WASHINGTON – It was one of the first signs that the intelligence used to go to war in Iraq was wrong: White House repudiation of 16 words in last year’s State of the Union speech that had suggested deposed Iraqi President Saddam Hussein tried to buy uranium in Africa.
Yet even as two recent reports sharply criticized prewar intelligence, they also suggested President Bush’s claim may not have been totally off-base.
A British report concluded that Bush’s statement and a similar one by Prime Minister Tony Blair were “well-founded.” In his speech, Bush had attributed the uranium claim to the British government.
A Senate Intelligence Committee report found inadequate evidence that Hussein had been rebuilding his nuclear weapons program. It cited various reports, however, that Iraq had sought uranium in Africa. Thus, although Bush cited only British evidence that was determined to have been inconclusive, other intelligence files clearly contained other inconclusive evidence of the truth of the claim.
Ex-ambassador flap
The White House’s repudiation came after The New York Times published an op-ed column by former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, who was sent by the CIA to Niger to determine if Iraq had been acquiring uranium. Wilson said it was unlikely any uranium transaction had taken place and the administration appeared to have been manipulating the intelligence.
Columnist Robert Novak, citing two unidentified Bush administration officials, wrote that Wilson’s wife, CIA officer Valerie Plame, had recommended Wilson for the trip. That has led to a criminal investigation into the leak of Plame’s identity.
The Senate report challenges Wilson’s denial that his wife had a role in the selection and questions his account of the intelligence available at the time of his trip. It also said that his trip, rather than discrediting the Iraq-Niger link, actually bolstered the views of some analysts who suspected Hussein was seeking uranium.
In an addendum to the report, Roberts and two other Republicans accused Wilson of providing “inaccurate, unsubstantiated and misleading” information. In a letter to committee leaders Thursday, Wilson said a thorough reading of the report supports his public comments.
He told CNN’s “Late Edition” he wants committee members to reinterview a CIA officer whose testimony, Wilson said, had muddled the record about his mission.
British intelligence
Bush, in his State of the Union address on Jan. 28, 2003, used the uranium intelligence to help make the case that Hussein was pursuing nuclear weapons. “The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa,” he said.
That claim came under scrutiny after the International Atomic Energy Agency determined that documents purportedly showing Iraq buying uranium from Niger were faked. After Wilson’s opinion piece appeared, the White House said including the 16 words in the State of the Union was a mistake because the assertion was not well enough corroborated to merit mention in the speech. The British have maintained consistently that their intelligence was not based on the forged documents.
But the Senate committee disclosed other intelligence suggesting that Iraq was pursuing uranium.
The committee cited separate reports received from foreign intelligence services on Oct. 15, 2001, and Feb. 5, 2002, and March 25, 2002. The State Department doubted the accuracy of the reports, but the CIA and Defense Intelligence Agency had more confidence in them.
The Nigerian connection
Though Wilson reported to U.S. officials there was “nothing to the story” that Niger sold uranium to Iraq, the CIA and DIA were intrigued by one element of his trip. Wilson had said a former prime minister of Niger, Ibrahim Mayaki, mentioned a visit from an Iraqi delegation in 1999 that expressed interest in expanding commercial ties with Niger, the world’s third largest producer of mined uranium. Mayaki believed this meant they were interested in buying uranium.
The Senate committee also described various reports about Iraqi attempts to buy uranium from French, British and unidentified foreign governments. But how much credibility these reports had was not clear.
An internal CIA memo from June 17, 2003, said, “We no longer believe there is sufficient other reporting to conclude that Iraq pursued uranium from abroad.”
But beyond internal correspondence, “to date, the intelligence community has not published an assessment to clarify or correct its position on whether or not Iraq was trying to purchase uranium from Africa,” the Senate committee said.
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