Open Warfare Amongst Bush Team

http://commondreams.org/headlines03/0712-02.htm


Published on Saturday, July 12, 2003 by the Times/UK
Bush Team Split as CIA Becomes the Fall Guy
by Tim Reid in Washington

ONE BY ONE, all the President’s men rounded on George Tenet yesterday, forcing the CIA Director to issue a resounding mea culpa that is likely to bring his career to an abrupt end.

The first salvo in what degenerated into open warfare within the Bush Administration was fired by the President himself, blaming the CIA for the inclusion of a false claim about Iraq’s nuclear weapons program in his State of the Union address last January.

The extraordinary public blame Mr Bush heaped upon the agency was underscored by Condoleezza Rice, his National Security Adviser, who summoned reporters covering Mr Bush’s Africa tour to tell them that the CIA had “cleared the speech in its entirety”.

Their finger-pointing exposed the bitter blame game raging within the Administration as the issue of Saddam Hussein’s alleged weapons of mass destruction finally caught fire in Washington.

It capped one of the worst weeks Mr Bush has endured since the September 11 attacks and put the normally sure-footed White House on the defensive as it struggled to protect the President from allegations that he he may have knowingly lied to the American public.The Oval Office’s attack on the CIA caused a sensation on Capitol Hill, and brought calls from Democrats for a congressional investigation. The internal warfare was triggered by last week’s White House admission that Mr Bush was wrong to have claimed in his State of the Union speech that Iraq had tried to buy uranium from Africa. That claim was based on intelligence reports that Saddam sought nuclear material from Niger.

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As often as Rice et al say that the SOTU has been cleared, we have to say twice as often that it has NOT been cleared, and that Tenet's speech says he merely did not prevent them from telling a lie they were determined to tell.

the verifiable "untruth" about the aluminum tubes in the Scam of the union address.

Silly woman. She thinks we're stupid enought to think the CIA GIVES the orders, instead of advising the gang on what they know and then standing around to TAKE orders.

was saying after hearing her statement. It sure sounds like she is expecting the CIA to give the orders.