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Bush Team Kept Airing Iraq Allegation
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| Contributor | ArmyDem |
| Last Edited | ArmyDem Aug 08, 2003 02:09am |
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| Category | News |
| Media | Newspaper - Washington Post |
| News Date | Friday, August 8, 2003 06:00:00 AM UTC0:0 |
| Description | By Walter Pincus
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, August 8, 2003; Page A10
Since last month, presidential aides have said a questionable allegation, that Iraq had tried to buy African uranium for nuclear weapons, made it into President Bush's State of the Union address because of miscommunication between the CIA and Bush's staff.
But by the time the president gave the speech, on Jan. 28, that same allegation was already part of an administration campaign to win domestic and international support for invading Iraq. In January alone, it was included in two official documents sent out by the White House and in speeches and writings by the president's four most senior national security officials.
The White House has acknowledged that it was a mistake to have included the uranium allegation in the State of the Union address. But an examination of how it originated, how it was repeated in January and by whom suggests that the administration was determined to keep the idea before the public as it built its case for war, even though the claim had been excised from a presidential speech the previous October through the direct intervention of CIA Director George J. Tenet.
Dan Bartlett, White House director of communications, said yesterday that the inclusion of the allegation in the president's State of the Union address "made people below feel comfortable using it as well." He said that there was "strategic coordination" and that "we talk broadly about what points to make," but he added: "I don't know of any specific talking points to say that this is supposed to be used."
The allegation appeared in a draft of a speech Bush was to give Oct. 7 to outline the threat that he said Saddam Hussein posed to the United States. In that draft, an unnamed White House speechwriter wrote, "The [Iraqi] regime has been caught attempting to purchase substantial amounts of uranium oxide from sources in Africa." |
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