John J. Lumpkin of the AP writes:
When the Bush administration issued its pre-war claims that Iraq had sought uranium in Africa, the CIA had not yet obtained the documents that served as a key foundation for the allegation and later turned out to be forged, U.S. officials say.
Even as the CIA found little to verify the reports, Bush administration officials [who?] repeatedly tried to put them into public statements. Sometimes CIA succeeded in getting the information removed.
After the CIA received the documents, the government provided them to the United Nations nuclear watchdog agency, which quickly determined them to be forgeries.
Which is weird. We already know the documents were very quickly determined to be "crude forgeries." Was the CIA really so credulous as to turn them over to the UN without checking them?
But the documents had already been used for public claims in at least two places: the Dec. 19 State Department fact sheet and Bush's Jan. 28 address, in which he uttered the li[n Sic—Ed.]e: ''The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa.''
But, as many have now pointed out, how could Bush say "learned" when he knew neither the source nor the nature of the British intelligence?
The (mighty, and very mainstream) AP also summarizes the administration's ever changing stories:
In recent weeks, the Bush administration has offered a number of defenses for using the statement:
The CIA should have had it removed.
It was based on more intelligence information than the Niger letter.
It was technically true because it was attributed to British intelligence.
It wasn't the reason the United States invaded Iraq.
"A number of defenses ..." AP humor is dry, very dry...
When this material reaches the lead paragraph, instead of being buried halfway down the story... Well, Bush is gonna have more 'splainin' to do.
UDDATE: Looks like this leak comes from the FBI, if we believe Spiky, who provides additional detail. "The U.S. Embassy quickly passed the documents along to the CIA station chief in Rome—as well as the State Department’s Office of Intelligence and Research. But the station chief didn’t send them along to CIA headquarters in Langley." (thanks to alert reader shystee)
All-Star Celebrity Cage Match, CIA versus FBI! Pass the popcorn!
UPDATE: The incomparable Howler, we read, has been catching flak from readers who want him to take some other side in the 16 weasel words flap than having journalists get their facts straight. I say they should lay off. The beauty part is, we don't need to do anything other than tell the truth with these guys, and The Howler helps us do that.
UPDATE: Time's Tony Karon examines all the other, uh, inaccuracies in Bush's SOTU here. "the hawks' postwar scenarios have proved hopelessly naïve. Which could mean the revisiting of prewar intelligence has only just begun."
UPDATE: The Bush gang turns vicious when cornered, and has turned on Ambassador Wilson, outing his wife as a CIA employee. But Wilson
considers the matter settled "now that the White House has admitted the Bush reference to Iraq and African uranium should not have been in the State of the Union address. "