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July 13, 2003
While Liberals are Worrying Whether the President Lied . . .
The media has been in a lather of late over the "controversy" surrounding sixteen words in the president's State of the Union Address. The president told the American people that the British had learned that the Iraqis had recently attempted to buy a significant amount of uranium from Africa.
The statement was TRUE. The British had learned that. They believe it to be true to this day! The facts are that the British have half a dozen human sources tracking the Iraqi attempts to obtain uranium from three different African countries. In addition, they had seen documents purporting to show an Iraqi attempt to purchase 500 lbs of uranium from Niger.
The CIA did not believe that the document was authentic. The State Department doubted it as well, so they sent a former Ambassador to Niger to investigate. The Nigerians adamantly denied they ever considered selling uranium to Saddam. As it turns out, the document in question was a forgery.
That still left the British with enough evidence to know that Saddam was attempting to buy uranium in Africa, but they would not reveal their sources to the United States out of promises they made to their spies in exchange for the proof.
The CIA told the White House that without knowing the sources, they did not think the President should make any specific claims as to the amount of uranium sought or to the alleged country of origin. Also, they wanted the president to reveal that the evidence was from the British and not from the CIA.
Now, the CIA and the White House agree that if the information was not from the CIA or if the sources were not identified to the CIA so their credibility could be weighed by American intelligence professionals, the fact that the British learned something did not rise to the level warranting inclusion in a presidential speech.
Okay, fine. The statement is still TRUE! The British did learn it and they believe it to be true to this day. Where is the scandal? We know that the Iraqis illegally kept four centrifuges with detailed drawings to build many more. We found one under a rose garden in Baghdad. These would be needed to mass produce weapons grade uranium. We also know that the Iraqis attempted to purchase additional highly milled aluminum tubing to make more atom bomb fuel. We know, because we stopped the sales.
Rather than feign "shock and awe" that the president shared information of grave importance learned from the British with the American people, the press should be concerned that we have yet to find the biological weapons, which are very small and easily concealed. We have also failed to find Saddam. It is very possible that the bio weapons are with Saddam. Now THAT is something to fear.
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