Weak. Publicize this in the State of the Union Address when you know it's not true and now, months later after everyone knows you know it's not true, issue a "statement' that starts off with "Knowing all that we know now..." All that they know now is that they were caught in a lie. If there wasn't heat coming from the Brits this "statement" would never happen. ________________ White House Backs Off Claim on Iraqi Buy By Walter Pincus Washington Post Staff Writer Tuesday, July 8, 2003; Page A01 The Bush administration acknowledged for the first time yesterday that President Bush should not have alleged in his State of the Union address in January that Iraq had sought to buy uranium in Africa to reconstitute its nuclear weapons program. The statement was prompted by publication of a British parliamentary commission report, which raised serious questions about the reliability of British intelligence that was cited by Bush as part of his effort to convince Congress and the American people that Iraqi President Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction program were a threat to U.S. security. The British panel said it was unclear why the British government asserted as a "bald claim" that there was intelligence that Iraq had sought to buy significant amounts of uranium in Africa. It noted that the CIA had already debunked this intelligence, and questioned why an official British government intelligence dossier published four months before Bush's speech included the allegation as part of an effort to make the case for going to war against Iraq. The findings by the House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee undercut one of the Bush administration's main defenses for including the allegation in the president's speech -- namely that despite the CIA's questions about the assertion, British intelligence was still maintaining that Iraq had indeed sought to buy uranium in Africa. Asked about the British report, the administration released a statement that, after weeks of questions about the president's uranium-purchase assertion, effectively conceded that intelligence underlying the president's statement was wrong. "Knowing all that we know now, the reference to Iraq's attempt to acquire uranium from Africa should not have been included in the State of the Union speech," a senior Bush administration official said last night in a statement authorized by the White House. The administration's statement capped months of turmoil over the uranium episode during which senior officials have been forced to defend the president's remarks in the face of growing reports that they were based on faulty intelligence. As part of his case against Iraq, Bush said in his State of the Union speech on Jan. 28 that "the British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa." The International Atomic Energy Agency told the U.N. Security Council in March that the uranium story -- which centered on documents alleging Iraqi efforts to buy the material from Niger -- was based on forged documents. Although the administration did not dispute the IAEA's conclusion, it launched the war against Iraq later that month. It subsequently emerged that the CIA the previous year had dispatched a respected former senior diplomat, Joseph C. Wilson, to Niger to investigate the allegation and that Wilson had reported back that officials in Niger denied the story. The administration never made Wilson's mission public, and questions have been raised over the past month over how the CIA characterized his conclusion in its classified intelligence reports inside the administration. The report by the House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee followed weeks of hearings by the panel into two intelligence dossiers on Iraq's weapons programs -- one published in September and the other in January -- that the government of Prime Minister Tony Blair used to justify supporting the administration in going to war against Iraq. Questions about the British government's handling of intelligence have mirrored many of the issues being raised in the United States. But they have created a far greater political uproar in London. Parliament's response has been notably different than that of Congress. The House and Senate intelligence panels have moved cautiously, with Democrats and Republicans divided over the necessity of full-blown public hearings into the administration's use of pre-war intelligence. The House of Commons moved quickly to investigate the matter, with the Blair government battling accusations that it misled Parliament and members of the Labor Party in persuading them to support an unpopular war. The commission's report issued yesterday found that Blair and his other key ministers "did not mislead" Parliament in describing the threat from Iraq's alleged chemical, biological and nuclear weapons programs. But the panel did find that the Blair government mishandled intelligence material on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction programs. The panel said it is too soon to determine whether the government's assertions about Iraq's chemical and biological weapons programs will be borne out, but added that the government's actions "were justified by the information available at the time." In a major political issue within Britain, the panel found that Alastair Campbell, Blair's communications chief, "did not exert or seek to exert improper influence" in drafting the September intelligence report or a key statement in the document that "the Iraqi military are able to deploy chemical or biological weapons within 45 minutes if ordered to do so." The panel did find that this statement "did not warrant the prominence given to it" in the first pages of the dossier because it was based on "intelligence from a single, uncorroborated source." The panel asked the Blair government to explain why it was given such a prominent position in the report. A senior administration official said yesterday that a classified version of a U.S. National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq's weapons programs, completed last September, contains references to intelligence reports that Iraq had attempted to buy uranium from three African countries, not just Niger. The other two countries are Namibia and Gabon, according to intelligence sources. The sources said the reports about other countries have not been confirmed and that some government analysts do not consider the information reliable. A senior intelligence official said that there were reports of "possible attempts" by Iraqis or their agents to buy uranium, but that "they were all somewhat sketchy." One Bush administration official said British and U.S. intelligence agencies got their Niger documents from the intelligence service of one country that he refused to name, but that others have identified as Italy. "We both had one source reporting through some liaison service which said, 'Look what we found,' " this official said. "There were other [intelligence] reporting streams, but it may be that all streams are traced to the same source."
CNN has a version with quotes from Wilson: http://www.cnn.com/2003/ALLPOLITICS/07/08/bush.iraq.ap/index.html <I> 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. <B>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. </B> 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. </I>
"See how honest we're being? We made a mistake and we admit it. You can trust us. We do our best to tell you the truth. It wasn't our fault! It was bad British intel. We would have never tried to lead you on. We’re doing the best we can! Honest!”
There is revisionist history, and then there is revisionist history. George W. Bush is revisionist historian #1.
Hey, it's okay. He didn't lie to a grand jury. He only lied to his countrymen, (including brave young Americans who have died in his elective war), and the rest of the world. So quit your griping, liberals.
