George Tenet's Mea Culpa Over Forged Niger Docs Backfires
-- Bush Shot From the Lip Media and Political Response Swift and Merciless
-- Cheney and Rice Move Into the Crosshairs
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(FTW) - The speed with which CIA Director George Tenet accepted responsibility
last Friday for clearing George W. Bush's January 28 State of the Union
Speech containing the bogus Iraq-uranium statement based upon forged documents
was matched by the speed with which major news agencies - many of which
had already been serving as conduits for CIA leaks - released stories that
guaranteed deeper and more hostile probes. The writing appears to be on
the wall for a beleaguered and disarrayed presidency, as key administration
officials including Dick Cheney and Condoleezza Rice either wittingly or
unwittingly line up like chess pieces to take the fall for a doomed King.
A multitude of stories appearing within hours of the Bush/Rice statements
and Tenet's "confession" disclosed that the DCI (Director of
Central Intelligence) had successfully and personally argued for the removal
of a similar line three months before the State-of-the-Union speech. His
admission is not credible.
Statements by both Bush and departing press spokesman Ari Fleischer that
the matter is now closed will likely go down as wishful and quite possibly
delusional thinking. Famous last words. Recalled is the line from Watergate's
John Dean, "There is a cancer growing on the Presidency." This
is the kind of cancer that eats official after official until there is
nothing left between it and the King.
The deliberate distortion and misrepresentation of intelligence data about
Iraq is much broader than a single line in the President's speech, and
the reliance on that lie by Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice and Powell - both
before and after the speech, and after it was known that the intelligence
was bogus - is already being dragged into the light. The noose that will
ultimately hang George W. Bush is a meticulous and carefully crafted official
record compiled by California Congressman Henry Waxman (D) that has been
in place since last March of this year.
On Sunday July 13, Britain's Independent, signaling a very rough road ahead
for Prime Minister Tony Blair published a story titled "Twenty Lies
About the War". The top two lies listed were that Iraq was responsible
for the 9/11 attacks, and that Iraq had been working with al Qaeda. The
entire story is located at:
http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/politics/story.jsp?story=424008.
Every British and American assertion about Iraq is now on the table. So
is 9/11. And there is no way out for either Blair or Bush.
It is critical to understand what last Friday's statement addressed, and
what it did not. Tenet's ultimate position on the line in Bush's based-upon-fiction
Iraqi attempts to purchase uranium was that "the statement was factually
correct because the British government had released a report saying so."
This is the same position taken by Rice. Since there is a clear record
that George Tenet, the CIA, the Defense Intelligence Agency, the International
Atomic Energy Agency, and the State Department all knew that the charge
was unfounded for months before the speech, this amounts to Tenet, Rice
and Bush stating that the line was included after it was known that it
was false, only because of a technicality. Six-year-old children deceive
better than this.
That position is an admission of intent to deceive the American people
and the world. Tenet's statement itself begs the question, "Well,
if you knew it was false, why did you sign off on it?"
Secondly, there is a clear record showing that not only were the documents
on which the allegations were based known to be forged well in advance
of the speech, it had been demonstrated clearly that there was no other
evidence supporting the claims. Tony Blair's assertions that he still believes
the allegations "based upon separate intelligence which he has not
shared with the US" are ludicrous, especially in light of the fact
that the British government was at the time unaware that Vice President
Cheney had ordered the dispatch of retired US Ambassador Joseph Wilson
IV to personally investigate in February 2002. Wilson's recent statements
on Meet The Press, to the New York Times and in TIME make that clear.
As TIME reported on July 13, just two days after the Bush gambit, Wilson,
with no knowledge of the forged documents which had surfaced through the
Italian government in late 2001, returned from Niger in March 2002 after
conducting a thorough investigation and concluded that the sales or negotiations
had not taken place. Wilson said that, "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."
As retired CIA analyst Ray McGovern has pointed out, it is ludicrous to
expect that Cheney sent Wilson to investigate, and then did not want a
report when Wilson returned. Yet, that is the Vice President's position.
TIME wrote:
Wilson spent eight days sleuthing in Niger, meeting with current and former
government officials and businessmen; he came away convinced that the allegations
were untrue. When he returned to Washington in early March, Wilson gave
an oral report about his trip to both CIA and State Department officials.
On March 9 of last year, the CIA circulated a memo on the yellowcake story
that was sent to the White House, summarizing Wilson's assessment. Wilson
was not the only official looking into the matter. Nine days earlier, the
State Department's intelligence arm had sent a memo directly to Secretary
of State Colin Powell that also disputed the Italian intelligence. Greg
Thielmann, then a high-ranking official at State's intelligence research
unit, told TIME that it was not in Niger's self-interest to sell the Iraqis
destabilizing ore. 'A whole lot of things told us that the report was bogus.'
Shooting from the Lip
Contrary to press stories indicating that Friday's African statements by
Bush and Rice pointing fingers at Tenet for the crime were well-considered
in advance, it is much more likely that an increasingly unstable Bush shot
from the lip as he responded (again) to barrages of questions about his
allegations that Saddam Hussein had sought to purchase uranium from Niger
for a "reconstituted" nuclear weapons program. "I gave my
speech to the nation and it was cleared by the intelligence agencies,"
said Bush. A short time later, National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice
was holding an unusual and hastily arranged press conference aboard Air
Force One that many reports later described as a full broadside against
DCI Tenet.
It was a moment the press had apparently been waiting for.
Confronted by official statements that he was responsible for the inclusion
of the Niger/uranium references Tenet had but two choices. He could issue
a confession that would ultimately not stand, or he could call George W.
Bush an out-and-out liar. The latter would have crippled the US government.
Tenet's actions have been described as falling on his sword. Such a description
is inaccurate because Tenet is far from dead. He has suffered only a flesh
wound while the administration itself may be mortally wounded. For saving
the government from an immediate and unavoidable constitutional crisis,
Tenet, a shrewd political player who had previously served on the staff
of the Senate Intelligence Committee, will be viewed as a hero by some
inside the Beltway. He may have to offer to resign at some point, and may
choose to do so with this event as the pretext, rather than face heavy
scrutiny for a bothersome list of contradictions about the 9/11 attacks
which are now fully back on the table and soon to be under renewed scrutiny.
Remember, Tenet holds the secrets to 9/11, which may explain why a post-foot-in-mouth
Bush is kissing Tenet's clandestine buttocks in public and reaffirming
his confidence in him.
Waiting for the Moment
It was almost as if the press had been waiting for the moment and had their
stories already in the works. In fact, a number of stories preceding Friday's
presidential foot-chewing session show that - as described in FTW's two-part
series Beyond Bush - the inertia had already turned.
July 6 - In an op-ed piece written for The New York Times, Joseph Wilson
wrote that the CIA had sent him to Niger at the request of Cheney. Wilson
also wrote, (putting British intelligence and Tony Blair on the spot) that,
"It did not take long to conclude that it was highly doubtful that
any such transaction had ever taken place." Niger's uranium industry
is run by European, Japanese and Nigerian companies and monitored by agencies
like the IAEA. Wilson wrote, "There's simply too much oversight over
too small an industry for a sale to have transpired."
July 7 - A scathing editorial in the San Francisco Chronicle by Harley
Sorenson titled "The Madness of King George" lambasted the president
for his statements to Ha'aretz that he received direct instructions from
God. Sorenson wrote, "I'm becoming convinced that our president, the
man with his finger on the nuclear trigger, is a bona fide nutcase."
July 8 - CNN, after the White House admitted that the assertion was inaccurate,
wrote "It remains unclear why senior administration officials did
not know about Wilson's findings to the CIA that the reports... were bogus...
"A British panel also found intelligence on the Iraq allegations was
inaccurate, according to reports."
Blair was already cooked.
"US officials said a report citing Wilson's conclusions was given
to the White House and other agencies nearly a year before the president's
State of the Union address."
July 10 - CBS publishes a lengthy and devastating poll headlined "US
Losing Control in Iraq". In it, a wide range of questions showed that
the Bush administration is losing support everywhere and on all major issues.
Ready, Set, Go!
After the fateful statements from Bush and Rice, the reactions came swiftly
and unequivocally.
July 11 - First out of the gate was MSNBC's Michael Moran who has written
some compelling stories since 9/11. "The familiar drip, drip, drip
of a brewing political scandal echoes through the power centers of Washington
and London these days." Moran quoted a source close to the Bush family
as saying, "They have to get by this and they have to do it very soon."
Moran then nailed Rice in a lie by quoting her statement that, if George
Tenet had any objections about the uranium claim, "he did not make
them known." In fact, he had done so three months before and in a
variety of methods. Moran then re-emphasized a damning statement from Pentagon
Deputy Secretary Paul Wolfowitz who stupidly admitted in a May Vanity Fair
interview that the WMD issue had been selected (instead of oil) as an issue
of convenience on which the war could be sold to the American people.
Moran then roasted Blair's goose by pointing out the public defection of
former Foreign Secretary Robin Cook and his statements that the pretext
for the whole war was a concoction.
July 12 - CNN in an early follow-up story reported that Senate Intelligence
Chairman and Bush loyalist Pat Roberts was criticizing Tenet for "extremely
sloppy handling" of the uranium mess and that, "Roberts also
accused the agency of orchestrating a 'campaign of press leaks' to discredit
the president." The CNN story went on state, "Tenet said top
administration officials - including Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney
- were never briefed on CIA's skepticism... Nor did he tell members of
the administration last fall."
Now we have Tenet calling Wilson a liar. Then CNN chose to headline the
concluding section of the story with a quote from Democratic challenger
Howard Dean, This is "beginning to sound a little like Watergate."
July 12 - CBS News reported that many members of Congress were not satisfied
with Tenet's statement. It then quoted a former National Security Council
staff member as saying, "I anticipate that George Tenet... will probably
be sacrificed on this one. He has taken the fall, and I think the administration
will wait to see whether this flies. I'd doubt (it will)." CBS then
quoted former Republican White House staffer David Gergen as saying, "Somebody
in the administration, not in the agency, wanted to put this in the speech
and got the CIA to sign off on it, even though everybody knew within the
US government that there were real doubts about the validity of the report.
And that's what constitutes the misleading quality of it."
July 12 - The Washington Times of London ran a story titled "Bush
Team Split As CIA Becomes The Fall Guy". It said, "The first
salvo in what degenerated into open warfare within the Bush Administration
was fired by the President himself... It capped one of the worst weeks
Mr. Bush has endured since the September 11 attacks and put the... White
House on the defensive as it struggled to protect the President from allegations
that he may have knowingly lied to the American public... In anonymous
briefings to the US media on Thursday CIA officials insisted that the agency
explicitly told the White House that the claim was false before the speech."
July 12 - In a scathing editorial titled "The Uranium Fiction",
The New York Times wrote, "We're glad that someone in Washington has
finally taken responsibility for letting President Bush make a false accusation
about Saddam Hussein's nuclear weapons program... but the matter will not
end there." After pointing to the Wilson investigation and reports
the Times wrote, "The uranium charge should never have found its way
into Mr. Bush's speech. Determining how it got there is essential to understanding
whether the administration engaged in a deliberate effort to mislead the
nation about the Iraqi threat."
July 12 - Eleanor Clift writing in Newsweek titled her story "No Mistakes
Were Made". Her lead paragraph bespoke the escalating tone of criticism
for Bush et al. "President Bush is certain he did the right thing
by going to war in Iraq. Bush never second-guesses himself, a trait that
permeates his administration and contains the seeds of his undoing... 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 hubris."
Clift then took apart the administrations boasts that it had a broad international
coalition supporting the invasion quoting a democratic lawmaker as saying,
"I'm not interested in three Latvians in bio-chem suits."
July 12 - The Associated Press, a little more reserved in its reporting,
stated, "[Senate Intelligence Chair Pat] Roberts charged that unnamed
intelligence officials were telling the press that the CIA warned the White
House that the information about Iraq trying to obtain uranium from Africa
were unfounded. But as late as ten days before the State of the Union speech,
Roberts said the CIA was still saying that Iraq was trying to get uranium
from Africa." That's interesting.
Where's the record of that Senator?
July 13 - In a page 1 story of the Sunday edition of The Washington Post,
veteran reporter and CIA conduit Walter Pincus fired back at Bush. His
headline was "CIA Got Uranium Reference Cut in October." In describing
how Tenet had previously successfully intervened to have an October reference
to the uranium removed from a Bush speech, Pincus wrote, "Tenet argued
personally to White House officials, including deputy national security
adviser Stephen Hadley, that the allegation should not be used... Another
senior official with knowledge of the intelligence said the CIA had doubts
about the accuracy of the documents underlying the allegation, which months
later turned out to be forged.
If Hadley knew, then Condoleezza Rice knew. And her finger pointing is
an outright lie.
Pincus continued, "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 intervened three months earlier
in a much less symbolic speech... But it is clear from the new disclosure
about Tenet's intervention... that the controversy continues to boil, and
as new facts emerge a different picture is being presented than the administration
has given to date..."
"...Cheney, insisted on including Hussein's quest for a nuclear weapon
as a prominent part of their public case for war in Iraq."
Pincus then dropped a bombshell. He reported that a senior administration
official had stated, "seeking uranium from Niger was never in the
drafts". He then followed it up by stating, "A senior administration
official said Bush's chief speechwriter... does not remember who wrote
the line that has wound up causing... so much grief."
July 13 - The New York Times, calling the matter a "political storm"
drew the noose tighter by reporting that "[Tenet's] involvement [in
pulling the statement from the October speech] indicates that both he and
the White House were aware of the doubts about the intelligence three months
before the State of the Union speech.
"With the matter threatening to undermine Mr. Bush's support at a
time when American soldiers continue to be killed in Iraq...the White House
was clearly seeking to put the matter to rest."
In a new twist, the Times also reported that, "After CIA officials
raised concerns about the wording in an early draft the speech, the White
House changed it to make it vaguer and to attribute it to Britain."
Then the Times raised the specter that Tenet and Colin Powell might have
set the administration up. "Participants in the process note that
Mr. Tenet reviewed the same material with Mr. Powell as they prepared the
presentation to the United Nations. The two men decided together that the
story of Iraqi efforts to obtain uranium... could not be supported.
But Powell is not off the hook. (See below)
July 13 - The Los Angeles Times checked in with a major story that said,
"But the administration effort to have Tenet accept responsibility
triggered new recriminations on Saturday - including a sharp rebuke from
a key Democrat on Capitol Hill - that suggest the issue is far from closed...
"...the administration continued to face persistent questions.
"Senator John D. 'Jay' Rockefeller IV (D-WVa) vice chairman of the
Senate Intelligence Committee said the White House has yet to explain how
discredited claims about Iraqi efforts... made their way into the speech
to begin with..."
"Tenet and the CIA 'have been made to take the fall to shield the
president and his advisers,' Rockefeller said, adding that he believes
that the National Security Council pressed to include the allegation even
though it 'knew the underlying information was not credible.'"
"Rockefeller directed particularly pointed criticism at National Security
Adviser Condoleezza Rice, saying her very public role in pinning the blame
on Tenet is 'dishonorable.'"
"'Why does this all fall on George Tenet? Because it's convenient,'
Rockefeller said. 'My guess is [Rice] had a lot more to do with this mistake
than Tenet did.'"
July 13 - TIME Magazine took the unraveling process further in a story
titled, "A Question of Trust". In questioning whether Bush's
credibility has taken a major hit, the article by Michael Duffy and James
Carney pointed out that before the Friday statements by Bush and Rice the
admission of the "error" in the speech had "instead sparked
a bewildering four days of changing explanations and unusually nasty finger
pointing by the normally disciplined Bush team."
In a statement that suggests to this writer that the original forged documents
might have been planted by the CIA or the National Security Council (remember
Iran-Contra?), TIME wrote, "Finally, in late 2001 [just after 9/11],
the Italian government came into possession of evidence suggesting that
Iraq was again trying to purchase yellowcake from Niger. Rome's source
provided half a dozen letters and other documents alleged to be correspondence
between Niger and Iraqi officials negotiating a sale. The Italians' evidence
was shared with both Britain and the US.
"When it got to Washington, the Iraq-Niger uranium report caught the
eye of someone important: Vice President Dick Cheney."
Then TIME began the process of naming names by listing top CIA analyst
Alan Foley and presidential aide Robert Joseph as playing key roles in
the battle over whether to use the information or not.
When the hearings start, just as with Watergate, these men will be among
the first to testify, and their testimony will begin the long and excruciating
death of the Bush presidency.
THE BRICK WALL
The brick wall against which all of the administration's chess pieces will
be crushed was outlined in an unanswered March 17 letter from California
Congressman Henry Waxman (D) to President Bush. The record laid out by
Waxman also makes it perfectly clear that Secretary of State Colin Powell
is as implicated as any member of the Bush administration.
Before presenting Waxman's irrefutable record, it is important to ask one
question: Who or what is capable of orchestrating events to remove the
Bush presidency and yet leave the US with the Patriot Act, Homeland Security,
a National Security Strategy calling for pre-emptive attacks on foreign
powers, Total Information Awareness, and, above all, Iraqi oil and the
proceeds of Afghan heroin sales flowing through US banks? It isn't Henry
Waxman, that's for sure.
To view the original letter, please visit:
http://www.house.gov/reform/min/inves_admin/admin_nuclear_evidence.htm
A portion of Waxman's letter reads:
Use of the Evidence by U.S. Officials
The evidence that Iraq sought to purchase uranium from an African country
was first revealed by the British government on September 24, 2002, when
Prime Minister Tony Blair released a 50-page report on Iraqi efforts to
acquire weapons of mass destruction. As the New York Times reported in
a front-page article, one of the two "chief new elements" in
the report was the claim that Iraq had "sought to acquire uranium
in Africa that could be used to make nuclear weapons."1
This evidence subsequently became a significant part of the U.S. case against
Iraq. On December 7, Iraq filed its weapons declaration with the United
Nations Security Council. The U.S. response relied heavily on the evidence
that Iraq had sought to obtain uranium from Africa.
For example, this is how the New York Times began its front-page article
on December 13 describing the U.S. response:
American intelligence agencies have reached a preliminary conclusion that
Iraq's 12,000 page declaration of its weapons program fails to account
for chemical and biological agents missing when inspectors left Iraq four
years ago, American officials and United Nations diplomats said today.
In addition, Iraq's declaration on its nuclear program, they say, leaves
open a host of questions. Among them is why Iraq was seeking to buy uranium
in Africa in recent years.2
The official U.S. response was provided on December 19, when Secretary
of State Colin Powell appeared before the Security Council. As the Los
Angeles Times reported, "A one-page State Department fact sheet...
lists what Washington considers the key omissions and deceptions in Baghdad's
Dec. 7 weapons declaration."3 One of the eight "key omissions
and deceptions" was the failure to explain Iraq's attempts to purchase
uranium from an African country.
Specifically, the State Department fact sheet contains the following points
under the heading "Nuclear Weapons": "The Declaration ignores
efforts to procure uranium from Niger. Why is the Iraqi regime hiding their
uranium procurement?" A copy of this fact sheet is enclosed with this
letter.
The Iraqi efforts to obtain uranium from Africa were deemed significant
enough to be included in your State of the Union address to Congress. You
stated: "The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently
sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa."4 As the Washington
Post reported the next day, "the president seemed quite specific as
he ticked off the allegations last night, including the news that Iraq
had secured uranium from Africa for the purpose of making nuclear bombs."5
A day later, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld told reporters at a news
briefing that Iraq "recently was discovered seeking significant quantities
of uranium from Africa."6
Knowledge of the Unreliability of the Evidence
The world first learned that the evidence linking Iraq to attempts to purchase
uranium from Africa was forged from the Director General of the International
Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Mohamed El Baradei. On March 7, Director El
Baradei reported to the U.N. Security Council:
Based on thorough analysis, the IAEA has concluded, with the concurrence
of outside experts, that these documents-which formed the basis for reports
of recent uranium transactions between Iraq and Niger-are in fact not authentic.
We have therefore concluded that these specific allegations are unfounded.7
Recent accounts in the news media have provided additional details. According
to the Washington Post, the faked evidence included "a series of letters
between Iraqi agents and officials in the central African nation of Niger."8
The article stated that the forgers "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."9 CNN reported:
one of the documents purports to be a letter signed by Tandjia Mamadou,
the president of Niger, talking about the uranium deal with Iraq. On it
[is] a childlike signature that is clearly not his. Another, written on
paper from a 1980s military government in Niger, bears the date of October
2000 and the signature of a man who by then had not been foreign minister
of Niger for 14 years.10
U.S. intelligence officials had doubts about the veracity of the evidence
long before Director El Baradei's report. The Los Angeles Times reported
on March 15 that "the CIA first heard allegations that Iraq was seeking
uranium from Niger in late 2001" when "the existence of the documents
was reported to [the CIA] second-or third-hand." The Los Angeles Times
quotes one CIA official as saying: "We included that in some of our
reporting, although it was all caveated because we had concerns about the
accuracy of that information."11 The Washington Post reported on March
13: "The CIA... had questions about 'whether they were accurate,'
said one intelligence official, and it decided not to include them in its
file on Iraq's program to procure weapons of mass destruction."12
There have been suggestions by some Administration officials that there
may be other evidence besides the forged documents that shows Iraq tried
to obtain uranium from an African country. For instance, CIA officials
recently stated that "U.S. concerns regarding a possible uranium agreement
between Niger and Iraq were not based solely on the documents which are
now known to be fraudulent." The CIA provided this other information
to the IAEA along with the forged documents. After reviewing this complete
body of evidence, the IAEA stated: "we have found to date no evidence
or plausible indication of the revival of a nuclear weapons programme in
Iraq.13 Ultimately, the IAEA concluded that "these specific allegations
are unfounded."14
Questions
These facts raise troubling questions. It appears that at the same time
that you, Secretary Rumsfeld, and State Department officials were citing
Iraq's efforts to obtain uranium from Africa as a crucial part of the case
against Iraq, U.S. intelligence officials regarded this very same evidence
as unreliable. If true, this is deeply disturbing: it would mean that your
Administration asked the U.N. Security Council, the Congress, and the American
people to rely on information that your own experts knew was not credible.
Your statement to Congress during the State of the Union, in particular,
raises a host of questions. The statement is worded in a way that suggests
it was carefully crafted to be both literally true and deliberately misleading
at the same time. The statement itself -"The British government has
learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium
from Africa" -may be technically accurate, since this appears to be
the British position. But given what the CIA knew at the time, the implication
you intended -that there was credible evidence that Iraq sought uranium
from Africa -was simply false.
To date, the White House has avoided explaining why the Administration
relied on this forged evidence in building its case against Iraq. The first
Administration response, which was provided to the Washington Post, was
"we fell for it."15 But this is no longer credible in light of
the information from the CIA. Your spokesman, Ari Fleischer, was asked
about this issue at a White House news briefing on March 14, but as the
following transcript reveals, he claimed ignorance and avoided the question:
Q: Ari, as the president said in his State of the Union address, the British
government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant
quantities of uranium from Africa. And since then, the IAEA said that those
were forged documents-
Mr. Fleischer: I'm sorry, whose statement was that?
Q: The President, in his State of the Union address. Since then, the IAEA
has said those were forged documents. Was the administration aware of any
doubts about these documents, the authenticity of the documents, from any
government agency or department before it was submitted to the IAEA?
Mr. Fleisher: These are matters that are always reviewed with an eye toward
the various information that comes in and is analyzed by a variety of different
people. The President's concerns about Iraq come from multiple places,
involving multiple threats that Iraq can possess, and these are matters
that remain discussed.
Thank you [end of briefing].18
Plainly, more explanation is needed. I urge you to provide to me and to
the relevant committees of Congress a full accounting of what you knew
about the reliability of the evidence linking Iraq to uranium in Africa,
when you knew this, and why you and senior officials in the Administration
presented the evidence to the U.N. Security Council, the Congress, and
the American people without disclosing the doubts of the CIA. In particular,
I urge you to address:
1. Whether CIA officials communicated their doubts about the credibility
of the forged evidence to other Administration officials, including officials
in the Department of State, the Department of Defense, the National Security
Council, and the White House;
2. Whether the CIA had any input into the "Fact Sheet" distributed
by the State Department on December 19, 2002; and
3. Whether the CIA reviewed your statement in the State of the Union address
regarding Iraq's attempts to obtain uranium from Africa and, if so, what
the CIA said about the statement.
Given the urgency of the situation, I would appreciate an expeditious response
to these questions.
Sincerely,
Henry A. Waxman
Ranking Minority Member
Endnotes
1Blair Says Iraqis Could Launch Chemical Warheads in Minutes, New York
Times (Sept. 25, 2002).
2Threats and Responses: Report by Iraq, Iraq Arms Report Has Big Omissions,
U.S. Officials Say, New York Times (Dec. 13, 2002) (emphasis added).
3U.S. Issues a List of the Shortcomings in Iraqi Arms Declaration, Los
Angeles Times (Dec. 20, 2002) (emphasis added).
4The President, State of the Union Address (Jan. 28, 2003) (online at
www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/QJ /20030128-19.html ) (emphasis
added).
5A War Cry Tempered by Eloquence, Washington Post (Jan. 29, 2003).
6Press Conference with Donald Rumsfeld, General Richard Myers, Cable News
Network (Jan. 29, 2003) (emphasis added).
7IAEA Director General Dr. Mohamed El Baradei, The Status of Nucle(online
at www.iaea.org/worldatom/Press/Statements/ 2003/ebsp2003n006.shtm1).
8Some Evidence on Iraq Called Fake; UN. Nuclear Inspector Says Documents
on
Purchases Were Forged, Washington Post (Mar. 8, 2003).
9 id.
10UN. Saying Documents Were Faked, CNN American Morning with Paula Zahn
(Mar. 14, 2003).
11Italy May Have Been Misled by Fake Iraq Arms Papers, US. Says, Los Angeles
Times (Mar. 15, 2003).
12FBI Probes Fake Evidence of Iraqi Nuclear Plans, Washington Post (Mar.
13, 2003).
13IAEA Director General Dr. Mohamed El Baradei, supra note 7 (emphasis
added).
14Id. (emphasis added).
15Some Evidence on Iraq Called Fake, supra note 8.
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