Blaming it on Intelligence
(The following was written on Friday, July 11, and completed on July 13.)
USA Today’s headline on their printed edition is of Powell saying that the Administration’s critics are "reaching" in their attempt to criticize Bush for having the Niger uranium claim in the State of the Union Address. Powell attempts to place the blame on the CIA, intelligence committee, for not catching the erroneous claim when they reviewed it prior to the State of the Union.
Powell sought to explain how the allegation, based on a British report, got into the speech after the CIA had questioned it and why, a week later, the secretary dropped it from his own presentation to the United Nations Security Council.
"There was sufficient evidence floating around at the time that such a statement was not totally outrageous," Powell said. "Subsequently, when we looked at it more thoroughly ... we did not believe that it was appropriate to use that example any more."
(Powell Says Critics of Bush Reaching, by Lawrence McQuillan and John Diamond)
Moreover, Powell stated that the intelligence came from Britain.
Rice is slated for saying the same thing today, according to Rueters in their article "CIA Approved Iraqi Uranium Claim."
One of the key revelations of the article on the Powell news conference, however, is this snippet by the reporters. They were explaining that the White House's disclosure of the President's misuse of the Niger uranium intelligence comes admidst other issues and revelations, including this one:
In Britain, the BBC quoted anonymous senior government officials as saying they no longer expected to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.
Today’s LiberalOasis blog argues that the rhetoric coming out of the administration on this could be, in fact, spurious.
Powell continued the subtle tack yesterday, laying the final responsibility on the "intelligence community" for vetting the SOTU.
But also yesterday, CBS News reported that the Africa charge was put in the SOTU "despite objections from the CIA."
The story sources that vaguely to "senior administration officials."
But the story ends with, "intelligence officials say the director of the CIA never saw the final draft."
That implies that the SAOs are intelligence officials. (Perhaps including Tenet?)
Not so coincidentally, "senior administration officals" - at least one who is "familiar with the intelligence program" - told the W. Post that the CIA was telling the Brits to drop the Africa charge way back in September.
On top of that, "intelligence officials" told Newsday that "[t]he CIA ‘from day one’ was highly skeptical of reports that Iraq had been shopping for uranium ore in Africa…".
That all looks like a pretty coordinated front from these "intelligence officials."
I have two comments about today's news:
1. No one has yet explained who put the Niger uranium claim in the State of the Union address. We know that it came from British intelligence sources. But guess what fellas? They're intelligence agency is under great scrutiny at the moment also. We need to know who put that misleading information in the Address. It is one thing to have an editor pass over and/or fail to validate fact from fiction; it is another to knowingly place spurious information in an Address of this magnitude.
<I say "knowingly" because the timeline of when key administrators knew about the validity of the the Niger documents was before the State of the Union address. See The Left Coaster for the Niger timeline.>
2. The fiasco that has transpired from this and the missing WMD lends substance to the debate on why the Bushies pre-emptive strike policy is suspect and dangerous. If you recall back in those days in this debate, these very issues were raised. How can we be sure that the intelligence we have warrants a strike?
For more information on this, see the following articles:
"Would this be a Just War: The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops' statement on Iraq," printed in Salon (salon.com) on November, 14, 2002
"Don't Let the Facts Get in the Way," Ronan Bennett and Alice Perman, The Guardian, February 6, 2003.
"A National State of Confusion," by Kane Pryor, Salon (salon.com), February 6, 2003.
"The Case for War has not been made," by Joe Conason, Salon (salon.com), February 5, 2003.
Salon's Interview with Camille Paglia, by David Talbot, Salon (salon.com), February 7, 2003.
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