- Dick Cheney, the US Vice-President and the administration's
most outspoken hawk over Iraq, faced demands for his resignation last night
as he was accused of using false evidence to build the case for war.
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- He was accused of using his office to insist that a false
claim about Iraq's efforts to buy uranium from Africa to restart its nuclear
programme be included in George Bush's State of the Union address - overriding
the concerns of the CIA director, George Tenet.
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- Mr Cheney was also accused of knowingly misleading Congress
when the administration sought its authorisation for the use of force to
oust Saddam Hussein.
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- The allegations against Mr Cheney have come most vocally
from a group of senior former intelligence officials who believe that information
from the intelligence community was selectively used to support a war fought
for political reasons. In an open letter to President George Bush, the
group have asked that he demand Mr Cheney's resignation.
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- As the clamour for a full inquest into the African uranium
claims grew on both sides of the Atlantic, Jack Straw, the Foreign Secretary,
was accused by MPs of lacking "credibility" after he admitted
knowing a month before the war that documents making the assertion were
forgeries. Mr Straw said in a statement he had known that letters given
to the UN nuclear agency, the International Atomic Energy Agency, about
the Niger claim were fake as early as February.
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- Mr Straw also claimed that the Government's case for
military action was not based on "intelligence reports".
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- Labour MPs, including Tam Dalyell, the father of the
House, asked why Mr Straw had not told MPs that the documents were fake
in advance of the vote to approve military action on 18 March. "He
now says the Government knew it was a forgery in February. Why didn't he
tell us before Parliament voted for war?" he said. "Also if the
case for war is not based on intelligence, what is it based on?"
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- Last night the Labour-dominated Foreign Affairs Committee
asked Mr Straw to reveal what he knew about the Niger claim.
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- Donald Anderson, the committee's chairman, wrote to Mr
Straw asking him when the CIA first questioned the Niger connection, and
why ministers had not admitted earlier that there were doubts about the
claims. The committee also asked whether the CIA had questioned any other
claims in the September dossier on Iraq's weapons.
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- The letter, signed by 11 MPs of all parties, called on
Mr Straw to confirm The Independent's report that technical documents and
centrifuge parts found at the home of an Iraqi nuclear scientist in Baghdad
had lain buried for 12 years. The letter also asked Mr Straw to reveal
when he knew that the former US ambassador Joseph Wilson had found claims
about Niger-Iraq links to be false.
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- Last week the White House admitted that the claim that
Iraq was seeking "significant quantities of uranium from Africa"
- based on faked documents provided by the Italian intelligence services
- should not have been included in President Bush's speech of 28 January.
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- In Washington there is no conclusive proof that Mr Cheney
was responsible for insisting that the claim be made in the speech. But
there is clear evidence of Mr Cheney's interest in the alleged Niger deal.
Joseph Wilson, a former US ambassador, said he was asked by the CIA to
go to Niger and investigate the claim in a request from the Vice-President's
office. Mr Cheney's chief of staff, Lewis Libby, has admitted that during
a briefing from the CIA "the Vice-President asked a question about
the implication of the report".
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- There have been reports from CIA officials that in the
months before the war Mr Cheney made a "multiple number" of personal
visits to its headquarters in Virginia to meet officials analysing intelligence
relating to Iraq. "[He] sent signals, intended or otherwise, that
a certain output was desired from here," one senior CIA official told
reporters.
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- The CIA director, Mr Tenet, said he accepted responsibility
for approving the speech but said his officers had only "concurred"
with White House officials that by naming the British Government as the
source of the Niger claim it was "factually correct". Britain
has stood by the claim, saying it has evidence in addition to the Italian
documents.
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- © 2003 Independent Digital (UK) Ltd
- http://news.independent.co.uk/world/politics/story.jsp?story=424786
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