Book accuses White House of faking Iraq-9/11 link
 

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationwo...,5481059.story

WASHINGTON -- The Bush administration and former top CIA officials denounced a new book's assertion that the White House ordered the forgery of Iraqi documents to suggest a link between Iraqi President Saddam Hussein and the lead hijacker in the Sept. 11 attacks.

The claim was made by Pulitzer Prize-winning author Ron Suskind, whose book "The Way of the World" also contends that the White House obtained compelling evidence in early 2003 that Iraq possessed no significant stocks of nuclear or biological weapons but decided to invade anyway.

Suskind, who has written two previous investigative books that contained criticism of Bush administration policies, described the alleged forgery as one of the great lies in modern American political history, likening it to Watergate.

White House condemnations of the book were equally dramatic, with officials blasting it as "gutter journalism."

In separate statements, several former and current CIA officials disputed portions of the account, including two named by Suskind as key sources.


The book's most contentious allegations involve Tahir Jalil Habbush, Hussein's intelligence chief before the U.S.-led invasion of March 2003. As the deadline for war neared, U.S. and British officials met with Habbush and confronted him about weapons of mass destruction.

In those secret meetings, Habbush explained why United Nations inspectors had been unable to find evidence of active Iraqi weapons of mass destruction programs: There weren't any, Suskind writes. Habbush's accounts were shared with the CIA and the White House, where they were dismissed as deception.

After the invasion, Habbush was paid $5 million by the CIA for serving as an informant, and resettled in Jordan. It was then, Suskind writes, that the White House enlisted his help with a forgery -- one suggesting a link between Hussein's government and Mohamed Atta, the leader of the Sept. 11 hijackers.

Suskind states that in September 2003, the White House directed then-CIA Director George J. Tenet to concoct a fake letter, backdated to July 2001, claiming that Atta had trained in Iraq for his mission. Habbush agreed to sign the letter, which was leaked to a British journalist in December 2003, Suskind writes.

The author quotes two former CIA officials -- Robert Richer and John Maguire -- as sources. But the two men, in a statement to the Washington Post, denied the story. Tenet denied it as well.

Suskind said he stood by his reporting.

Again, all these people are wrong and are lying and Bush never lies :rolleyes:

There have been similar assertions in Al Gore's book The Assault on Reason and former CIA Director George Tenet's book At the Center of the Storm as well as Fiasco by Thomas Ricks...all of which I have read. Bush fabricated the basis for the war.

My fav. Tenetism was this "oops we did bad" --

Tenet admits error in approving Bush speech

President 'had every reason to believe' uranium claim, he says

Thursday, December 25, 2003 Posted: 12:39 AM EST (0539 GMT)

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- A line in President Bush's State of the Union address alleging that Iraq was trying to buy uranium in Africa should never have been included in the speech, CIA Director George Tenet said Friday.

In a statement released Friday evening, Tenet said that the CIA had seen and approved the speech before it was delivered, and he took responsibility for the mistake.

"The president had every reason to believe that the text presented to him was sound. These 16 words should never have been included in the text written for the president," he said.

The CIA director also said, "I am responsible for the approval process in my agency."

Tenet's candid mea culpa came hours after the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Republican Pat Roberts of Kansas, criticized the director for what he called the CIA's "extremely sloppy handling" of the uranium purchase claim. He also accused the agency of orchestrating "a campaign of press leaks" to discredit the president.

A CIA spokesman told CNN that Tenet, appointed to the helm of the agency by President Clinton, has no plans to resign and has not been asked to leave.

The CIA director is expected to be questioned further about the matter next week at a previously scheduled closed hearing of the Senate Intelligence Committee.

The president's statement came at a time when he was trying to rally support for a war against Iraq.

In his speech, Bush -- citing British intelligence information -- said Iraq was trying to buy uranium, which could be used to make nuclear weapons, in Africa. The White House concedes that information wasn't true.

Tenet said that at the time the speech was delivered, the line was factually correct because British intelligence did indeed believe that it had evidence of such activity. But he said the CIA's own investigation of those same allegations had led the agency to decide that that the evidence was inconclusive.

"From what we know now, [CIA] officials in the end concurred that the text in the speech was factually correct -- i.e., that the British government report said that Iraq sought uranium from Africa," he said. "This should not have been the test for clearing a presidential address.

"This did not rise to the level of certainty which should be required for presidential speeches, and the CIA should have ensured that it was removed."

Tenet also said top administration officials -- including Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney -- were never briefed on the CIA's skepticism about the uranium purchase allegations. Nor did he tell members of Congress during briefings on Iraq last fall.

About that same time, the CIA learned that British intelligence officials were planning to publish an unclassified dossier mentioning reports that Iraq was trying to buy uranium in Africa.

"Because we viewed the reporting on such acquisition attempts to be inconclusive, we expressed reservations about its inclusion, but our colleagues said they were confident in their reports and left it in their document," Tenet said.

An unclassified CIA document published in October also made no mention of the allegation "because it was not fundamental to the judgment that Iraq was reconstituting its nuclear weapons program and because we had questions about some of the reporting."

Yet, despite all of those reservations, the line made it into the speech delivered January 28.

"The background ... makes it even more troubling that the 16 words eventually made it into the State of the Union speech," Tenet said. "This was a mistake."

Yellowcake and Niger
The allegations at the center of the dispute stem from documents purportedly showing that Iraq was trying to buy uranium oxide, also known as yellowcake, from Niger as part of its drive to build nuclear weapons. Intelligence officials now concede those documents were forgeries.

The inclusion of the charge in Bush's State of the Union address has set off a political firestorm in Washington. Some Democrats who were opposed to the war in Iraq accused the president of deliberately misleading the American people to build support for military action.

Sources have said early drafts of the address cited U.S. intelligence about Niger and uranium -- but that intelligence officials urged removal of that line because they did not have "high confidence" in it.

Tenet said that as CIA officials were reviewing drafts of the speech, they "raised several concerns about the fragmentary nature of the intelligence with National Security Council colleagues. Some of the language was changed."

However, the allegation about African uranium remained in the speech, though attributed to British, rather than American, intelligence.

Roberts, speaking before Tenet's statement was issued, said if the CIA had changed its position, "it was incumbent on the director of central intelligence to correct the record and bring it to the immediate attention of the president. It appears that he did not.

"This is not the type of responsibility that can be delegated to mid-level officials," Roberts said. "He should have told the president, and it appears that he failed to do so."

National security adviser Condoleezza Rice, while expressing support for Tenet, said Friday that the CIA had cleared the speech "in its entirety."

"The president did not knowingly say anything that we knew to be false," she said, en route to Uganda, one stop on Bush's Africa trip.

'Beginning to sound a little like Watergate'
The flap over the speech dogged Bush as he traveled through Africa this week on a five-nation tour. But speaking to reporters Friday in Uganda, the president defended the larger content and purpose of the address.

"It was a speech that detailed to the American people the dangers posed by the Saddam Hussein regime," he said. "My government took the appropriate response to those dangers. And as a result, the world is going to be more secure and more peaceful."

However, Democrats, including some of those running against Bush in 2004, offered withering criticism over the error.

"It's beginning to sound a little like Watergate," said former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean, who is seeking the Democratic presidential nomination. "It's very clear that it may be George Tenet's responsibility, but that information also existed in the State Department and it also existed in the vice president's office, so they will not get away with simply throwing George Tenet over the side."

Democratic Sen. Richard Durbin of Illinois called for a full investigation into how the mistake was made.

"The credibility of the president is on the line," he said. "We should be able to point to those people fully responsible for putting that misleading language in the State of the Union address. They should be held accountable, and they should be dismissed.

"Someone in the White House knew that the National Security Council had been briefed and told that this information is not accurate, and yet it was still included in the State of the Union address. It really calls him to question the leadership of the White House and in our intelligence agencies."

Republican Sen. John McCain of Arizona also called on the White House to "find out who is responsible for it and fire them."

But he also said the dispute "does not change the justification for going to war, which some of the critics are alleging.

"Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction," McCain said. "He was developing weapons of mass destruction. If he was still in power, he would be seeking weapons of mass destruction. So to somehow allege that this would have changed our dedication or our purpose or our success is just not appropriate."

CNN correspondents Jamie McIntyre and David Ensor contributed to this report.
http://www.cnn.com/2003/ALLPOLITICS/...ech/index.html
_______________________________________________

And, what does the Bush Admin. do? Do they fire him like anyone else would do? No, are you kidding, they rewarded him.

I mean come on - these people are lying through their teeth.

See, that's the problem. The information is complicated and tedious to sort through. You can't get it across in a sound byte on television. So sadly, most Americans remain ignorant of these facts. They were all over Air America radio from the start but because it was liberal it was just ignored. I maintain many of the reporters on that network are level-headed, sane, and intelligent all of which allows them to deliver the facts. Yes it's through their liberal viewpoint, but we all have our biases. That's why it is up to us all to be able to recognize facts.

"The Assault on Reason" is an intriguing title. I definitely felt like things were so twisted. My Dad said common sense was just thrown out the window. I have to agree. I'd like to read that book because it baffled me that the administration accomplished this!

^^

I think W and his cronies accomplished it by a convergence of events that they took advantage of.

1. FEAR -- 9/11 scared America. We had never been attacked on our our soil with such loss. And, they did it using things that seemingly were safe. We wanted someone to pay for it.

2. Saddham Hussein's unique position -- almost every politician had openly avocated violence in the name of the WMD, the UN enanimously agreed SH had to produce. SH openly defied the world. This lead to the argument that the inspections should be started up again, which pretty much everyone was for, and IMO rightly so.

3. The fact that all of America though SH and OBL were in bed together, a lie perpetrated by the Bush Administration.

All of those events made it easy to play the shell game with lies and false innuendo.

Looking back on it, it is easy to see. It was not so easy IMO to see at the time.

The only clear link I saw was in a comic that had this theme.

http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a29/SuzeQuze/Q.gif

:lol:

Apparently Cheney has not been invited to the Republican Convention. Shame.

I don't anyone is deliberately lying. What I do think is that the government is completely incompetent. I mean, everyone here thinks that Bush was being diabolical (insert Frankenstein laugh here), but what else was ever done that was competent? The tax cuts are the only thing I didn't have some reservations on or cringe over. That's why I don't buy conspiracy theories. The government can't do anything without leaks, graft, publicity seeking whistleblowers, sycophants in soundbytes, etc. Heck, even Scott McLellan doesn't think he deliberately lied. It appears there was a lot of cherry picking of intelligence and assumptions, certainly. Bush ran the government like a big company and this is exactly what you get with a very large company. A certain environnment is created, and certain goals are set and people fall all over themselves trying to accomplish that goal. Bush clearly wanted to take down Saddam, so he did. It's not that I think that Bush wasn't wrong, I never said that, he certainly was. It's like a car accident or train wreck; everyone sees something different. This is what happens when you get top-heavy and bloated. Big government makes even bigger mistakes. :thumbsup:

I mostly agree but I do think there was intent to mislead, aka lying going on. I think that you give the players too much credit. Otherwise I think you're right on the money.

I think cherry picking evidence is lying :shrug:

But, in any scenario (total lies to gross incompetence) - they come out as awful people.

Interestingly, I cannot think of one thing the Bush Admin. has done that has been a success. They started out pretty good on some things, but they never execute or complete things. The war in Afganistan is a good example. The war in Iraq is a better one. Had W taken the advice of his generals and put more troops on the ground in the beginning, it is likely much of the current violence could have been avoided and we possibly could have the combat troops out by now. That is why it is impossible for me to give W vredit for the surge. Sure it worked well, buy he should have done it five years ago. Finally, the tax cuts is a good example. Although they are not exactly how I would have done them, most economists agree they provided a positive jolt to the economy - a spark if you will. But, once again, W and his conies then went out and spent wildly and increased the size of the govt., which negated that spark. So, I conclude that W is a miserable failure and his lying only makes that worse to me.

On edit - I, too, think there would not have been a great conspiracy with too many players because someone would be spilling the beans. I suppose some are, but they have no actual smoking gun, though some things have come close. In any event, I reckon at least half of America still thinks SH flew the planes into the buildings on 9/11. Go figure.

I definately agree with the last statement! I think most people shouldn't be voting. I would really like to see civics exams before you can register!

On clarification, I don't think Bush was sitting in an office somewhere deciding, "hmmmm, we'll exclude this and this and this..." I think he made his goal very clear and created an environment where contradicting facts were excluded. I don't think anyone intended to be dishonest per se, but they certainly intended to please the boss and get promoted. I think people legitimately believed Saddam was up to no good, but anything that didn't fit the mold was cast aside long before it got to the briefing room. It's his own fault for creating that kind of situation and shows very bad management skills. I've seen the same thing happen in private companies, especially Microsoft. It's very old-school, top-down management that was popular around the time Bush went to college. People are learning very different things now, thank God. I wish Congress would catch up!

I think most natrualized immigrints know more Amercian history based on the qualification tests than most Americans know :eek:

Then again, I am for the govt. putting Norplant in all women at 13. I will stay effective until they are 18. Talk about a fool proof solution to the public cost of teen pregnancy :nod:

Except that my mom was on it and has to take synthetic hormones now because of the problems it causes. She can no longer naturally produce progesterone or estrogen. At 35, one of her ovaries died as a side effect. If you Google it, you'll see that Norplant and Depo have horrible life-long side effects for a lot of women. It causes mood swings, hormone imbalances, infertility, depression, and a variety of other problems.

I would support something more temporary, like IUD's for all welfare recipients. If we mandate birth control for teens, then we'd have more of an outbreak of STD's than what we're already seeing. HIV would skyrocket, because teens are generally stupid enough to think they're invincible on birth control.

^^^

I often wonder about the HIV thing. I know many girls (teen and up) who take the pill and never use condoms. Yet, the disease is not spread so much in the demographic, though it is in the other parts of the world and amongst African American women here. We could bring back the chastity belt!

My friend who immigrated from Africa definitely knows more than I do. I "learned" it all but by rote. So I learned it for the test and then forgot it. History wasn't my strength.

And mandatory Norplant? Good Lord. How about free, easily accessible condoms?