White House Faulted on Uranium Claim

[Donutboy 0]

White House Faulted on Uranium Claim

Intelligence Warnings Disregarded, President's Advisory Board Says

By Walter Pincus

Washington Post Staff Writer

Wednesday, December 24, 2003; Page A01

The President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board has concluded that the White House made a questionable claim in January's State of the Union address about Saddam Hussein's efforts to obtain nuclear materials because of its desperation to show that Hussein had an active program to develop nuclear weapons, according to a well-placed source familiar with the board's findings.

In the speech Jan. 28, President Bush cited British intelligence in asserting that Hussein had tried to buy uranium from an unnamed country in Africa. The White House later said the claim should not have been made, after reports that the intelligence community expressed doubts it was true. After reviewing the matter for several months, the intelligence board -- chaired by former national security adviser Brent Scowcroft -- has determined that there was "no deliberate effort to fabricate" a story, the source said. Instead, the source said, the board believes the White House was so anxious "to grab onto something affirmative" about Hussein's nuclear ambitions that it disregarded warnings from the intelligence community that the claim was questionable.

White House Faulted on Uranium Claim

[DKW 86 7,899]

And the Brits still say the claim was valid, even today.

[MDM4AU 338]

In this article I notice that at no time prior to the speech was the information proven false. The article also says there was no "deliberate attempt to fabricate." Methods for dealing with similar situations in the future have been implimented.

Anyway, I saw nowhere that it said Bush was a liar, as all of you libs love to claim on, literally, a daily basis. For it to be a lie, wouldn't he have to outright know that the information was completely false and still claim it as true? I am just wondering.

Look at it the way you wish, but I think it is quite foolish to post this article and then expect rational people to believe all your claims of lying! A judgement call was made that now with 20/20 hindsight is questioned. It doesn't make it necessarily right. Yet, in the same way it in no way makes him the liar you try to convince everyone he is just to get your "guy" elected.

[Tiger Al 0]

The information was available to the speech writers that said the Niger claim was based on forged documents. The CIA had already pulled this claim from speeches given in October of 2002. Ambassador Wilson had already informed the CIA that the claim was bogus. If you read the entire article you'll find:

The findings of the advisory board do not appear to add many new details about the uranium episode, but they make it clear that the White House should share blame with the CIA for allowing the questionable material into the speech. CIA Director George J. Tenet and deputy national security adviser Stephen J. Hadley have accepted responsibility for allowing the assertion into the address.

The inclusion of that erroneous statement leads most thinking individuals with the following conclusion: Either the administration intentionally mislead the country by making that statement or they didn't care to verify its' accuracy. They either lied or they're inept. Take your pick.

[AUloggerhead 2,516]

... The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa.  ...

This is the exact quote from the transcript of the speech. Everything in that sentence is factual. Even today, the Brits are still standing behind it. In other words (for the benefit of all Bush/America haters,) this is known as a true statement -- the opposite of a lie.

Taken as a whole, the above statement in Bush's speech is only one in a litany of statements made in reference to the former regime in Iraq headed up by the bully-coward, Saddam Hussein. Some were prefaced with the "according-to-intelligence" disclaimer. You can read the entire transcript for yourself:

Link

At this point in time, isn't all this focus on one bit of intelligence analysis inserted into a State of the Union speech a little academic? SH is history, after all. He's going to be tried & then executed. I'm thinking we should all adopt the motto of that democrat fund raiser site, moveon.org, and ... move on.

[Tiger Al 0]

Loggerhead, that's a cozy notion you're selling. Because Saddam is captured, anything the Bushies said that were inaccurate (lies) should therefore be dismissed. Thanks, but I'll pass.

[War Eagle 96 10]

I'm glad they did, and hope they will continue to do whatever is necessary to make this country safer. If you want to see a liar, look back at PBC. He did more to put this country in the situation it is, in terms of terrorism and the moral deficit, than anyone else.

[Tiger Al 0]

I'm glad they did, and hope they will continue to do whatever is necessary to make this country safer. If you want to see a liar, look back at PBC. He did more to put this country in the situation it is, in terms of terrorism and the moral deficit, than anyone else.

Blah, blah, blah, blah...blah.

[War Eagle 96 10]

Nice retort, Al. Proves my point. Thanks.

[AUloggerhead 2,516]

Loggerhead, that's a cozy notion you're selling. Because Saddam is captured, anything the Bushies said that were inaccurate (lies) should therefore be dismissed. Thanks, but I'll pass.

I'm not selling anything. I just pointed out to you that the one sentence in his whole speech that has you so upset just is one of MANY which he made on Saddam/Iraq. Why just focus on the one & not all the others? Were the other statements lies as well? After all, if we are to believe Bush lied to make his case to go to war then doesn't it stand to reason he wouldn't stop at telling just one?

And besides, ... as it is stated, it is definately a true statement.

Now the move on comment. It's based upon a practical viewpoint of recent events: the war against the Iraqi regime headed by SH is over; SH is out of power and in American custody; his two psychopath sons are dead; all but about 12-13 of the "deck of 55" Iraqi regime under SH are either killed or captured; the re-building of Iraq has been underway for about 7 months now; x-fer of control for Iraq is expected to be in June/July 04; after careful contemplation, Libya's Col Quadaffi has determined he hates spider holes more than he likes his WMD program; Iran has suddenly decided that inspections from the International Atomic Energy Commission might not be such a bad thing after all. The country & the world has moved on from the last state of the union speech. A new speech will be given in about 3 weeks or so. Rather than continuing to harp on one sentence from the last speech --- shouldn't you be gearing up for the new one? Just think of all the new lies you'll be able to point out to us.

[Donutboy 0]

In this article I notice that at no time prior to the speech was the information proven false. The article also says there was no "deliberate attempt to fabricate." Methods for dealing with similar situations in the future have been implimented.

Anyway, I saw nowhere that it said Bush was a liar, as all of you libs love to claim on, literally, a daily basis. For it to be a lie, wouldn't he have to outright know that the information was completely false and still claim it as true? I am just wondering.

Look at it the way you wish, but I think it is quite foolish to post this article and then expect rational people to believe all your claims of lying! A judgement call was made that now with 20/20 hindsight is questioned. It doesn't make it necessarily right. Yet, in the same way it in no way makes him the liar you try to convince everyone he is just to get your "guy" elected.

If I state unequivocally that O. J. Simpson killed his wife, isn't that a lie? The information given to Bush prior to his speech was from an unreputable source and was questioned by our own intelligence sources. If Bush was making the claim for reasons to go to war, shouldn't he verify the information before using it? Should the leader of our nation go to war on information that is questionable and that our intelligence can't confirm ?

He claimed Saddam Hussein had WMDs and that our satellite photos proved it. The UN, after years of exhaustive searches could find nothing. Hussein himself offered Washington the opportunity to enter Iraq and search for themselves, but we declined.

We said once we overthrew Saddam, the scientists would be willing to talk and tell us about his horrible weapons and where they were hidden. When they didn't talk, we said that they were still scared of Hussein and they wouldn't talk until he was either dead or in custody. His sons are dead and he's in custody and yet these scientists are still not talking.

Bush claimed that once we were in control of Iraq, we'd be able to find and show the world all of his WMDs. The head of the search committee is resigning and the searches have all but stopped. Where are the WMDs that we sent our kids to war to eliminate? Is it possible that "gasp" there were none?

Another Bush's pre-war claim was that Saddam Hussein was an imminent threat and that he could mobilize his WMDs within 45 minutes. This claim was made by a political enemy of Hussein's and was never verified by any intelligence source. Other than Bush's apologists, no one still believes that Hussein had any WMDs since the UN resolution in 1991 that required him to dismantle them.

Bush claimed that Hussein was a party to the 9-11 attacks. No link has been found between Hussein and either Osama bin Laden OR Al Quida. In fact, Bush himself admitted to a British reporter that there was no known link. That didn't stop him from using that misinformation on this side of the Atlantic to sell the war.

Bush made the claim that Hussein had attempted to buy enriched "yellowcake" uranium from Africa. We sent a representative to Africa to check the validity of this information and Bush was told it was not true. That didn't stop him from using the information in his attempt to sell his war. When the representative revealed he had told Bush before he made the claim, the White House reacted by revealing the identity of his wife, a CIA agent. That in itself is a federal crime that will go unpunished because this White House has swept it under the rug.

Do I think Bush is a Liar? I don't have a doubt in my mind.

BTW, allow me to follow through on a string that I commented on earlier and where my biblical quote was taken wrong. When I used the biblical quote about bewaring of false prophets, I DIDN'T infer that Bush was an Anti-Christ, as someone suggested that I meant. Here's what I meant by the false prophets statement. I know many of you are young and don't recall all of these promises, but here goes..... The Republican party, while the Democrats were still in power, based their party platform on; 1) repealing Roe v. Wade/appointing judges that would help overturn Roe v. Wade 2) Campaign finance reform, 3) A flag amendment, 4) returning prayer to school, 5) term limits for Congress, 6) reeling in "Big Government"

The Republicans now control the White House, the Senate, the House of Representatives and a majority on the Supreme Court.

1) I've yet to see one congressional bill that would outlaw all abortions and thus overturn Roe v. Wade. They passed one bill outlawing partial birth abortions but it is already considered dead in the water before it even makes the Supreme Court. There's simply no way to outlaw SOME abortions while making others legal. You would first have to decide WHEN life begins. If it begins at conception, you'd have to outlaw all abortions, not just late-term abortions. The bill passed by the legislature and signed by Bush doesn't meet judicial muster. That doesn't matter because they've pacified their conservative base merely by temporarily outlawing a minute fraction of abortions. They know that an outright ban on abortions or an attempt at an outright ban would be political suicide, so in the words of Pat Dye, they threw their base a bone.

2) With the help of only a few Republicans, the Democrats managed to pass this. The Republicans tried unsuccessfully to overturn it in the court system this past Summer.

3) It's a lot easier to wrap oneself in a flag than it is to outlaw freedom of expression. There are certain things that we may find abhorrent but have to accept to kep from infringing on someone else's freedoms. It's a lot easier to condemn someone else for this when YOU'RE the minority party. I've yet to see the first Republican amendment asking for a ban on flag burning.

4) Basically, this is the same problem for the Republicans as #3. As was told for decades by the Democrats, you can't have public prayer in school without honoring ALL religions or without infringing on the rights of the atheists. I've yet to see a prayer amendment introduced in this Republican-controlled Congress and administration.

5) It seems like term limits quit being such a good idea when the Republicans gained control of Congress. Not one bill creating term limits has been introduced since Republicans gained power. Whatever happened to the "Contract With America"? The Republicans have kept none of their promises and no one has held them to it.

6) The federal government was actually shrunk under Clinton but has become bigger than ever under George W. Bush and it now has wider ranging powers over citizens and states rights.

THAT was what I was referring to when I made the beware of false prophets statement. I was NOT referring to Dubya as an Anti-Christ.

[Tiger Al 0]

Like I said before, they either lied or they're inept. Take your pick. Either way, Bush is bad news for America and needs to be relieved of command before he does any more damage.

[CarolinaTiger 0]

Like I said before, they either lied or they're inept. Take your pick. Either way, Bush is bad news for America and needs to be relieved of command before he does any more damage.

TA likes that polarity scale. "liar......inept"

you really should qualify your scale endpoints, however...the lying should be about something of significance...not like 'lying under oath' or anything that benign...

and as far as the ineptness part goes, that needs to be qualifed as well... else we could end up saying that 'raising taxes too much' as inept too... certainly a move that thrust the economy into a recession shouldn't be called 'inept'.

[Donutboy 0]

Like I said before, they either lied or they're inept. Take your pick. Either way, Bush is bad news for America and needs to be relieved of command before he does any more damage.

TA likes that polarity scale. "liar......inept"

you really should qualify your scale endpoints, however...the lying should be about something of significance...not like 'lying under oath' or anything that benign...

and as far as the ineptness part goes, that needs to be qualifed as well... else we could end up saying that 'raising taxes too much' as inept too... certainly a move that thrust the economy into a recession shouldn't be called 'inept'.

Would lying to sell a war that would cost massive American lives and ultimately hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollar$ be any less than lying about an affair? Is standing before the American public and misrepresenting facts to them any less than lying under oath in a civil suit? Clinton's lie produced one semen stain. Bush's lies have produced thousands of blood stains.

Funny thing about the recession is that we didn't enter into it until after Bush's first tax cuts, not the 1993 tax increase. remember Dubya's justification for the first tax cut? It wasn't to spur the economy. The economy was doing well. In fact, it was doing so well that Bush sold his first tax cut as something we could afford with a strong economy and that we could still have a surplus with the strong economic growth such a tax cut would produce.

[CarolinaTiger 0]

hack journalism, db...hack journalism