| Topic: |
Politics > Politics-USA |
| User: |
"Harry Hope" |
| Date: |
08 Jul 2003 07:51:53 PM |
| Object: |
Bush knew Iraq uranium claim was false but used it anyway. |
From CNN, 7/8/03:
http://www.cnn.com/2003/US/07/07/cnna.wilson/index.html
Ex-envoy: Uranium claim unfounded
(CNN) --
In January, President Bush cited a British report accusing Iraq of
trying to obtain uranium from an African country.
Now, former ambassador Joseph Wilson claims he was asked by the CIA to
investigate that report almost a year before the president's
statement, and found it inaccurate.
Wilson spoke Monday to CNN anchor Bill Hemmer about the implications
of his findings.
HEMMER:
You went to Niger several years ago. You concluded essentially that
Iraq could not buy this uranium from that country. Why not?
WILSON:
February of 2002 was my most recent trip there, at the request I was
told of the office of the vice president, which had seen a report in
intelligence channels about this purported memorandum of agreement on
uranium sales from Niger to Iraq.
I traveled out there, spent eight days out there, and concluded that
it was impossible that this sort of transaction could be done
clandestinely.
First of all, any official government transaction would have required
the signatures of the minister of mines and the prime minister.
Secondly, the consortium that ran the two mines up there was made up
of highly respected consumers of uranium products in the world -- the
French, the Spanish, the Germans and the Japanese.
And thirdly, the managing partner of the consortium -- that is to say
the organization that actually handled the product -- was the French
uranium company.
And fourthly, frankly, Niger had been an ally of the United States, a
close ally and a beneficiary of American largesse for 25 years, and
Niger had actually sent troops to fight alongside American troops in
the Gulf War.
So, for all of those reasons, it seemed that this information was
inaccurate.
That view was shared by the ambassador out there and largely shared in
Washington even before I went out there.
HEMMER:
We'll take that answer as a bit of a foundation for this interview.
Listen to what Condoleezza Rice said about a month ago, early June on
"Meet the Press." I'm quoting right now. She says, "We did not know at
the time -- no one knew at the time in our circles -- maybe someone
knew down in the bowels in the agency, but no one in our circles knew
that there were doubts and suspicions that this might be a forgery" --
Condoleezza Rice back on June 8.
You say that is not possible. Why not?
WILSON:
Well, when I was at the National Security Council, and before I wrote
my piece for "The New York Times," I actually checked with very senior
officials of the National Security Council from the time I was there,
as well as very senior officials in the vice president's office just
to refresh my memory.
HEMMER:
And what did they tell you?
WILSON:
And the standard operating procedure when we were there, of course,
was that if you tasked at my level and above an executive branch
agency with a specific question, you received a specific response.
Now, clearly somebody in the vice president's office is within that
circle that Dr. Rice is speaking of.
That person or that office asked the question and that office received
a very specific response.
HEMMER:
The White House is saying that's just a small part of the entire
argument. Nuclear programs is one thing, but the chemical and
biological issues were still out there. Your response to the White
House when they go that way is what?
WILSON:
Well, the question has always been for me whether or not the threat of
weapons of mass destruction was the grave and gathering danger or the
imminent threat to our national security that it was said to be.
Vice President Cheney flatly asserted in a "Meet the Press" interview
that Iraq was reconstituting its nuclear arms program.
We had any number of officials talk about the mushroom cloud that was
on its way from Iraq.
Now, we've got 200 Americans dead in Iraq, 150,000 Americans occupying
the country, $70 or $80 billion already spent.
And the question really is whether or not the threat merited that sort
of response.
_______________________________________________________
"To put it bluntly, if Bush has taken Congress and the nation into war
based on bogus information, he is cooked.
Manipulation or deliberate misuse of national security intelligence
data, if proven, could be "a high crime" under the Constitution's
impeachment clause.
It would also be a violation of federal criminal law, including the
broad federal anti-conspiracy statute
http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/ts_search.pl?title=18&sec=371,
which renders it a felony "to defraud the United States, or any agency
thereof in any manner or for any purpose."
It's important to recall that when Richard Nixon resigned, he was
about to be impeached by the House of Representatives for misusing the
CIA and FBI.
After Watergate, all presidents are on notice that manipulating or
misusing any agency of the executive branch improperly is a serious
abuse of presidential power."
John Dean
Harry
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