CIA Asked Britain To Drop Iraq Claim
* Advice on Alleged Uranium Buy Was Refused *
Washington Post, July 11 2003The 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
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The U.S. and British governments, whose intelligence agencies have a long history of close relations, have sought to maintain a united front despite suggestions in Congress and Parliament this week that both governments may have exaggerated the evidence against Iraq to support the case for war. But as the controversy escalates, the interests of the two allies have begun to diverge.
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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A40684-2003Jul10.html?nav=hptop_ts
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