Here they are again, passing the buck like champions. I think Nixon was a more honest president.
ash
Rice: CIA signed off on Iraq uranium claim
U.S. presence reduced at Fallujah police station
Friday, July 11, 2003 Posted: 8:23 AM EDT (1223 GMT)
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(CNN) -- The U.S. Central Intelligence Agency approved President Bush's State of the Union speech, which included a statement that Iraq was planning to buy uranium from Africa, U.S. National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice told reporters Friday.
"The CIA cleared the speech. The CIA cleared the speech in its entirety," Rice said, en route to Uganda.
She is accompanying Bush on his five-nation African visit. (Full story)
"If the CIA -- the director of central intelligence -- had said, 'Take this out of the speech,' it would have been gone," Rice said.
"The president did not knowingly say anything that we knew to be false. ... We wouldn't put anything ... knowingly in the speech that was false."
The White House has admitted that a false claim that Iraq tried to obtain from Niger uranium oxide -- known as yellowcake -- was included in the State of the Union address in January as President Bush was trying to rally support for the invasion of Iraq.
In that speech, Bush cited British intelligence, saying Iraq had been trying to purchase the uranium from Africa and suggesting that Saddam Hussein's regime was attempting to restart a nuclear weapons program in violation of U.N. resolutions. (Bush defends war decision)
Sources said Wednesday that early drafts of the speech cited American intelligence about Niger and the uranium, but intelligence officials urged the removal of the information because they did not have "high confidence" in it.
At that point, other sources said, the president's speech writers apparently decided to include the assertion anyway -- attributing it to a British report that already was public.
A number of Democrats, including Presidential contender Sen. John Kerry have called for an independent investigation into allegations the Bush administration overstated the threat posed by Iraq's weapons programs during the debate over war.
"This is not a matter of politics. This is a matter of national security," the Massachusetts Democrat said. "When we go to other countries and say we have evidence of X or Y or Z, it is important that they believe us. And when we go to the American people and ask them to support some effort in the future, it is more than important that they believe us."
The Democratic National Committee prepared an ad assailing the president for using false intelligence in his State of the Union address last January to establish that Saddam was preparing nuclear weapons. (Full story)
Secretary of State Colin Powell addressed the issue directly while traveling with Bush in Africa.
Powell said there was never any "attempt on the part of the president or anyone else in the administration to mislead or deceive the American people."
"We now have to focus on the future," he said, "and that is to build a better Iraq for the Iraqi people and help them put in place a representative form of government that will make sure that there are never any more weapons of mass destruction, and that it's a country that will live in peace with its neighbors." (CNN Access: Powell on "Larry King Live")
Fallujah presence adjusted
In Iraq, the U.S. military has reduced its presence at a police station in the restive town of Fallujah, west of the Iraqi capital, a coalition spokesman said Friday. The move is billed as a step toward Iraqis policing themselves.
Calling it a "positive step forward," Maj. Sean Gibson said the 3rd Infantry Division was reducing its presence at one Fallujah police station from 30 to six people. He said Iraqi police in the city -- the site of frequent unrest and attacks against U.S. troops -- had told U.S. military officials that they could handle a greater share of policing duties.
Iraqi police had also complained to U.S. troops that their presence was endangering Iraqi police.
According to Gibson, the six remaining soldiers at the station will work as liaisons between the U.S. military and the police force.
This is good news, Gibson said, noting it has been a goal of the coalition to enable Iraqis to police themselves and to "raise their level of professionalism."
Asked if the movement of the 24 soldiers was out of a concern for their safety, Gibson said he "would not characterize it as concern."
Other developments
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• The top military commander in Iraq said that Saddam loyalists have "stepped up" their attacks against U.S. forces in the past week and there "is absolutely no question in my mind" that American soldiers and their Iraqi supporters killed in recent ambushes were victims of "professional assassinations." Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez on Thursday blamed pro-Saddam Fedayeen militias and Special Republican Guard soldiers for the attacks on U.S. troops. "The war is not over and all the American forces and all the American soldiers understand that they were deployed to fight this war," he said.
At least 79 U.S. troops have died in Iraq since Bush announced an end to major fighting May 1. Of those, 32 have been killed by hostile fire and 47 were victims of non-hostile fire or accidents.
• Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld told a Senate committee the Pentagon projects that the Iraq war and occupation would cost an average of almost $4 billion a month through September. (Full story)
• Khaled Abdel-Latif Dumeisi, 60, publisher of an Illinois-based Arabic language magazine, was arrested on charges of failing to register as a foreign agent of Saddam's regime and conspiracy, federal prosecutors said. He is accused of gathering information about Iraqi opposition groups in the United States. (Full story)
• Fatigue, stress, mechanical malfunctions and a disastrous series of errors beset members of the Army's 507th Maintenance Company as they neared Nasiriya, Iraq, on March 23, according to a draft report from the Army. The result was an Iraqi ambush that left 11 soldiers dead and seven captured, the report said. Pfc. Jessica Lynch was among those in the convoy, and U.S. forces later rescued her from an Iraqi hospital. (Full story)