White House: Oopsie! We told a fib.

[Rspaight]

The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa.
-- President Bush in January's State of the Union address

http://www.cnn.com/2003/ALLPOLITICS/07/ ... index.html

White House: Uranium claim incorrect
Forged documents made pre-war assertion 'not accurate'
Tuesday, July 8, 2003 Posted: 7:24 AM EDT (1124 GMT)

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Amid questions about prewar intelligence, the White House is acknowledging that President Bush was incorrect when he said in his State of the Union address that Iraq recently had sought significant quantities of uranium in Africa.

The White House acknowledgment comes as a British parliamentary commission questions the reliability of British intelligence about Saddam Hussein's efforts to obtain weapons of mass destruction in the run-up to the war in Iraq.

Democrats in Congress also have questioned how the Bush administration used U.S. intelligence on Iraq's weapons programs.

Bush said in his address to Congress in January that the British government had learned that Saddam recently sought significant quantities of uranium in Africa.

The president's statement in the State of the Union was incorrect because it was based on forged documents from the African nation of Niger, White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said Monday.

"The president's statement was based on the predicate of the yellow cake" uranium "from Niger," Fleischer told reporters. "So given the fact that the report on the yellow cake did not turn out to be accurate, that is reflective of the president's broader statement."

A British parliamentary committee concluded that Prime Minister Tony Blair's government mishandled intelligence material on Iraqi weapons.

John Stanley, a Conservative member of the committee, said so far no evidence has been found in Iraq to substantiate four key claims, including that Iraq was seeking uranium in Africa as part of an effort to restart a nuclear weapons program.

Envoy says connection doubts went unheeded

Claims about Saddam's weapons of mass destruction were a primary justification for the war, but U.S. forces have yet to find any such weapons. The House and Senate intelligence panels are looking into prewar intelligence on Iraq and how it was used by the Bush administration.

Fleischer's remarks follow assertions by an envoy sent by the CIA to Africa to investigate allegations about Iraq's nuclear weapons program. The envoy, Joseph Wilson, said Sunday the Bush administration manipulated his findings, possibly to strengthen the rationale for war.

Wilson, a former U.S. ambassador to the West African nation of Gabon, was dispatched in February 2002 to explore whether Iraq tried to buy uranium from Niger.

Writing in a New York Times op-ed piece, Wilson said it did not take him long "to conclude that it was highly doubtful that any such transaction had ever taken place."

In an interview on NBC-TV's "Meet the Press," Wilson insisted his doubts about the purported Iraq-Niger connection reached the highest levels of government, including Vice President Dick Cheney's office.

In fact, he said, Cheney's office inquired about the purported Niger-Iraq link.

"The question was asked of the CIA by the office of the vice president. The office of the vice president, I am absolutely convinced, received a very specific response to the question it asked, and that response was based upon my trip out there," Wilson said.

Yet nearly a year after he had returned and briefed CIA officials, the assertion that Saddam was trying to obtain uranium from Africa was included in Bush's State of the Union address.

The International Atomic Energy Agency told the United Nations in March that the information about uranium was based on forged documents.

After Bush repeated the British claim in his State of the Union address, the purported letters between Iraq and Niger were turned over to the United Nations, which found them to be forged.

[Rspaight]

Oh, boy, this is getting better.

http://www.cnn.com/2003/ALLPOLITICS/07/ ... index.html

A choice selection from the article above:

White House press secretary Ari Fleischer was asked Monday about former Ambassador Joseph Wilson's assertion in Sunday's New York Times and elsewhere that -- well before Bush's speech -- the CIA sent him to Niger and he reported back that the story the African nation had sold yellowcake uranium to Iraq was bogus.

Fleischer said there was "zero, nada, nothing new here" and that the administration had "long acknowledged the information was incorrect."

But he said the administration did not know the information was false before the State of the Union address. "I see nothing that goes broader that would indicate that there was no basis for the president's broader statement," Fleischer said.

"But specifically on yellowcake ... we acknowledge that that information did turn out to be a forgery. We see nothing that would dissuade us from the president's broader statement," he said.

But Fleischer also conceded that the "president's broader statement was based and predicated on the yellowcake to Niger."

I guess Ari isn't even trying anymore now that he's turned in his resignation. So, the documents that the "broader statement" was "based and predicated on" "turn[ed] out to be a forgery", but that doesn't "dissuade us from the [...] broader statement"?

Ye gods. They're spinning so fast they're becoming disoriented.

Ryan

[lukpac]

Yeah, I saw that earlier and couldn't quite figure it out. My head is spinning just thinking about it.

Maybe that's the point...

[Ron]

Maybe that's the point...

Please refrain from using copyrighted Emoticons.

[Rspaight]

Don't mess with Mr. Green. He'll kick your ass. Even though he has no legs.

Ryan

[Ron]

A little off topic, but have you noticed that W. Bush may have what is possibly the most presidential walking style of all American presidents in recent memory? And his wife may even outdo Hillary [who had it all over her hubby] in that department [First Lady division] as well.

I'm glad we had this opportunity to chat.