Yes and the transAtlantic sequence is now unravelling the process by which the inevitability of war was created.
The BBC tonight featured how even Joe Lieberman has associated himself with the issue
Senator Joseph Lieberman, who unlike Mr Dean supported the war in Iraq, described the reports as troubling. "We cannot and should not play fast and loose with our intelligence information and however it happened we now know that the information in the State of the Union was false," he said.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/3060521.stm
and I think was quoting an article in tomorrow's New York Times where he even calls for an investigation.
Meanwhile it is interesting to see how each side tries to put the blame on the other. The British government has avoided getting into the spotlight over the uranium cake by referring vaguely to a third country, with the suggestion that we shuld not ditch our powerful allies the USA in public. But I see from the quotes below that vague British references to a third party were used by the Brits to defend their reference to the procurement story presumably even after the CIA had warned them early September.
So why did it stay in the SOTU?SOU message. When the Brits left it out of their dodgy dossier, Powell left it out of his speech to the UN and Blair left it out of his speech to Parliament.
Even the British media were not focussed enough to catch this at the time.
I like the compromise that Bush was allowed to keep the reference in his SOTU speech, provided he attributed it to the tacky Brits.
Chris Burford
At 2003-07-11 09:40 -0700, Jim quoted:
Further news about the WMD issue: >The Washington Post leads with word that the CIA, four months before President Bush's State of the Union address, asked the British government to drop claims from its intelligence dossier that Iraq attempted to buy uranium in Africa. According to the paper, which quotes a "senior administration official," the Brits refused, citing their own intelligence. USA Today's lead picks up on Secretary of State Colin Powell's defense of Bush's use of the Africa claim and cites a source that says the CIA "was so leery" of the intel that it asked that it be credited solely to British intelligence.
>Powell's comments yesterday--delivered at a press conference that was originally meant to highlight U.S. initiatives in Africa--marked the Bush administration's first lengthy defense since admitting the uranium allegation was false. But as USA [TODAY] notes, Powell's comments not surprisingly raised more questions than answers about the intelligence failure.
>According to the WP, the CIA considered the Africa report to be "sketchy." Furthermore, administration officials have never been provided with the source of Britain's information, which apparently was provided by an unidentified "third country." Early drafts of Bush's speech, however, included a mention of the uranium claim but did not initially source the British government for the information.
>While USAT says the CIA successfully pressed for the Brits to be sourced, CBS News takes that one step further, noting that CIA analysts specifically warned the administration that the claim was false and shouldn't be included in Bush's speech. Citing "senior administration officials," CBS says the White House argued that as long as the statement was attributed to the Brits, it was factually accurate.
>While everybody has different versions of what exactly happened, today's write-ups are a good scorecard on how the blame game will work. The WP's piece seems to suggest the White House's plan will be to blame Britain for the screw-up. [This is the thanks that Toady Blair gets?] USAT, meanwhile, blatantly notes "an emerging White House strategy of suggesting that the CIA, which was shown Iraq-related portions of Bush's speech, could have objected to the uranium charge." Whether or not the CIA did object depends on which unnamed source you believe today, it seems.
>Meanwhile, the NYT goes inside with word from across the pond that senior aides to British Prime Minister Tony Blair now doubt that weapons of mass destruction will be found in Iraq. The story, which sources a BBC report, says the British government believes the weapons once existed, but were "dismantled or hidden beyond discovery before allied troops entered Iraq in March." <
------------------------ Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] & http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine
