later.
But far more troubling is that it is only the most recently discovered among a pattern of unsubstantiated claims by President Bush and his administration -- claims that taken together were responsible for this country's entry into a deadly, expensive, protracted and perhaps unnecessary conflict.
As everyone tiptoes around the word "lies" -- and well they should, for it is a harsh and unforgiving characterization when applied to the president of the United States -- there can be no doubt that this administration has practiced the art of misinformation and obfuscation in ways far more egregious than any in recent memory...
---
The Minnesota Daily
Discredited assertions regarding uranium sales to Iraq are beginning to dog the Bush administration
By John Troyer
The President has moved on,” White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said to reporters at a news conference on Saturday when asked about the continuing attention being given to false intelligence information used in President George W. Bush’s January State of the Union Address. I take Fleischer at his word - the president really, really wants to stifle any scrutiny directed towards the administration’s use of intelligence information before occupying Iraq. I do not think, however, moving on is going to be so easy for President Bush, Vice President Cheney or senior White House officials. Even though a statement released last Friday by CIA Director George Tenet takes responsibility for allowing information about uranium sales between Africa and Iraq to appear in the State of the Union Address, I think the Bush administration’s problems are just beginning.
---
Hartford Courant (via Newsday)
CIA Doubted Key Report
By Knut Royce, WASHINGTON BUREAU
The CIA "from day one" was highly skeptical of reports that Iraq had been shopping for uranium ore in Africa, and the State Department also was highly suspicious, according to intelligence officials.
A key reason for the CIA's skepticism, according to a senior intelligence officer, was, "What do they need this [the ore] for? They've got tons of it already in Iraq."
Yet in an October National Intelligence Estimate, the CIA understated its suspicions while the State Department, in a lengthy dissent in back of the 80-page report, concluded that the claims were probably bogus, the intelligence officials said. It was that document the White House says it relied on for a passage in President George W. Bush's State of the Union address in January.
---
The Globe and Mail (Canada)
Bush blames own spies for Iraq uranium claims
By PAUL KORING
Seeking to avert a credibility meltdown that could pose the first serious threat to his presidency, George W. Bush blamed his own spies yesterday, saying they had approved a now-discredited claim that Iraq tried to buy uranium for a nuclear-weapons program.
Mr. Bush and some of his top cabinet members fought a spirited rearguard action for a second day as their tour of Africa - designed to boost the U.S. President's image - was again overshadowed by the weapons brouhaha...
---
Palm Beach Post
Pre-war assertions false; what about the postwar?
Palm Beach Post Editorial
For all of President Bush's talk about Iraq's alleged biological and chemical weapons, he had not sold doubters in the United States, much less the rest of the world, on his plan to invade. So Mr. Bush upped the ante in his Jan. 28 State of the Union speech. Saddam Hussein, he said, had "sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa" to restart Iraq's nuclear weapons program.
But a CIA representative sent last year to Niger to investigate had told Vice President Dick Cheney what the CIA and State Department already knew -- that the claim was bogus, based on forged documents. This week, the administration admitted that the accusation was false but tried to duck responsibility for making it. Secretary of State Colin Powell said allegations that Mr. Bush misled Congress and the country are "overwrought and overblown." He said, "There was sufficient evidence floating around at the time that such a statement was not totally outrageous." Yet Mr. Powell did not make the Iraq uranium-shopping claim in his own Feb. 5 speech to the United Nations because the information "was not standing the test of time."
In fact, most of the administration's statements about Iraq aren't holding up...
---
Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Tenet accepts CIA blame for Bush Iraq allegation
By BOB DEANS
Atlanta Journal-Constitution Staff Writer
CIA Director George Tenet accepted blame Friday for the erroneous charge President Bush made in his State of the Union speech that Baghdad had sought nuclear weapons material from Africa.
But Tenet also said the agency had tried to warn the White House the information was questionable.
"These 16 words should never have been included in the text written for the president," Tenet said in a carefully worded statement issued from CIA headquarters.
Bush earlier in the day told reporters traveling with him on a visit to Africa that intelligence agencies had approved the speech in advance.
Tenet said CIA officials had repeatedly warned the administration "about the fragmentary nature" of the intelligence behind the allegation.
He conceded he should have been more forceful in insisting that Bush not include the charge in his speech...
---
CNN
Dean: Bush's 'intelligence-handling a disaster'
The White House said a claim in the president's State of the Union address that Iraq sought large quantities of uranium in Africa was not accurate.
CIA Director George Tenet issued a statement late Friday saying his agency made a mistake in clearing the language in the president's speech.
Democrats have stepped up their criticism of Bush in recent days over the statement and the president's reasons for going to war.
CNN congressional correspondent Jonathan Karl talked to Democratic presidential candidate Howard Dean about the dispute Friday before Tenet's statement was released:
KARL: The president and his national security adviser are saying that the CIA, and George Tenet specifically, cleared this speech and signed off on it. Does that get the president off the hook?
DEAN: We don't know that. The fact is that [former U.S.] Ambassador [to Niger Joseph] Wilson, in a public statement in The New York Times, has indicated that his report showing that there was no involvement between Niger and Iraq in terms of the uranium deal went to the office of the vice president, the secretary of state and the CIA. So I don't know what the president knew and when the president knew it, but I know that this intelligence-handling is a disaster for the administration at best, and either no one got to the secretary of defense or the president, or his own senior advisors withheld information.
So this is a serious credibility problem, and it's a lot deeper than just the Iraq-Niger deal, it has to do with assertions by the secretary of defense that he knew where weapons were that turned out not to be there, it has to do with assertions by the vice president there was a nuclear program that turned out not to exist, and assertions made by the president himself, not just about the acquisition of uranium, but also about the ability of [deposed Iraqi President] Saddam [Hussein] to use chemical weapons on the United States. We need a full-blown public investigation not held in Congress but by an outside bipartisan commission...
---
The Guardian (UK)
White House turns on CIA over uranium claim
Richard Norton-Taylor
The CIA and the White House were embroiled in a dispute yesterday concerning the allegation that Iraq was trying to buy uranium from Niger to build nuclear weapons.
The information was passed to Washington by MI6. President George Bush cited British intelligence when he included it in his state of the union address in January to argue the case for war.
It emerged this week that the CIA had independently concluded it was false but did not inform the White House.
Yesterday Condoleezza Rice, Mr Bush's national security adviser, put further pressure on the CIA. She insisted the agency had cleared the claim in the president's speech. If CIA director, George Tenet, had any misgivings, "he did not make them known".
Ms Rice was responding to reports in the US media that the CIA had questioned the British claims that Iraq was seeking uranium from the African country and suggested it should be excluded from Mr Bush's address to Congress.
The Washington Post said the CIA had also tried, unsuccessfully, to persuade the British government to drop the claims. It sent Joe Wilson, a former diplomat to Niger, to investigate the matter. He concluded it was false...
---
The New York Times
The Uranium Fiction
We're glad that someone in Washington has finally taken responsibility for letting President Bush make a false accusation about Saddam Hussein's nuclear weapons program in the State of the Union address last January, but the matter will not end there. George Tenet, the director of central intelligence, stepped up to the issue yesterday when he said the C.I.A. had approved Mr. Bush's speech and failed to advise him to drop the mistaken charge that Iraq had recently tried to import significant quantities of uranium from an African nation, later identified as Niger. Now the American people need to know how the accusation got into the speech in the first place, and whether it was put there with an intent to deceive the nation. The White House has a lot of explaining to do.
So far, the administration's handling of this important = and politically explosive - issue has mostly involved a great deal of finger-pointing instead of an exacting reconstruction of events and an acceptance of blame by all those responsible. Mr. Bush himself engaged in the free-for-all yesterday while traveling in Africa when he said his speech had been "cleared by the intelligence services." That led within a few hours to Mr. Tenet's mea culpa.
It is clear, however, that much more went into this affair than the failure of the C.I.A. to pounce on the offending 16 words in Mr. Bush's speech. A good deal of information already points to a willful effort by the war camp in the administration to pump up an accusation that seemed shaky from the outset and that was pretty well discredited long before Mr. Bush stepped into the well of the House of Representatives last January.
---
The Independent (UK)
Did CIA warn UK to drop Niger claim?
By Andrew Buncombe in Washington and Ben Russell
The Government was accused yesterday of refusing a request from the CIA to drop references to Iraq's alleged efforts to buy uranium from Africa in its dossier of "evidence", despite the US agency warning that the claim could not be substantiated.
US officials said that last September as Tony Blair was discussing Iraq with George Bush at Camp David senior figures in the CIA tried to persuade Britain not to include the claim. The officials said Britain ignored the request, stating Saddam Hussein "sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa". A senior Bush administration official said: "We consulted about the paper and recommended against using that material."...