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Levin: Bush uranium claim 'not an inadvertent mistake'

Saturday, July 19, 2003 Posted: 2:00 PM EDT

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- President Bush's claim in his State of the Union address
that Saddam Hussein was seeking uranium in Africa was "highly misleading"
and "not an inadvertent mistake," the top Democrat on the Senate Armed
Services Committee said Saturday.

"The sole purpose of that statement was to make the American people believe
that our government believed it. But the truth was that our intelligence
agencies did not believe it," said Sen. Carl Levin of Michigan in the
Democrats' Saturday radio address.

"This uranium issue is not just about 16 words in a speech. It is about
whether administration officials made a conscious and very troubling
decision to create a false impression about the gravity and imminence of the
threat that Iraq posed to America."

Levin also said the controversy could prove damaging to both U.S. national
security and leadership because it calls American credibility into question.

"Unless we address the objectivity and reliability of U.S. intelligence
before the Iraq war, our government's warnings about future security threats
will be greeted with skepticism," he said.

In his State of the Union speech, Bush said the Iraqi regime was seeking to
buy uranium in Africa, attributing the information to British intelligence.

The White House now concedes that the claim should not have been included in
the speech because U.S. intelligence could not verify it. CIA Director
George Tenet has taken responsibility for not having it removed.

However, British officials continue to insist that the information is
accurate, while Bush administration officials insist it was only a small
part of a larger case for taking out Saddam Hussein.

But Levin said the decision to include the uranium charge in the speech was
"not an inadvertent mistake."

"It was negotiated between CIA and National Security Council officials, and
it was highly misleading," he said. "Even more troubling is evidence that
the uranium statement was just one of many questionable statements and
exaggerations by the intelligence community and administration officials in
the buildup to the war."

Among those questionable statements, according to Levin: Assertions by Vice
President **** Cheney and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld that there
was no doubt Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, and claims by
administration officials of a close connection between Saddam Hussein and al
Qaeda.

Levin said the question of whether pre-war intelligence was faulty or abused
"must be thoroughly investigated" to re-establish U.S. credibility.

http://www.cnn.com/2003/ALLPOLITICS/07/19/dems.radio/index.html

--
Asked for the first time about the (Iraq) uranium issue,
Bush said: "There's going to be a lot of attempts to rewrite history."

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=584&ncid=584&e=1&u=/nm/20030
709/pl_nm/iraq_bush_dc

jpastore

Democrat or no: Bravo Levin !!!

Time for this country to not only 'best' defend itself but also 'best'
prevail.

Meanwhile: Kelly

I can think of very plausible possibilities for either "sucide" or
assasination.

The fact is I do not know.

What I do know is what a very sorry state-of-affiars the U.S. and
Britain has been reduced to by this dynamic duo: Bush Jr and Blair
when a scientist cannot speak to a reporter and have to either commit
suicide or be killed for it.

One way or the other, at least Kelly was spared Barnum and Bailey
passing the-bouncing-buck-between-them-routine before the U.S.
Congress.

And ---one way or the other--- Kelly represents one too many
casualities already because somehow Barnum and Bailey are so high
that, supposedly, no intelligence (as Rice has been explaining since
9/11) can reach them ---from the FBI since even prior to 9/11 to the
CIA and the total deviation from the pursuit of OBL and al-Queda to
instead make preemptive war with Iraq.

Their evasion and ultimate failure to 'accept responsibility', more
than ever, makes it imperative that they be knocked down more than a
mere peg or two. It's high time they simply spare us so as to allow us
to simply go on to both best defend ourselves and best prevail.

It's high time that they simply resign.