Tuesday, July 20, 2004
Who hasn't read the report? The media?
Recently, there have been a spate of articles claiming the Senate Intelligence report says the CIA did not alert the White House of the questionable nature of the "Niger uranium claim". They go something like,
"[C]contrary to Wilson's assertions . . . the CIA did not tell the White House it had qualms about the reliability of the African intelligence that made its way into the 16 fateful words in President Bush's January 2003 State of the Union address."
One wonders if the authors bothered to read the report themselves, as throughout it describes many uncertainties pertaining to nearly every claim that was presented as the gospel truth, including the claim about Niger uranium. From the SSCI report, page 56:
[George Tenet] called the Deputy National Security Advisor directly to outline the CIA's concerns. On July 16, 2003, the DCI testified before the SSCI that he told the Deputy National Security Advisor that the "President should not be a fact witness on this issue," because his analysts had told him the "reporting was weak." The NSC then removed the uranium reference from the draft of the speech.
Look, it's simple. Information coming out of our own intelligence services about the claim did not fit the White House's policy goals as well as did British intelligence. So in this case the White House chose to abandon our own intelligence in favor of another country's.
You can read (huge PDF) the report yourself. It's scathing. Here is a version (less huge PDF) which downloads quicker, scrolls quicker and is searchable.
// posted by Erik @ 7/20/2004 02:14:00 AM
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