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Thu 17 Jul, 2003 06:30 pm
Who is the Bush Administration Official the CIA's George Tenet revealed?
Remember these names: Robert G. Joseph and Stephen Hadley, members of Bush's National Security Council.
-----BumbleBeeBoogie
A Firm Basis for Impeachment
Robert Scheer = Los Angeles Times
Tuesday 15 July 2003
Does the president not read? Does his national security staff, led by Condoleezza Rice, keep him in the dark about the most pressing issues of the day? Or is this administration blatantly lying to the American people to secure its ideological ends?
Those questions arise because of the White House admission that the charge that Iraq tried to buy uranium from Niger was excised from a Bush speech in October 2002 after the CIA and State Department insisted it was unfounded. Bizarrely, however, three months later - without any additional evidence emerging - that outrageous lie was inserted into the State of the Union speech to justify the president's case for bypassing the United Nations Security Council, for chasing U.N. inspectors out of Iraq and for invading and occupying an oil-rich country.
This weekend, administration sources disclosed that CIA Director George Tenet intervened in October to warn White House officials, including deputy national security advisor Stephen Hadley, not to use the Niger information because it was based on a single source. That source proved to be a forged document with glaring inconsistencies.
Bush's top security aides, led by Hadley's boss, Rice, went along with the CIA, and Bush's October speech was edited to eliminate the false charge that Iraq was seeking to acquire uranium from Niger to create a nuclear weapon.
We now know that before Bush's January speech, Robert G. Joseph, the National Security Council individual who reports to Rice on nuclear proliferation, was fully briefed by CIA analyst Alan Foley that the Niger connection was no stronger than it had been in October. It is inconceivable that in reviewing draft after draft of the State of the Union speech, NSC staffers Hadley and Joseph failed to tell Rice that the president was about to spread a big lie to justify going to war. On national security, the buck doesn't stop with Tenet, the current fall guy. The buck stops with Bush and his national security advisor, who is charged with funneling intelligence data to the president. That included cluing in the president that the CIA's concerns were backed by the State Department's conclusion that "the claims of Iraqi pursuit of natural uranium in Africa are highly dubious."
For her part, Rice has tried to fend off controversy by claiming ignorance. On "Meet the Press" in June, Rice claimed, "We did not know at the time - no one knew at the time, in our circles - maybe someone knew down in the bowels of the agency, but no one in our circles knew that there were doubts and suspicions that this might be a forgery." On Friday, Rice admitted that she had known the State Department intelligence unit "was the one that within the overall intelligence estimate had objected to that sentence" and that Secretary of State Colin Powell had refused to use the Niger document in his presentation to the U.N. because of what she described as long-standing concerns about its credibility. But Rice also knew the case for bypassing U.N. inspections and invading Iraq required demonstrating an imminent threat. The terrifying charge that Iraq was hellbent on developing nuclear weapons would do the trick nicely.
However, with the discrediting of the Niger buy and the equally dubious citation of a purchase of aluminum tubes (which turned out to be inappropriate for the production of enriched uranium), one can imagine the disappointment at the White House. There was no evidence for painting Saddam Hussein as a nuclear threat.
The proper reaction should have been to support the U.N. inspectors in doing their work in an efficient and timely fashion. We now know, and perhaps the White House knew then, that the inspectors eventually would come up empty-handed because no weapons of mass destruction program existed - not even a stray vial of chemical and biological weapons has been discovered. However, that would have obviated the administration's key rationale for an invasion, so lies substituted for facts that didn't exist.
And there, dear readers, exists the firm basis for bringing a charge of impeachment against the president who employed lies to lead us into war.
Dem: White House insisted on uranium issue in SoU speech
Democrat says White House pushed to include uranium issue in State of Union
By KEN GUGGENHEIM
The Associated Press - 7/17/03 6:03 PM
WASHINGTON (AP) -- A Senate Democrat says CIA Director George Tenet told lawmakers that a White House official had insisted on including an unverified intelligence report on Iraq's nuclear program in the State of the Union speech.
But a U.S. government official present at the closed-door Senate Intelligence Committee meeting on Wednesday said it was another CIA official -- not Tenet -- who had discussed the preparations for the State of the Union, and that Sen. Richard Durbin of Illinois misrepresented what was said.
Instead of Durbin's account that the White House had "insisted" on including the problematic intelligence, the official said that the CIA had described "give and take."
White House spokesman Scott McClellan described Durbin's account as "nonsense."
"It's not surprising, coming from someone who was in a rather small minority in Congress who did not support the action we took," McClellan told reporters Thursday.
Durbin, appearing on ABC's "Good Morning America," said that Tenet "certainly told us who the person was who was insistent on putting this language in which the CIA knew to be incredible, this language about the uranium shipment from Africa."
"And there was this negotiation between the White House and the CIA about just how far you could go and be close to the truth and unfortunately those 16 words were included in the most important speech the president delivers in any given year," Durbin added.
Later, on the Senate floor, Durbin said Bush has on "his staff some person who was willing to spin and hype and exaggerate and cut corners on the most important speech that the president delivers in any given year."
At issue was Bush's reference in the speech to a British intelligence report that Saddam Hussein was trying to buy uranium from Africa. That report had been largely discredited by U.S. intelligence agencies and turned out to be based on forged documents.
In a statement last week and before the committee, Tenet accepted responsibility for not keeping the reference out of Bush's speech.
The U.S. official said that at Wednesday's hearing, senators questioned the CIA official who had been involved in discussions with the National Security Council about the speech.
The CIA official told the senators that the White House hadn't insisted on including information about the uranium in the speech, but there was "a give-and-take" about the draft language, the U.S. official said.
"In the end, he agreed with the NSC official's formulation that it would be technically accurate to say the British had said what they had said," the U.S. official said.
The U.S. official declined to name the officials involved in the conversation. Other officials identified them as Alan Foley of the CIA and Robert G. Joseph of the National Security Council.
A spokesman for Durbin, Joe Shoemaker, said the senator stands by his statement "100 percent" that Tenet had identified the White House official "who participated in and put pressure on the CIA to include this material in the State of the Union address."
Democrats have cited questions about the uranium intelligence as showing the need for a broad investigation into prewar intelligence, beyond the inquiries under way by the House and Senate intelligence Committees.
A proposal by Durbin on Thursday to withhold $50 million in intelligence funding until Bush submits a report about how the White House handled the intelligence was defeated 62-34. Durbin's proposal was offered as an amendment
Oh, what a tangled web we weave,
When first we practice to deceive.
AND...Bush will still be in office for a 2nd term!
...and, you think that's a good thing, NH?
It's obvious that the field of politics is full of Slime Molds~~~~~~
You have a gift for obtuse expression, NH.
Have you never heard of Dictytostelium discoideum?
you don't say much - I think you enjoy being cryptic... otherwise, why don't you just answer the goddam question?
This is probably the discussion area where we should take up the question of secrecy and the latest mystery (mentioned this morning in US,UN, IRAQ) about David Kelley, the Brit who passed along the info about faulty WMD info to the BBC, and who has turned up dead. I'd like to post here, for the record, info on a previous (unsolved) mystery which I was reminded of when I read the Kelley news:
Published on Saturday, May 4, 2002 in the Toronto Globe & Mail
SCIENTISTS' DEATHS ARE UNDER THE MICROSCOPE
by Alanna Mitchell, Simon Cooper and Carolyn Abraham
Compiled by Alanna Mitchell
It's a tale only the best conspiracy theorist could dream up.
Eleven microbiologists mysteriously dead over the span of just five months. Some of them world leaders in developing weapons-grade biological plagues. Others the best in figuring out how to stop millions from dying because of biological weapons. Still others, experts in the theory of bioterrorism.
Statistically, what are the chances?
Throw in a few Russian defectors, a few nervy U.S. biotech companies, a deranged assassin or two, a bit of Elvis, a couple of Satanists, a subtle hint of espionage, a big whack of imagination, and the plot is complete, if a bit reminiscent of James Bond...
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines02/0504-06.htm
Here's the Kelley info:
British police found a body on Friday matching that of a mild-mannered scientist who disappeared after becoming unwittingly embroiled in a furious political dispute about the Iraq war...
http://famulus.msnbc.com/FamulusIntl/reuters07-18-072017.asp?reg=MIDEAST
New Haven wrote:AND...Bush will still be in office for a 2nd term!
Yeah. People like you were saying that about his daddy.
MY GUESS: He will be defeated in a landslide.
More realistically, it will be Cheney and Rumsfeld that get defeated.
Bush is just the mouthpiece.
It is by no means certain that George will survive the next 16 months in Washington...
Text of missing Kelly's testimony to Brit's HoC panel
Text of Missing Adviser's Testimony to Britain's House of Commons Panel
The Associated Press - Published: Jul 18, 2003
LONDON (AP) - David Kelly, the British Ministry of Defense adviser who was reported missing Thursday, testified on July 15 to the House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee.
He was asked whether he was the source for a report by a British Broadcasting Corp. journalist accusing Alastair Campbell, the prime minister's communications director, of interfering in the preparation of intelligence reports on Iraq.
Kelly was specifically asked about his meeting with BBC reporter Andrew Gilligan on May 22. Following is an extract from that testimony:
Kelly: My conversation with him was primarily about Iraq, about his experiences in Iraq and the consequences of the war, which was the failure to use weapons of mass destruction during the war and the failure by May 22 to find such weapons. That was the primary conversation that I had with him.
Bill Olner (Labor Party): You certainly never mentioned the "C" word that he went on to explain in his column?
Kelly: The "C" word?
Olner: The Campbell word.
Kelly: The Campbell word did come up, yes.
Olner: From you? You suggested it?
Kelly: No, it came up in the conversation. We had a conversation about Iraq, its weapons and the failure of them to be used.
Olner: How did the word "Campbell" come to be mixed up with all of that? What led you to say that?
Kelly: I did not say that. What I had a conversation about was the probability of a requirement to use such weapons. The question was then asked why, if weapons could be deployed at 45 minutes notice, were they not used, and I offered my reasons why they may not have been used.
It came in in that sense and then the significance of it was discussed and then why it might have been in the dossier. That is how it came up.
Greg Pope (Labor): Mr. Gilligan said in his article in the Mail on Sunday of 1 June "I asked him," the source, "how this transformation happened. The answer was a single word. 'Campbell.'" In your conversation with Mr. Gilligan did you use the word "Campbell" in that context?
Kelly: I cannot recall using the name Campbell in that context, it does not sound like a thing that I would say.
Pope: Do you believe that the document was transformed, the September dossier, by Alastair Campbell?
Kelly: I do not believe that at all.
I hope that, over time, enough will come out to help piece this all together. Having lived through Tonkin, Watergate and Iran-Contra, and therefore being a great believer in government malfeasance, I have to note that Kelley was discovered while Blair was out of the country. (Is it Kelley or Kelly -- I've seen it spelled both ways in reports this morning...?)
Questions, criticism surround information leading to war
Posted on Fri, Jul. 18, 2003 - Knight Ridder Newspapers
Questions, criticism surround information that led to start of war
By Warren P. Strobel and Jonathan S. Landay
WASHINGTON - In a speech last August, Vice President Dick Cheney said he was convinced that Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein "will acquire nuclear weapons fairly soon." Iraq, he continued, was amassing weapons of mass destruction to use "against our friends, against our allies and against us."
Cheney's address to the Veterans of Foreign Wars kicked off a seven-month campaign by President Bush and his top aides to persuade the United States and the world that Iraq was a gathering threat that could be stopped only by war.
Nearly a year later, that case appears to be coming apart, with some key pieces of evidence in doubt and others disproved outright.
The questions go far beyond the faulty intelligence about Iraq's alleged attempts to purchase uranium, which has dominated recent news coverage.
Saddam may not have been an imminent threat to the world at all, but a regional bully whose weapons programs weren't nearly as advanced as widely believed, according to current and former intelligence officials and other analysts.
The unaccounted-for chemical and biological weapons that Bush, Cheney, Secretary of State Colin Powell and others cited have yet to be found, and may never be. Nor has evidence turned up of an advanced nuclear-weapons program or hidden ballistic missiles.
Iraq never was an imminent threat, said Andrew Wilkie, an Australian intelligence analyst who resigned in March to protest his government's support for the war.
There was no intelligence to show that Iraq's chemical and biological programs had advanced to the stage that they were ready to be used as weapons, Wilkie said, remarks that receive some backing from U.S. intelligence reports that recently have come to light.
Critics and even nonpartisan analysts say the White House took what America's spy agencies knew about the Iraqi threat and pushed it to the limits of credibility, and perhaps beyond.
The United States and Britain "did not find the right balance of persuasion and objectivity in their public analyses of the threat before the war and in their arguments in favor of the conflict," military analyst Andrew Cordesman wrote in a report released Wednesday.
Washington and London presented "worst-case estimates to the public and the U.N. without sufficient qualification, and ... their intelligence communities came under serious political pressure to make something approaching a worst-case interpretation of the evidence," wrote Cordesman, of the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies, a research center for national-security issues.
The criticism has brought added political peril for Bush because U.S. troops in Iraq are being killed in almost-daily guerrilla attacks.
The president has rejected postwar criticism from what he derisively called "revisionist historians."
As his defenders point out, bipartisan majorities in Congress supported the war. Even European nations that refused to join the fighting argued not with the premise that Saddam was hiding weapons he was banned from having after the 1991 Persian Gulf War, but with Bush's proposed solution.
The Clinton administration saw Saddam as enough of a threat that it formally adopted a policy of "regime change" in Iraq.
So did some of Bush's critics. At a White House briefing this week, Press Secretary Scott McClellan read a 1998 letter from Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., who urged then-President Clinton to "take necessary actions to respond effectively to the threat posed by Iraq's refusal to end its weapons of mass destruction programs."
McClellan said Bush's case for confronting Iraq "was based on solid evidence."
But it also was based on assumptions about Iraq that government officials presumed were certainties after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
Bush acted not "because we had discovered dramatic new evidence," Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld told Congress on July 10. "We acted because we saw the existing evidence in a new light through the prism of our experience on Sept. 11."
Bush's most potent argument for war was that Saddam might share chemical or biological weapons with al-Qaida or other terrorist groups to use against the United States. Right behind that was the contention that Iraq was close to having a nuclear weapon.
Neither has proved true.
Administration claims of ties between Iraq and al-Qaida, disputed by counter-terrorism experts before the war, haven't been borne out.
The intelligence behind such claims was thin at best, said a former U.S. official who had access to classified material about Iraq.
"Normally, you would credit this to being ambiguous and therefore inconclusive. Everything was spun," said the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity.
Said Wilkie, the Australian analyst: "I never saw a single piece - a single piece - of hard intelligence to persuade me there was any active cooperation at all between Iraq and al-Qaida."
On March 16, four days before the war began, Cheney made the White House's most alarming claim about Saddam's nuclear weapons program: "We believe he has, in fact, reconstituted nuclear weapons."
That and similar statements went far beyond an October intelligence assessment, known as a National Intelligence Estimate, that said Iraq "probably will have a nuclear weapon during this decade" if left unchecked.
CIA director George Tenet said last week that there were six reasons for concluding that Iraq was seeking nuclear weapons. He didn't describe them.
One piece of evidence, not among the six but cited by Bush in his State of the Union address, was that Iraq had attempted to purchase large quantities of uranium ore in Africa.
Documents from the African country of Niger that supported the allegation were known at the time to have been forgeries, and the White House has acknowledged that Bush shouldn't have made the claim.
Bush, Powell and others also cited Iraqi attempts to import high-strength aluminum tubes for use in centrifuges to purify uranium for a nuclear bomb.
But the State and Energy departments, along with the International Atomic Energy Agency, disputed the CIA's conclusion that the tubes were intended for that purpose.
The issue was even more crucial than the uranium imports for determining whether "the clock" had started counting down to the day when Saddam would have the bomb, said a U.S. intelligence official.
"If you don't start the clock, then you can't say things like, `He can have a nuclear bomb in three years,' " said the official, who requested anonymity because of the sensitive material involved.
Evidence found since the war of a nuclear program consists primarily of pieces of a centrifuge buried in an Iraqi scientist's backyard.
In making the case against Iraq, Bush and his aides also cited stocks of chemical and biological weapons that U.N. weapons inspectors knew once existed but were never accounted for. The White House suggested these caches still existed.
None has turned up, and an internal CIA study found that most U.S. intelligence on Iraqi arms dated from before the first U.N. weapons inspectors left Iraq in 1998.
A Defense Intelligence Agency report last year said there was "no reliable information" on whether Iraq was producing and stockpiling chemical weapons.
Absent new production, most of the unaccounted-for material from the `80s and `90s would be "mush" now, Wilkie said, adding that Iraqi chemical weapons were "notoriously impure," thus more subject to deterioration.
A British allegation that Iraq could deploy chemical and biological weapons within 45 minutes also has been discredited.
Some analysts argue that the misstatements and exaggerations will make it harder for Bush or other leaders to make their case when the world next confronts the danger of weapons proliferation, say in Iran or North Korea.
But Cordesman said that in today's world, asking for near-certainty may be too much. In the future, he wrote, "it may not be possible to wait to take military action until many key uncertainties are resolved."
I heard a discussion yesterday on NPR about yellowcake (uranium) and the fact that to convert it into something useful weaponwise would have taken materials and a production capability Saddam didn't have. That made even more unlikely that any such buy on his part would have been related to WMD's. Yellowcake has other, non-lethal, uses (but I didn't catch, if they indeed mentioned them, what those uses were... medical? what?)
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