gandalf grey

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A61622-2003Jul15.html?nav=hpto
p_tb

washingtonpost.com
Bush Faced Dwindling Data on Iraq Nuclear Bid


By Walter Pincus
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, July 16, 2003; Page A01


In recent days, as the Bush administration has defended its assertion in the
president's State of the Union address that Iraq had tried to buy African
uranium, officials have said it was only one bit of intelligence that
indicated former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein was reconstituting his nuclear
weapons program.

But a review of speeches and reports, plus interviews with present and
former administration officials and intelligence ****ysts, suggests that
between Oct. 7, when President Bush made a speech laying out the case for
military action against Hussein, and Jan. 28, when he gave his State of the
Union address, almost all the other evidence had either been undercut or
disproved by U.N. inspectors in Iraq.

By Jan. 28, in fact, the intelligence report concerning Iraqi attempts to
buy uranium from Africa -- although now almost entirely disproved -- was the
only publicly unchallenged element of the administration's case that Iraq
had restarted its nuclear program. That may explain why the administration
strived to keep the information in the speech and attribute it to the
British, even though the CIA had challenged it earlier.

For example, in his Oct. 7 speech, Bush said that "satellite photographs
reveal that Iraq is rebuilding facilities at [past nuclear] sites." He also
cited Hussein's "numerous meetings with Iraqi nuclear scientists" as further
evidence that the program was being reconstituted, along with Iraq's
attempts to buy high-strength aluminum tubes "needed" for centrifuges used
to enrich uranium.

But on Jan. 27 -- the day before the State of the Union address -- the head
of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) reported to the U.N.
Security Council that two months of inspections in Iraq had found that no
prohibited nuclear activities had taken place at former Iraqi nuclear sites.
As for Iraqi nuclear scientists, Mohamed ElBaradei told the Security
Council, U.N. inspectors had "useful" interviews with some of them, though
not in private. And preliminary ****ysis, he said, suggested that the
aluminum tubes, "unless modified, would not be suitable for manufacturing
centrifuges."

The next night, Bush delivered his speech, including the now-controversial
16-word sentence, "The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein
recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa."

Of his October examples, only the aluminum tubes charge remained in January,
but that allegation had a subtle caveat -- he described the tubes as merely
"suitable" for nuclear weapons production. Without the statement on uranium,
the allegation concerning aluminum tubes would have been the only
nuclear-related action ascribed to Hussein since the early 1990s.

And the tubes had already been questioned not only by IAEA, but also by
****ysts in U.S. and British intelligence agencies.

The idea that Iraq was acquiring tubes for a nuclear program became public
in September, shortly after the Bush administration began a campaign to
marshal public, congressional and U.N. support for authority to attack Iraq
if it did not disarm.

On Aug. 26, Vice President Cheney, the official most publicly vocal about
Iraq as a nuclear threat, began the campaign when he told a Veterans of
Foreign Wars audience: "Many of us are convinced that Saddam will acquire
nuclear weapons fairly soon. Just how soon we cannot gauge."

On Sept. 8, the New York Times disclosed that intelligence showed that Iraq
had "embarked on a worldwide hunt for materials to make an atomic bomb" by
trying to purchase "specially designed aluminum tubes" that unidentified
administration sources believed were for centrifuges to enrich uranium.

The story referred to Bush "hardliners" who argued that action should be
taken because if they waited for proof that Hussein had a nuclear weapon,
"the first sign of a smoking gun may be a mushroom cloud."

That day, Bush national security adviser Condoleezza Rice appeared on CNN's
"Late Edition" and confirmed the Times story. She said the tubes "are only
really suited for nuclear weapons programs, centrifuge programs." She also
said, "The problem here is that there will always be some uncertainty about
how quickly he can acquire nuclear weapons, but we don't want the smoking
gun to be a mushroom cloud."

Cheney also confirmed the Times story that day, on NBC's "Meet the Press,"
saying that "we don't have all the evidence," but enough of a picture "that
tells us that he [Hussein] is in fact actively and aggressively seeking to
acquire nuclear weapons."

What neither Rice nor Cheney said at the time was that Baghdad's first
attempts to purchase the aluminum tubes, more than a year earlier, had by
Sept. 8 led to a fairly open disagreement in the U.S. intelligence community
on whether the tubes were for centrifuges or for artillery rockets in Iraq's
military program.

****ysts from the State and Energy departments said the tubes were too long
and too thick for centrifuges; CIA and Pentagon ****ysts said they could be
cut down and reamed out. Their debate was continuing as the agencies were
putting together the still-classified national intelligence estimate on
Hussein's weapons program.

In July, the United States had intercepted one shipment and obtained a tube;
it was coated with a protective chemical that would have had to be removed
if it were to be put to a nuclear purpose.

The intelligence estimate, completed in mid-September, reflected the
different views, but the final judgment said that "most" ****ysts leaned
toward the view that the tubes had a nuclear purpose. When the British
dossier on Iraq's weapons program was published on Sept. 24, it referred to
the tubes, but noted that "there is no definitive intelligence that it is
destined for a nuclear program."

In his State of the Union address, Bush did not indicate any disagreement
over the use of the tubes. Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, however,
outlined the arguments involved when he spoke eight days later before the
Security Council, where inspectors already had challenged the U.S. position
on them.

On March 7, ElBaradei gave his final report to the Security Council before
his inspectors were removed from Iraq on March 18. His conclusion was that
"the IAEA had found no evidence or plausible indication of the revival of a
nuclear weapons program in Iraq." He also said the do***ents that gave rise
to the allegation that Iraq had tried to buy African uranium were forged.

On March 16, Cheney appeared again on "Meet the Press" and reiterated his
views of the previous August about Hussein's nuclear program. "We know he's
been absolutely devoted to trying to acquire nuclear weapons, and we believe
he has, in fact, reconstituted nuclear weapons." The war began three days
later.

© 2003 The Washington Post Company

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"If this were a dictatorship, it'd be a heck of a lot easier, just so
long as I'm the dictator." - GW Bush 12/18/2000.

"To announce that there must be no criticism of the president, or that
we are to stand by the president right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic
and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public."
---Theodore Roosevelt

"Feels Good!"
---George W. Bush on the Brink of Declaring War on Iraq.

the frog

Are you shut in?
Do a google search and see how many posts Mr. Gandolf has made.

Are you the desperate 'out of power' party?

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ +++
"The multicultural project will never fully succeed if 'diversity'
is defined as one's own preferred ideologies and political groups."

--Richard E. Redding, "Grappling With Diverse Conceptions of Diversity,"
American Psychologist, April 2002, p. 301.

gandalf grey

Are you proving, once again, that you can't address the issue of a post?
I think so.


before

that

a

rise


he's

believe

the frog

Actually, I hardly ever read your posts.
I don't have a "plonker" on my reader so I just scan and when I see 20
or 30 in a row with your handle assigned, I just pass 'em up. Not out
of spite, but because they are all GET BUSH, and little else.

The Frog


++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ +++
"The multicultural project will never fully succeed if 'diversity'
is defined as one's own preferred ideologies and political groups."

--Richard E. Redding, "Grappling With Diverse Conceptions of Diversity,"
American Psychologist, April 2002, p. 301.

gandalf grey

And even when you do you can't address the issues. All you can do is come
up with the same tired old fascist attack the messenger ploy.

That's why no one takes the right wing at face value anymore, Boggy. Since
the right is capable only of character assassination, you've knocked
yourselves completely out of any real debate on any real issue.