Subscribe“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.And that is the rub.
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.
This whole tempest in a teapot is about the fact that British intelligence said, "We think the Iraqis are trying to source uranium from Africa", and the CIA didn't say, "No, we have reason to doubt that" in time to save the President from making a public blunder.
"The CIA tried unsuccessfully in early September 2002 to persuade the British government to drop from an official intelligence paper a reference to Iraqi attempts to buy uranium in Africa that President Bush included in his State of the Union address four months later, senior Bush administration officials said yesterday." -- Washington PostSo the CIA told the US government the story was bogus, and told the British government the story was bogus.
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.In other words, the CIA said, "We can't be sure of this", and our administration said, "Well, the Brits say it's good, that's good enough for us right now." Cherrypicking? Maybe. But why would we doubt something our allies were affirming so strongly? On vague objections from the CIA?
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.
Bush’s insecurities are at the heart of it. Haunted by his father’s defeat and the accidental nature of his own presidency, Bush never wants to hand his enemies ammunition. He can’t let cracks appear or the whole edifice could crumble. The moment Bush landed on the USS Lincoln, he was caught in his own net of hubris. The juvenile taunt—”Bring ‘em on”—diminishes the seriousness of sending men and women into an urban guerilla battle that nobody prepared them for. American soldiers in Iraq are going on the record with reporters to say how unhappy they are, and how vulnerable they feel. You don’t do that in the military unless the conditions are dire.
We did not know at the time--no one knew at the time, in our circles--maybe someone knew down in the bowels of the agency, but no one in our circles knew that there were doubts and suspicions that this might be a forgery.However:
U.S. officials told NBC News’ Andrea Mitchell that Tenet himself advised Rice’s top deputy, Steven Hadley, to remove a reference to the uranium report from a speech Bush delivered Oct. 7 in Cincinnati, establishing that the nation’s top intelligence officials suspected that the allegation was false more than three months before they approved Bush’s repeating it in his nationally televised address on Jan. 28."Bush says uranium controversy closed," MSNBC, July 12, 2003
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I see the admin. working its way through fall guys until it comes up with one who is acceptable, but make no mistake that they would love for Tenet to be the guy. I think this may have even been a goal of theirs right from the time that they saw that some amount of shit was bound to hit the fan.
Think about it: if the CIA loses credibility and influece, more intelligence and analysis will be needed from, oh I don't know, the DIA and the Office of Special Planning. So if this tactic is successful, our dependenace on the agency that actually told the Pres. that the Niger data was bullshit will be transfered to the agency that intentionally pooled tainted data and craftily concocted ways to dance around it dubiousness. It's brilliant, really, despite the horrible long-term implications for anyone within range of our arsenal of righteousness.
posted by Ignatius J. Reilly at 10:50 AM on July 11, 2003