Let Them Eat Yellowcake!
William Brinton - 29.07.2003 22:43
Did the Bush administration manipulate intelligence about Saddam Hussein’s weapons programs to justify an invasion of Iraq?
As former African Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson 4th asked in a July 6 New York Times,
“Did the Bush administration manipulate intelligence about Saddam Hussein’s weapons programs to justify an invasion of Iraq? See What I Didn’t Find in Africa.
Having listened to the White House Press Conference on July 7, 2003, I came up a little short on the Niger-uranium exchange. The Administration appears to be doing an about-face regarding the intelligence they used to support claims of Saddam’s nuclear capabilities. Check out this wonderful exchange where Ari Fleischer attempts to clarify the Administration’s position:
Q: Can you give us the White House account of Ambassador Wilson's account of what happened when he went to Niger and investigated the suggestions that Niger was passing yellowcake to Iraq? I'm sure you saw the piece yesterday in The New York Times.
FLEISCHER: Well, there is zero, nada, nothing new here. Ambassador Wilson, other than the fact that now people know his name, has said all this before. But the fact of the matter is in his statements about the Vice President - the Vice President's office did not request the mission to Niger. The Vice President's office was not informed of his mission and he was not aware of Mr. Wilson's mission until recent press accounts - press reports accounted for it. See entire transcript of the July 7, 2003 White House press conference.
Finally, someone is showing some backbone here. Now keep in mind that one of the things the White House has said about the Niger-uranium issue is that even though the Niger documents were bogus, the White House had other evidence to support the President's claim. In other words, the White House had intelligence that was so top secret that it apparently couldn't be shared with the CIA, either then or even now.
On July 18, 2003, closed-door testimony was heard on Capitol Hill. A senator and other officials involved in the classified hearing said that CIA officials named a White House aide who persuaded the agency to allow a questionable allegation about Iraq to be included in President Bush's State of the Union address. Is Yellowcake-gate a ‘closed’ issue as Bush stated last week, or is it only just beginning to open up? It could be a battle as this is an administration that has shown that it will not be cowed by the truth.
Rather than a free and open debate over policy, analysts in the intelligence community and other agencies are finding that the White House only wants information that will further its own political goals. Instead of speaking truth to power, the political appointees tell the powerful what they want to hear; and the American public cannot assess accountability or proposals for reform. Is that what happened when the CIA reviewed a draft of the State of the Union speech – or when the agency crafted its assessment of Saddam’s weapons of mass destruction? Only an open, honest and independent investigation will determine the answer to that question.
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