White House Defense of Uranium Claim Produces Maze of Contradictions

http://ap.tbo.com/ap/breaking/MGAVRY54JID.html

White House Defense of Uranium Claim Produces Maze of Contradictions An AP News Analysis By Jennifer Loven Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) - The White House attempt to defuse criticism over President Bush's now-discredited claim of Iraqi uranium-shopping in Africa has produced shifting explanations of how the assertion landed in his State of the Union speech. ....Cheney on Thursday picked up the defense of President Bush's decision to go to war. He said it would have been "irresponsible in the extreme" to ignore an intelligence report detailing the threat posed by Iraq's weapons programs...(as he) explain(ed) the events leading up to Bush's statement that "the British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa." <snip>

....On July 7, ...Fleischer said the statement was ...based on evidence that turned out to be forged....later, aides said the line was based on a broader body of intelligence involving uranium shopping in several African countries and thus might be OK. The White House...insisted it was unaware before the Jan. 28 speech that there were problems...But Stephen Hadley, No. 2 on Bush's national security team...(said) that two CIA memos and a call from CIA Director George Tenet had persuaded him to take a similar passage out of a presidential speech in October ...should have done likewise..in State of the Union drafts..said he had forgotten ...The October speech, in Cincinnati,was to have included a reference to Iraq seeking uranium from Niger. Fleischer said ...not possible to compare the reference to that in the State of the Union because the latter was broader - referring to efforts to buy uranium in Africa, instead of any one country, and leaving out any mention of specific quantities...(aide)..insisted that the CIA objected in October only because the statement then was based on "a single source, not because it was flawed."

But Hadley contradicted ...An unsigned CIA memo on Oct. 5 advised that "the CIA had reservations about the British reporting" on Iraq's alleged attempts in Niger..second memo...on Oct. 6, elaborated on the CIA's doubts, describing "some weakness in the evidence," such as the fact that Iraq already had a large stock of uranium and probably wouldn't need more...in a phone call around the same time, Tenet "asked that any reference to Iraq's attempt to purchase uranium from sources from Africa to be deleted from the speech,"

...Rice pointed repeatedly to the fact that doubts about the intelligence appeared in a footnote, written by the State Department...not read by Bush, Rice or other top aides...newly declassified portions of the NIE, on which the speech was based, show that the very first paragraph of the report's "Key Judgments" had a prominent reference to an addendum containing the State Department's "alternate view" of intelligence on Iraq's nuclear pursuits. The White House official said Rice and others did read the "Key Judgments" section...Bartlett said there was no debate between the White House and the CIA over the State of the Union line ..only discussion was ...on attributing the line to the British....contradict earlier accounts by Rice and Tenet, as well as a CIA official...On July 11, Rice said "some specifics about time and place were taken out" of a draft of the State of the Union after "discussion on that specific sentence" with the CIA....Tenet said: "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."...last week, the CIA official involved...told a ..Senate Intelligence Committee that there was "give and take" between the two agencies over the draft language....Fleischer.. said that Rice was referring to the changes made in the Cincinnati speech, even though that speech did not come up at all in that conversation with her. And the White House official said the CIA official's testimony was wrong - because the White House made only "stylistic" changes to the line to add the British sourcing.

these guys aren't very smart.

follow the OIL!

Weapons of Mass Confusion - MOST EFFECTIVE WHEN USED IN CONJUNCTION WITH "WEAPONS OF MASS DISTRACTION".

when first we practice to deceive." AKA, the shit is starting to hit the fan.

...what he said. the explanations are bogus and clinton would have us ignore all that, all the denials.

another thing. have you noticed how secretive the junta is (how could you not?)? cheney says, "how could we ignore the niger 'evidence'?". well, it's one thing to consider it, it's another thing to announce it to the world (not that i think they should withhold anyting, but it's THEIR modus operandi). i'd like to know what "evidence", if any, was withheld based on "national security" while this tidbit was released.

So that they can spend more time with their family? My money is still on Powell - he has been really quiet lately and he has got to be embarrassed by the 16 words thingie - though if the Bushies are really nuts they might push Hadley out - My feeling is that neither he nor Tenet would go quietly at this point. Hadley kind of reminds me of John Dean. A Tenet resignation wouldn't really help at this point because of those damning memos! Such hubris that they thought they would get away with this! They must have really thought that surely they would find a few WMD and the SOTU rhetoric would be forgotten in the hoopla - but they didn't count on finding nada. Shit - fan time.

until the end.

Eventually they must become so completely bizarre that even the untutored casual observer notices. Hide and watch.
;-)

Their MO is to constantly bombard us with new developments and scare tactics...usually on Friday afternoons. Our short attention spans will have this forgotten soon (they're hoping).