CIA Asked Britain To Drop Iraq Claim

[RamboLiberal]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A40684-2003Jul10.html?nav=hptop_tb

The CIA tried unsuccessfully in early September 2002 to persuade the British government to drop from an official intelligence paper a reference to Iraqi attempts to buy uranium in Africa that President Bush included in his State of the Union address four months later, senior Bush administration officials said yesterday.

"We consulted about the paper and recommended against using that material," a senior administration official familiar with the intelligence program said. The British government rejected the U.S. suggestion, saying it had separate intelligence unavailable to the United States.

At that time, the CIA was completing its own classified national intelligence estimate on Iraq's chemical, biological and nuclear weapons programs. Although the CIA paper mentioned alleged Iraqi attempts to buy uranium from three African countries, it warned that State Department analysts were questioning its accuracy when it came to Niger and that CIA personnel considered reports on other African countries to be "sketchy," the official said. The CIA paper's summary conclusions about whether Iraq was restarting its nuclear weapons program did not include references to Iraqi attempts to buy uranium in Africa.

The latest disclosures further illustrate the lack of confidence expressed by the U.S. intelligence community in the months leading up to Bush's speech about allegations of Iraqi efforts to buy uranium in Africa. Even so, Bush used the charge -- citing British intelligence -- in the Jan. 28 address as part of his effort to convince Congress and the American people that Iraq had a program to build weapons of mass destruction and posed a serious threat.

[Jack Rabbit]

1. This isn't a drip anymore

The bathroom is flooded.

[RamboLiberal]

2. Yep the crapper is overflowing today

:hurts:

[Gloria]

3. More on the British front....Tory leader Smith basically calling Blair a

LIAR over when the "dodgy dossier" was shared with him. (excerpt below from World Media Watch over at LBN and http://www.zianet.com/insightanaltytical
Things are really falling apart. And the BBC is hanging in there against Blair's charges, too.


2//The Independent, UK--DUNCAN SMITH REJECTS BLAIR’S ACCOUNT OF SHARING INTELLIGENCE WITH TORIES (Tony Blair faced repeated calls to apologise to Iain Duncan Smith yesterday after claiming that intelligence upon which the "dodgy dossier" was based had been shared with the Conservatives. In a series of strongly worded letters, the Tory leader urged Mr Blair to withdraw his "false allegation" and demanded an apology. But a stand-off developed when the Prime Minister insisted on the veracity of his comments and refused to withdraw them.)