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Case Not Closed: Tenet Statement Analysis

 

"The President has moved on and I think frankly that much of the country has moved on as well," White House spokesman Ari Fleischer told reporters as Bush visited a hospital in the Nigerian capital Abuja.

 

Bush says uranium controversy closed

MSNBC

July 12, 2003

 

This issue isn't anywhere near "closed." It's barely even begun to creak open.

 

Remember, folks, when Watergate first broke, they called it nothing more than "a third-rate burglary." (Come to think of it, it was Nixon's press secretary who came up with that little understatement of the century. That was Ron Ziegler -- a much more appealing fellow than Fleischer, whose condescending arrogance will be missed by no one when he finally vacates the podium.)

 

As you might guess, Dear Reader, I've had a day to consider this paper-thin "admission" by CIA director George Tenet that it was all the CIA's fault that the bogus Niger-uranium ended up in Dubya's State of the Union address.

 

Tenet's sell-out struck me as as pile of crap the moment I heard about it Friday.

 

And today?

 

Today, it strikes me as an even bigger pile of crap.

 

Today, I re-read Tenet's statement. Very carefully.

 

Let's review it together, shall we?

 

And let's review what's been said in the past.

 

(Trust me, this will be lots more fun that it sounds.)

 

 

TENET: Legitimate questions have arisen about how remarks on alleged Iraqi attempts to obtain uranium in Africa made it into the President’s State of the Union speech.

 

This whopper was based on a document that the White House already knew to be a forgery thanks to the CIA. Sold to Italian intelligence by some hustler, the document carried the signature of an official who had been out of office for 10 years and referenced a constitution that was no longer in effect. The ex-ambassador [Joseph Wilson] who the CIA sent to check out the story is pissed: "They knew the Niger story was a flat-out lie," he told the New Republic, anonymously. "They [the White House] were unpersuasive about aluminum tubes and added this to make their case more strongly."

 

Christopher Scheer

Ten Appalling Lies We Were Told About Iraq

AlterNet

June 27, 2003

 

 

TENET: Let me be clear about several things right up front. First, CIA approved the President’s State of the Union address before it was delivered.

 

And a CBS News report late Thursday said that the White House had ignored a request by the C.I.A. to remove the statement from the text of the State of the Union address.

 

Bush and Rice Say C.I.A. Approved Uranium Comment

New York Times

July 11, 2003

 

 

TENET: Second, I am responsible for the approval process in my Agency.

 

National security adviser Condoleezza Rice and other officials asserted this week that the president’s statement was justified at the time because the CIA cleared the address in its entirety, including the uranium claim. They said the CIA never told the White House that the claim was suspicious.

 

But 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

 

 

TENET: And third, the President had every reason to believe that the text presented to him was sound.

 

It is unclear why Tenet failed to intervene in January to prevent the questionable intelligence from appearing in the president's address to Congress when Tenet had intervened three months earlier in a much less symbolic speech.

 

CIA Got Uranium Reference Cut in Oct.;

Why Bush Cited It In Jan. Is Unclear

Walter Pincus and Mike Allen

Washington Post

July 13, 2003

 

How many times do you have to tell the Bush administration something is false for them to stop saying it's true, exactly?

 

Call me crazy, but if I were president and someone warned me not to say something in March, and flat-out told me not to say it in October, I wouldn't be including it in my speech to the whole nation in January the following year.

 

The Unraveling Web of Lies, part III

morons.org

July 13, 2003

 

 

TENET: These 16 words should never have been included in the text written for the President.

 

Speaking to reporters Friday aboard Air Force One as Bush flew from South Africa to Uganda on his tour of Africa, [National Security Adviser Condoleezza] Rice insisted that if Tenet had any misgivings about the uranium claim, "he did not make them known" to Bush or his staff.

 

Bush says uranium controversy closed

MSNBC

July 12, 2003

 

CIA Director George J. Tenet successfully intervened with White House officials to have a reference to Iraq seeking uranium from Niger removed from a presidential speech last October, three months before a less specific reference to the same intelligence appeared in the State of the Union address, according to senior administration officials.

 

Tenet argued personally to White House officials...

 

CIA Got Uranium Reference Cut in Oct.;

Why Bush Cited It In Jan. Is Unclear

Walter Pincus and Mike Allen

Washington Post

July 13, 2003

 

 

TENET: For perspective, a little history is in order. There was fragmentary intelligence gathered in late 2001 and early 2002 on the allegations of Saddam’s efforts to obtain additional raw uranium from Africa, beyond the 550 metric tons already in Iraq. In an effort to inquire about certain reports involving Niger, CIA’s counter-proliferation experts, on their own initiative, asked an individual with ties to the region to make a visit to see what he could learn.

 

In February 2002, I was informed by officials at the Central Intelligence Agency that Vice President Dick Cheney's office had questions about a particular intelligence report. ... The agency officials asked if I would travel to Niger to check out the story so they could provide a response to the vice president's office.

 

Joseph C. Wilson IV

What I Didn't Find in Africa

New York Times

July 6, 2003

 

Cheney got into the operational side of intelligence as well. Reports in late 2001 that Iraq had tried to acquire uranium from Niger stirred such intense interest that his office let it be known he wanted them checked out.

 

So, with the CIA as facilitator, a retired U.S. ambassador [Joseph C. Wilson IV] was dispatched to Niger in February 2002 to investigate.

 

Ray McGovern

Cheney And The CIA: Not Business As Usual

June 27, 2003

 

 

TENET: He reported back to us...

 

People in the Bush administration say that George Tenet, CIA director, had been unaware that Mr Wilson was sent to Niger and senior figures at the National Security Council, such as Condoleezza Rice, the national security adviser and her deputy, Stephen Hadley, did not see the reports containing his conclusions.

 

US withheld uranium intelligence from IAEA

Financial Times

July 9, 2003

 

In early March [2002], I arrived in Washington and promptly provided a detailed briefing to the C.I.A. I later shared my conclusions with the State Department African Affairs Bureau. ...

 

The vice president's office asked a serious question. I was asked to help formulate the answer. I did so, and I have every confidence that the answer I provided was circulated to the appropriate officials within our government.

 

Joseph C. Wilson IV

What I Didn't Find in Africa

New York Times

July 6, 2003

 

[Joseph Wilson] is saying that surely the vice president must have known, or that the White House must have known... but that's not the case prior to [Bush's State of the Union address on January 28, 2003].

 

Ari Fleischer

Fleischer Says Bush Did Not Have Facts

on Niger Uranium Before SOU Address

U.S. Department of State Web site

http: / / u s i n f o . s t a t e . g o v

July 7, 2003

 

Though I did not file a written report, there should be at least four documents in United States government archives confirming my mission. The documents should include the ambassador's report of my debriefing in Niamey, a separate report written by the embassy staff, a C.I.A. report summing up my trip, and a specific answer from the agency to the office of the vice president (this may have been delivered orally). While I have not seen any of these reports, I have spent enough time in government to know that this is standard operating procedure.

 

Joseph C. Wilson IV

What I Didn't Find in Africa

New York Times

July 6, 2003

 

In recent weeks, administration officials have begun spreading the word that Cheney was never told the Iraq-Niger story was based on a forgery. I asked a senior official who recently served at the National Security Council if he thought that was possible. He pointed out that rigorous NSC procedures call for a very specific response to all vice presidential questions and added that "the fact that Cheney's office had originally asked that the Iraq-Niger report be checked out makes it inconceivable that his office would not have been informed of the results."

 

Ray McGovern

Cheney And The CIA: Not Business As Usual

June 27, 2003

 

Does it strike anyone as odd that the CIA warned the British that the Iraq/Niger claim was bogus in September, 2002, but, according to the White House, did not warn Bush before the State of the Union Address in January, 2003?

 

US and UK Facing 'Weaponsgate'

Traprock Peace Center

 

If Bush didn't know the purported uranium deal between Iraq and Niger was a hoax, plenty of people in his administration did...

 

The Selling of the Iraq War: The First Casualty

The New Republic

June 30, 2003

 

 

TENET: ...that one of the former Nigerian officials he met stated that he was unaware of any contract being signed between Niger and rogue states for the sale of uranium during his tenure in office.

 

I spent... eight days drinking sweet mint tea and meeting with dozens of people: current government officials, former government officials, people associated with the country's uranium business. It did not take long to conclude that it was highly doubtful that any such transaction had ever taken place.

 

Joseph C. Wilson IV

What I Didn't Find in Africa

New York Times

July 6, 2003

 

 

TENET: The same former official also said that in June 1999 a businessman approached him and insisted that the former official meet with an Iraqi delegation to discuss “expanding commercial relations” between Iraq and Niger. The former official interpreted the overture as an attempt to discuss uranium sales. The former officials also offered details regarding Niger’s processes for monitoring and transporting uranium that suggested it would be very unlikely that material could be illicitly diverted.

 

Given the structure of the consortiums that operated the mines, it would be exceedingly difficult for Niger to transfer uranium to Iraq. ... If the government wanted to remove uranium from a mine, it would have to notify the consortium, which in turn is strictly monitored by the International Atomic Energy Agency. ... In short, there's simply too much oversight over too small an industry for a sale to have transpired.

 

Joseph C. Wilson IV

What I Didn't Find in Africa

New York Times

July 6, 2003

 

 

TENET: There was no mention in the report of forged documents — or any suggestion of the existence of documents at all.

 

Knowledgeable sources familiar with the forgery investigation described the faked evidence as a series of letters between Iraqi agents and officials in the central African nation of Niger. The documents had been given to the U.N. inspectors by Britain and reviewed extensively by U.S. intelligence. The forgers had made relatively crude errors that eventually gave them away -- including names and titles that did not match up with the individuals who held office at the time the letters were purportedly written, the officials said.

 

Some Evidence on Iraq Called Fake:

U.N. Nuclear Inspector Says Documents on Purchases Were Forged

Washington Post

March 8, 2003

 

One document was a letter discussing Iraq's plan to buy 500 tons of uranium, dated July 2000 and apparently signed by the Niger President, Tandja Mamadou. Experts quickly spotted that it was not his real signature. Another letter, dated 1999, was signed by someone who was replaced as foreign minister in 1989.

 

Diplomat who blew the whistle on falsified evidence

The Independent

July 9, 2003

 

[On February 4, 2003, the day before Colin Poweel's presentation to the U.N., Jacques Baute, head of the IAEA's Iraq inspections unit] sat down with the dozen or so pages of U.S. intelligence on Saddam's supposed nuclear procurements -- the aluminum tubes, the Niger uranium... In the course of a day, Baute determined, like the ambassador before him, that the Niger document was fraudulent. Though the "president" of Niger made reference to his powers under the constitution of 1965, Baute performed a quick Google search to learn that Niger's latest constitution was drafted in 1999. There were other obvious mistakes -- improper letterhead, an obviously forged signature, a letter from a foreign minister who had not been in office for eleven years. Baute also made quick work of the aluminum tubes. He assembled a team of experts -- two Americans, two Britons, and a German -- with 120 years of collective experience with centrifuges. After reviewing tens of thousands of Iraqi transaction records and inspecting Iraqi front companies and military production facilities with the rest of the IAEA unit, they concluded, according to a senior IAEA official, that "all evidence points to that this is for the rockets" -- the same conclusion reached by the State and Energy Departments.

 

The Selling of the Iraq War: The First Casualty

The New Republic

June 30, 2003

 

TENET: Because this report, in our view, did not resolve whether Iraq was or was not seeking uranium from abroad, it was given a normal and wide distribution, but we did not brief it to the President, Vice-President or other senior Administration officials.

 

[The CIA said] it sent a cable to the White House and other government agencies in March 2002 that said the claim had been denied by officials from the central African country.

 

An administration official said yesterday that the CIA report was only one of many such cables received by the White House each day. ...

 

Senior intelligence officials said the CIA on several occasions after March 2002 told administration policymakers about its doubts about claims Iraq was seeking uranium.

 

CIA Says It Cabled Key Data to White House

Washington Post

June 13, 2003

 

Tenet argued personally to White House officials, including deputy national security adviser Stephen Hadley, that the allegation should not be used because it came from only a single source, according to one senior official.

 

CIA Got Uranium Reference Cut in Oct.;

Why Bush Cited It In Jan. Is Unclear

Walter Pincus and Mike Allen

Washington Post

July 13, 2003

 

 

TENET: We also had to consider that the former Nigerian officials knew that what they were saying would reach the U.S. government and that this might have influenced what they said.

 

[Former Australian intelligence analyst Andrew Wilkie] told a British parliamentary inquiry... that intelligence on Iraq had been deliberately distorted to support a series of "ridiculous", "preposterous" and "fundamentally flawed" claims before the war. He said the heavily qualified language from intelligence agencies about the reliability of information from Iraqi dissidents had been ignored.

 

"The apparent direct political interference with intelligence agencies in the United States and the more subtle political pressure applied in London and Canberra, meant that the rules were different with Iraq," he said.

 

"Intelligence that once would have been discarded was now usable, with qualification."

 

The big questions about why we went to war

Sydney Morning Herald

June 21, 2003

 

 

TENET: In the fall of 2002, my Deputy and I briefed hundreds of members of Congress on Iraq. We did not brief the uranium acquisition story.

 

The Central Intelligence Agency has refused to provide Congress a comprehensive report on its role in a possible American campaign against Iraq, setting off a bitter dispute between the agency and leaders of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Congressional leaders said today.

 

In a contentious, closed-door Senate hearing today, agency officials refused to comply with a request from the committee for a broad review of how the intelligence community's clandestine role against the government of Saddam Hussein would be coordinated with the diplomatic and military actions that the Bush administration is planning.

 

Lawmakers said they were further incensed because the director of central intelligence, George J. Tenet, who had been expected to testify about the Iraq report, did not appear at the classified hearing. A senior intelligence official said Mr. Tenet was meeting with President Bush. ...

 

Government officials said that the agency's response also strongly suggested that Mr. Bush had already made important decisions on how to use the C.I.A. in a potential war with Iraq. ...

 

The C.I.A.'s rejection of the Congressional request, which some lawmakers contend was heavily influenced by the White House, comes as relations between the agency and Congress have badly deteriorated. ...

 

Congressional leaders complained that they have been left in the dark on how the intelligence community will be used just as they are about to debate a resolution to support war with Iraq.

 

C.I.A. Rejects Request for Report on Preparations for War in Iraq

New York Times

October 3, 2002

 

I remember way back last fall when people were being briefed, CIA and others were briefing Congressmen and Senators about the weapons of mass destruction. These press folks were hanging around outside the briefing room, and when the Senators came out, one of the press asked [Pat Roberts, the Republican Senator from Kansas, who is chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee] how the evidence on weapons of mass destruction was. Roberts said, oh, it was very persuasive, very persuasive. ... “Oh, these intelligence folks, they have these techniques down so well, so yeah, this is very persuasive.”

 

So, if you’ve got a Senator who is that inclined to believe that kind of intelligence, you’ve got someone who will do the administration’s bidding. On the House side, of course, you’ve got Porter Goss, who is a CIA alumnus. ...

 

Ray McGovern

Interview: 27-Year CIA Veteran by Will Pitt

June 26, 2003

 

 

TENET: Also in the fall of 2002, our British colleagues told us they were planning to publish an unclassified dossier that mentioned reports of Iraqi attempts to obtain uranium in Africa.

  

The British government published a "white paper" asserting that Saddam Hussein and his unconventional arms posed an immediate danger. As evidence, the report cited Iraq's attempts to purchase uranium from an African country.

 

Joseph C. Wilson IV

What I Didn't Find in Africa

New York Times

July 6, 2003

 

British Prime Minister Tony Blair releases a 50-page dossier on Iraq stating that Iraq had sought to acquire uranium in Africa that could be used to make nuclear weapons and that Iraq had military plans for use of chemical and biological weapons, some of which could be deployed within 45 minutes.

 

The stories they told

Sydney Morning Herald

June 21, 2003

 

Neither the CIA nor the State Department publicly challenged the British dossier. Indeed, two months later they approved a State Department document that repeated the Niger claim.

 

The garbage intelligence that helped to unleash a war

Sydney Morning Herald

June 21 2003

 

 

TENET: Because we viewed the reporting on such acquisition attempts to be inconclusive, we expressed reservations about its inclusion but our colleagues said they were confident in their reports and left it in their document.

 

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.

 

"We consulted about the paper and recommended against using that material," a senior administration official familiar with the intelligence program said. The British government rejected the U.S. suggestion, saying it had separate intelligence unavailable to the United States.

 

CIA Asked Britain To Drop Iraq Claim

Washington Post

July 11, 2003

 

 

TENET: In September and October 2002 before Senate Committees, senior intelligence officials in response to questions told members of Congress that we differed with the British dossier on the reliability of the uranium reporting.

 

[In September, 2002, the Defense Intelligence Agency] put out a memo saying there is no reliable evidence to suggest that the Iraqis have biological or chemical weapons, or that they are producing them.

 

Ray McGovern

Interview: 27-Year CIA Veteran by Will Pitt

June 26, 2003

 

TENET: In October, the Intelligence Community (IC) produced a classified, 90 page National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on Iraq’s WMD programs. There is a lengthy section in which most agencies of the Intelligence Community judged that Iraq was reconstituting its nuclear weapons program.

 

Cheney, in a speech on Aug. 26, 2002, claimed that Saddam Hussein had "resumed his effort to acquire nuclear weapons."

 

At the time, CIA analysts were involved in a knock-down, drag-out argument with the Pentagon on this very point. Most of the nuclear engineers at the CIA, and virtually all scientists at U.S. government laboratories and the International Atomic Energy Agency, found no reliable evidence that Iraq had restarted its nuclear weapons program.

 

But the vice president had spoken. Sad to say, those in charge of the draft National Intelligence Estimate took their cue and stated, falsely, that "most analysts assess Iraq is reconstituting its nuclear weapons program."

 

Ray McGovern

Cheney And The CIA: Not Business As Usual

June 27, 2003

 

The evidence indicates that Iraq is reconstituting its nuclear weapons program. ... Iraq has attempted to purchase high-strength aluminum tubes and other equipment needed for gas centrifuges, which are used to enrich uranium for nuclear weapons.

 

George W. Bush

Cincinnati, Ohio

October 7, 2002

 

The claim... is widely disputed. A British government report last month, which reflects the judgments of British intelligence, notes that "no definitive intelligence" links the tubes to a nuclear program.

 

CIA Feels Heat on Iraq Data

Los Angeles Times

October 11, 2002

 

This story, leaked to and breathlessly reported by Judith Miller in the New York Times, has turned out to be complete baloney. Department of Energy officials, who monitor nuclear plants, say the tubes could not be used for enriching uranium. One intelligence analyst, who was part of the tubes investigation, angrily told The New Republic: "You had senior American officials like Condoleezza Rice saying the only use of this aluminum really is uranium centrifuges. She said that on television. And that's just a lie."

 

Christopher Scheer

Ten Appalling Lies We Were Told About Iraq

AlterNet

June 27, 2003

 

 

TENET: Let me emphasize, the NIE’s Key Judgments cited six reasons for this assessment; the African uranium issue was not one of them.

 

In terms of intelligence estimates going in, the October 2002 intelligence estimate, National Intelligence Estimate [is] the definitive estimate by the intelligence community...

 

Condoleezza Rice

NBC's Meet the Press

June 8, 2003

 

TENET: But in the interest of completeness, the report contained three paragraphs that discuss Iraq’s significant 550-metric ton uranium stockpile and how it could be diverted while under IAEA safeguard. These paragraphs also cited reports that Iraq began “vigorously trying to procure” more uranium from Niger and two other African countries, which would shorten the time Baghdad needed to produce nuclear weapons.

 

Iraq on Sunday accused the United States and Britain of lying in their allegations that Iraq has weapons of mass destruction.

 

"After 24 days of inspections covering practically all the sites named in those reports and after the submission of our declaration of December 7, the lies and baseless allegations have been uncovered," Amir al-Saadi, Iraqi President Saddam Hussein's science adviser, told a news conference in Baghdad. ...

 

"We do not have any more documentation," he told reporters, adding that Iraq will continue to cooperate with UN inspectors "to find ways of resolving the remaining disarmament issues."

 

In a bid to refute US allegations that Iraq has "omissions" in its arms declaration, al-Saadi denied that Iraq had attempted to procure uranium from Niger.

 

He said Iraq had only tried to obtain uranium oxide, not uranium, from Niger in the mid-1980s and the record has been in its weapons declaration to the UN Security Council.

 

Iraq Accuses US, Britain of Lying in Arms Allegations

People's Daily

December 23, 2002

 

The NIE states: “A foreign government service reported that as of early 2001, Niger planned to send several tons of pure ‘uranium’ (probably yellowcake) to Iraq. As of early 2001, Niger and Iraq reportedly were still working out the arrangements for this deal, which could be for up to 500 tons of yellowcake.”

 

It was not just American intelligence. There was supporting intelligence from all over the world.

 

Condoleezza Rice

NBC's Meet the Press

June 8, 2003

 

Mr Blair and members of his Cabinet have insisted that Britain has extra material, separate and independent from that of the US, and the Prime minister did so again yesterday.

 

British officials have said that it originated from an unspecified "foreign service", and officials have privately intimated that it did not come from either the US or Israel.

 

However, senior diplomatic sources close to the IAEA were adamant yesterday that the only intelligence on Iraq allegedly acquiring uranium from Africa was received from the US.

 

Nuclear watchdog denies Blair's claim of 'separate intelligence'

The Independent

July 9, 2003

 

 

The verdict: The alleged information from "separate sources" has never been made public. ... Unless more details are disclosed, the suspicion will remain that the claim of "separate sources" was designed to prevent embarrassment to President Bush.

 

Diplomat who blew the whistle on falsified evidence

The Independent

July 9, 2003

 

 

TENET: The Estimate also states: “We do not know the status of this arrangement.” With regard to reports that Iraq had sought uranium from two other countries, the Estimate says: “We cannot confirm whether Iraq succeeded in acquiring uranium ore and/or yellowcake from these sources.”

 

Michael N. Anton, a spokesman for the National Security Council, said today, "The documents alleging a transaction between Iraq and Niger were not the sole basis for the line in the president's State of the Union speech that referred to recent Iraqi attempts to acquire uranium from Africa."

 

He said that at the time a "national intelligence estimate" cited "attempts by Iraq to acquire uranium from several countries in Africa," adding, "We now know that documents alleging a transaction between Iraq and Niger had been forged."

 

Mr. Bush never mentioned Niger by name in his speech. But without the Niger evidence, the argument that Iraq was intent on getting uranium from Africa did not hold up.

 

Bush Charge on Iraq Arms Had Doubters, House Told

New York Times

July 9, 2003

 

The next day [after Bush's State of the Union address], I reminded a friend at the State Department of my trip and suggested that if the president had been referring to Niger, then his conclusion was not borne out by the facts as I understood them. He replied that perhaps the president was speaking about one of the other three African countries that produce uranium: Gabon, South Africa or Namibia. At the time, I accepted the explanation. I didn't know that in December, a month before the president's address, the State Department had published a fact sheet that mentioned the Niger case.

 

Joseph C. Wilson IV

What I Didn't Find in Africa

New York Times

July 6, 2003

 

TENET: Much later in the NIE text, in presenting an alternate view on another matter, the State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research included a sentence that states: “Finally, the claims of Iraqi pursuit of natural uranium in Africa are, in INR’s assessment, highly dubious.”

 

[Condoleezza] Rice said that the State Department's intelligence agency had expressed reservations about the information on the African uranium, but that the general consensus among the intelligence agencies was that Iraq was trying to buy uranium in Africa.

 

Bush and Rice Say C.I.A. Approved Uranium Comment

New York Times

July 11, 2003

 

Had the administration accurately depicted the consensus within the intelligence community in 2002 -- that Iraq's ties with Al Qaeda were inconsequential; that its nuclear weapons program was minimal at best; and that its chemical and biological weapons programs, which had yielded significant stocks of dangerous weapons in the past, may or may not have been ongoing -- it would have had a very difficult time convincing Congress and the American public to support a war to disarm Saddam.

 

The Selling of the Iraq War: The First Casualty

The New Republic

June 30, 2003

 

TENET: An unclassified CIA White Paper in October made no mention of the issue, again because it was not fundamental to the judgment that Iraq was reconstituting its nuclear weapons program, and because we had questions about some of the reporting.

 

But the summary statements were not substantiated in the [white paper's] supporting material. The body of the document stated only that "gaps in Iraqi accounting and current production capabilities strongly suggest Iraq has the ability to produce chemical warfare agents within its chemical industry," and that Iraq "has the ability to produce chemical warfare agents."

 

Still, on October 7, 2002, Bush stated without qualification that Iraq "possesses and produces chemical and biological weapons." He elaborated further, that "Saddam Hussein has chosen to build and keep these weapons despite international sanctions, U.N. demands, and isolation from the civilized world."

 

W's Mass Deceit In-Depth

The Dubya Report

June 24, 2003

 

For the same reasons, the subject was not included in many public speeches, Congressional testimony and the Secretary of State’s United Nations presentation in early 2003.

 

In a letter released yesterday, the International Atomic Energy Agency said it was forced to wait six weeks for the evidence - from December 2002 to early February 2003 - at a critical time, when it was investigating US charges that Iraq was reconstituting its nuclear programme. During that period, the US several times repeated the allegations, most notably in President George W. Bush's January State of the Union address.

 

US withheld uranium intelligence from IAEA

Financial Times

July 9, 2003

 

In February, the US finally handed over the Niger documents. It took the IAEA a day to establish they were false. Within weeks it had also dismissed the other US claims, including charges that Iraq was importing special aluminium tubes to process uranium, and that satellite photos showed Iraq rebuilding its nuclear facilities.

 

The garbage intelligence that helped to unleash a war

Sydney Morning Herald

June 21, 2003

 

[The uranium report] was omitted from future statements by State Department officials, including Secretary of State Colin Powell's Feb. 5 address to the United Nations.

 

Official: CIA Doubted Iraq Uranium Claims

Associated Press

June 12, 2003

 

 

TENET: The background above makes it even more troubling that the 16 words eventually made it into the State of the Union speech. This was a mistake.

 

Details about the alleged attempt by Iraq to buy as much as 500 tons of uranium oxide were contained in a national intelligence estimate (NIE) that was concluded in late September 2002. It was that same reference that the White House wanted to use in Bush's Oct. 7 speech that Tenet blocked, the sources said. That same intelligence report was the basis for the 16-word sentence about Iraq attempting to buy uranium in Africa that was contained in the January State of the Union address that has drawn recent attention.

 

CIA Got Uranium Reference Cut in Oct.;

Why Bush Cited It In Jan. Is Unclear

Walter Pincus and Mike Allen

Washington Post

July 13, 2003

 

 

TENET: Portions of the State of the Union speech draft came to the CIA for comment shortly before the speech was given. Various parts were shared with cognizant elements of the Agency for review.

 

By January [2003], when conversations took place with CIA personnel over what could be in the president's State of the Union speech, White House officials again sought to use the Niger reference since it still was in the NIE.

 

"We followed the NIE and hoped there was more intelligence to support it," a senior administration official said yesterday. When told there was nothing new, White House officials backed off, and as a result "seeking uranium from Niger was never in drafts," he said.

 

CIA Got Uranium Reference Cut in Oct.;

Why Bush Cited It In Jan. Is Unclear

Walter Pincus and Mike Allen

Washington Post

July 13, 2003

 

 

Although the documents related to the alleged Niger-Iraqi uranium deal had not yet been determined to be forgeries...

 

[Former State Department intelligence official Greg Thielmann] believes that the source of the [uranium-purchase] story had been discounted months earlier. "I was very surprised to hear that be announced to the United States and the entire world," he added.

 

W's Mass Deceit In-Depth

The Dubya Report

June 24, 2003

 

...officials who were reviewing the draft remarks on uranium raised several concerns about the fragmentary nature of the intelligence with National Security Council colleagues. Some of the language was changed.

 

[A] growing number of military officers, intelligence professionals and diplomats... charge that the [Bush] administration squelches dissenting views and that intelligence analysts are under intense pressure to produce reports supporting the White House's argument that Saddam poses such an immediate threat to the United States that pre-emptive military action is necessary.

 

"Analysts at the working level in the intelligence community are feeling very strong pressure from the Pentagon to cook the intelligence books," said one official, speaking on condition of anonymity.

 

A dozen other officials echoed his views in interviews.

 

No one who was interviewed disagreed.

 

Some administration officials expressing misgivings on Iraq

Knight-Ridder Tribune News

October 8, 2002

 

Senior Bush administration officials are pressuring CIA analysts to tailor their assessments of the Iraqi threat to help build a case against Saddam Hussein, intelligence and congressional sources said.

 

In what sources described as an escalating "war," top officials at the Pentagon and elsewhere have bombarded CIA analysts with criticism and calls for revisions on such key questions as whether Iraq has ties to the Al Qaeda terrorist network, sources said.

 

The sources stressed that CIA analysts — who are supposed to be impartial — are fighting to resist the pressure. But they said analysts are increasingly resentful of what they perceive as efforts to contaminate the intelligence process.

 

"The intelligence officials are responding to the political leadership, not the other way around, which is how it should be," said Joseph Cirincione, a nonproliferation expert at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. "The politics are driving our intelligence assessments at this point."

 

[I]ntelligence sources say the pressure on CIA analysts has been unrelenting in recent months, much of it coming from Iraq hawks including Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and his top deputy, Paul D. Wolfowitz.

 

CIA officials who brief Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz on Iraq routinely return to the agency with a long list of complaints and demands for new analysis or shifts in emphasis, sources said.

 

CIA Feels Heat on Iraq Data

Los Angeles Times

October 11, 2002

 

 

TENET: From what we know now, Agency officials in the end concurred that the text in the speech was factually correct — i.e. that the British government report said that Iraq sought uranium from Africa.

 

What [Bush] should have said is the Brits assert this but have produced no evidence of its veracity. The Brits have offered no date for these efforts, but "recently," in this case, may well mean "the 1980s." IAEA director Mohamed Elbaradei has for weeks been asking - so far, in vain - for the U.S. and Britain to provide "specifics of when and where." He said in a Jan. 12 interview, "We need actionable information."

 

Dennis Hans

Lying Us Into War: Exposing Bush and His "Techniques of Deceit"

Democratic Underground

February 12, 2003

 

 

TENET: This should not have been the test for clearing a Presidential address. This did not rise to the level of certainty which should be required for Presidential speeches, and CIA should have ensured that it was removed.

 

When the State Department on Dec. 19, 2002, posted a reference to Iraq not supplying details on its uranium purchases, the CIA raised an objection, "but it came too late" to prevent its publication, the senior intelligence official said.

 

CIA Says It Cabled Key Data to White House

Washington Post

June 13, 2003

 

 

Related articles:

 

A Spy Takes The Bullet. Easygoing and engaging, CIA Director George Tenet has long been known as an accomplished Washington schmoozer with a knack for ingratiating himself with his political bosses. A veteran Capitol Hill aide picked by Bill Clinton six years ago to be the country’s top spy, Tenet presciently earned the gratitude of George W. Bush even before he was elected president. In 1999, Tenet presided over an emotional ceremony renaming the CIA’s Virginia headquarters after Bush’s father. When W was elected, he let Tenet keep his job. Bush was impressed with his gung-ho attitude. They swapped baseball stories and capital gossip. ... But last week Tenet abruptly discovered the limits of his political skills, and of his friendship with Bush. [Newsweek, July 21, 2003, issue]

 

Insiders. Paul Kelly: This is very detailed statement from Mr Tenet. I think it will be taken at face value as far as it goes, but in truth, it goes a lot further. The more you read the statement, the more you see another story emerging. [ABC (Australia), July 13, 2003]

 

Bush puts blame on CIA for bad info. Dick Durbin, a senior Democrat on the Senate intelligence committee, said: "Somebody in the White House knew. This really calls into question the leadership in the White House and our intelligence agencies." He demanded the resignation of any official who failed to tell Mr. Bush the information was false. "The only other possibility, which is unthinkable, is that the president of the United States knew himself that this was a false fact and he put it in the state of the union anyhow. I hope for the sake of this country that did not happen," he said. [AP, July 12, 2003]

 

The New White House Slogan: "Case Closed. Just Move On." Some nit-picking Democrats are complaining that the president needs to come clean; that there should be an independent commission to investigate this whole thing. Nonsense! Do we want our Commander-in-Chief and his staff badgered for the rest of this term and through the 2004 election campaign by a bunch of Congressional investigators and would-be chief executives? Not me. I think the president's attitude is salutary, and suggest that we all ought to adopt his stalwart approach to life's little annoyances. Think about it. If you cheated on your spouse and now she or he is nagging you about it, tell her or him to stop complaining. You've "moved on." The issue is closed. [David Lindorff, CounterPunch, July 12, 2003]

 

Analysis: Bush Admin. Backpedals in Flap. "Everyone is trying to evade responsibility," Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., said in a telephone interview from Detroit. "There is to me very disturbing evidence of deception somewhere. Where the deception is we don't know, but there is an inquiry going on." [AP, July 11, 2003]

 

Joe Conason's Journal. On and off the record, the level of bureaucratic warfare between the CIA and the White House over the Niger deception is becoming intense, as public pressure grows for an independent investigation of the Bush administration's justifications for war in Iraq. As I suggested yesterday, the president's advisors are trying simultaneously to pillory the CIA while keeping director George Tenet safely inside the Bush tent. ... According to Rice's version of events, the CIA carefully vetted the president's speech, and nevertheless permitted him to say things that the agency's analysts knew to be false, or at best highly questionable. She told reporters to question Tenet himself if they're curious about that contradiction. [Salon, July 11, 2003]

 

No Mistakes Were Made. How can Bush fix the mess in Iraq if he denies any missteps? This administration’s unwillingness to ever admit a mistake makes it unlikely it will expand the force size in Iraq, take responsibility for the phony intelligence Bush touted as a prelude to war or eat enough humble pie to get military and financial help from other nations. The White House won’t acknowledge anything that might chip away at Bush’s commander-in-chief image. That’s the nature of the reelection machine that Karl Rove has constructed in his role as Bush’s consigliere. To admit flaws risks losing the luster of the wartime president. 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.  [Eleanor Clift, Newsweek, July 11, 2003]

 

White House 'warned over Iraq claim'. [A] CIA official has told the BBC that Mr Wilson's findings had been passed onto the White House as early as March 2002. That means that the administration would have known nearly a year before the State of the Union address that the information was likely false. [BBC News, July 9, 2003]

 

Bush Charge on Iraq Arms Had Doubters, House Told. The State Department letter, provided to Representative Henry A. Waxman, the ranking Democrat on the House Committee on Government Reform, confirms that there were deep misgivings in the government about some intelligence Mr. Bush cited in his January speech. ... The initial intelligence was provided to Congress in late October. But it was not until Feb. 4, a week after Mr. Bush spoke, that the administration provided documents to the I.A.E.A. to back up its charges. [New York Times, July 9, 2003]

 

Talking Points Memo. Now keep in mind that one of the things the White House has said about the Niger-uranium issue is that even though the Niger documents were bogus, the White House had other evidence to support the president's claim. In other words, White House intelligence that was so top secret that it apparently couldn't be shared with the CIA either then or even now. [Josh Marshall, July 7, 2003]

 

The Dog Ate My WMDs. [The Bush administration has done] what many observers expected them to do for a while now: They have blamed it all on the CIA. A report in the June 12, 2003 edition of the Washington Post cites an unnamed Bush administration official who claims that the CIA knew the evidence of Iraqi nuclear plans had been forged, but that CIA failed to give this information to Bush. The Post story states, "A senior intelligence official said the CIA's action was the result of 'extremely sloppy' handling of a central piece of evidence in the administration's case against then-Iraqi President Saddam Hussein." Ergo, it wasn't the dog who ate the WMDs. It was the CIA. Unfortunately for Bush and his people, this blame game will not hold water. [William Rivers Pitt, June 16, 2003]

 

Detailed Analysis of October 7 Speech by Bush on Iraq. There’s no evidence that Iraq has gotten anywhere with seeking nuclear weapons. The pitiful status of evidence in this regards is shown by claims in e.g. Blair’s dossier that Iraq is seeking uranium from Africa, year and country unspecified. South Africa is, of course, the only country in the continent that has potentially the capacity for enrichment of uranium to bomb quality, and claims not to have supplied Iraq with uranium. Unenriched uranium does Iraq little good, since enrichment facilities are large, require huge investment, and cannot easily be hidden. [Institute for Public Accuracy]

 

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