Tenet takess blame for Iraq uranium claim
( 2003-07-12 15:45) (Agencies)
Director George Tenet is trying to put to rest a burgeoning credibility problem by taking full blame for allowing President Bush to make allegations about Iraq's nuclear weapons program later found false.
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CIADirector George Tenet gestures while testifying on Capitol Hill in this June 27, 2002 file photo before the Senate Governmental Affairs Committeehearing on homeland security. Tenet acknowledged Friday, July 11, 2003. [AP]
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In a carefully scripted mea culpa, the White House on Friday blamed the CIA for its January misstep and Tenet finished the job hours later with a dramatic statement accepting responsibility.
Bush's assertion in his State of the Union address in January that Iraq had sought nuclear materials from Africa "did not rise to the level of certainty which should be required for presidential speeches, and CIA should have ensured that it was removed," Tenet said.
"It was a mistake," he added.
The one-two punch was designed to quell a growing political storm, fueled in part by members of Congress and Democratic presidential hopefuls, that challenged the credibility of the administration's arguments that Iraq was trying to reconstitute its nuclear weapons program before the U.S. invasion in March.
Administration officials said that despite the miscue they did not expect Tenet to resign. He is the lone holdover from the Clinton administration and, while distrusted by some conservatives, has enjoyed Bush's confidence.
"I've heard no discussion along those lines," CIA spokesman Mark Mansfield said Friday night when asked whether Tenet might consider resigning. National security adviser Condoleezza Rice (news - web sites), traveling with Bush in Africa, said Tenet still enjoyed the president's confidence.
The current controversy evolves around Bush's assertion in his State of the Union address that Iraq had tried to buy uranium from the African country of Niger. A month later, the administration retracted the allegation after learning that the British intelligence it was based upon had been forged.
Tenet acknowledged Friday that the CIA had tried unsuccessfully for months to substantiate the British allegation and that State Department intelligence analysts believed the claim was "highly dubious," yet neither stopped Bush from making the claim in a single sentence of his annual address to the nation.
"These 16 words should never have been included in the text written for the president," Tenet conceded in a statement.
"Let me be clear about several things right up front," he said. "First, CIA approved the president's State of the Union address before it was delivered. Second, I am responsible for the approval process in my agency. And third, the president had every reason to believe that the text presented to him was sound."
The director took his cue from Bush and Rice, who hours earlier blamed the error on the CIA.
"I gave a speech to the nation that was cleared by the intelligence services," Bush told reporters in Uganda. If the CIA director had concerns about the information, "these doubts were not communicated to the president," Rice added.
Key members of Congress called for someone to be held accountable.
"The director of central intelligence is the principal adviser to the president on intelligence matters. He should have told the president. He failed. He failed to do so," said Senate Intelligence Committee chairman Pat Roberts, R-Kan.
Tenet said there were "legitimate questions" about the CIA's conduct, and he sought in his statement to explain his agency's role.
He said CIA officials reviewed portions of the draft speech and raised some concerns with national security aides at the White House that prompted changes in the language. But he said the CIA officials failed to stop the remark from being uttered despite the doubts about its validity.
"Officials who were reviewing the draft remarks on uranium raised several concerns about the fragmentary nature of the intelligence with National Security Council colleagues," Tenet said. "Some of the language was changed. From what we know now, agency officials in the end concurred that the text in the speech was factually correct that the British government report said that Iraq sought uranium from Africa."
CIA officials recognized at the beginning that the allegation was based on "fragmentary intelligence" gathered in late 2001 and early 2002, the director said.
A former diplomat was sent by the CIA to the region to check on the allegations and reported back that one of the Nigerien officials he met "stated that he was unaware of any contract being signed between Niger and rogue states for the sale of uranium during his tenure in office," Tenet said.
"The same former official also said that in June 1999 a businessman approached him and insisted that the former official meet with an Iraqi delegation to discuss 'expanding commercial relations' between Iraq and Niger. The former official interpreted the overture as an attempt to discuss uranium sales," Tenet said.
The diplomat sent to the region has alleged he believed Vice President Dick Cheney (news - web sites)'s office was apprised of the findings of his trip. But Tenet said the CIA "did not brief it to the president, vice president or other senior administration officials."
Tenet said that when British officials in fall 2002 discussed making the Niger information public, his agency expressed their reservations to the British about the quality of the intelligence.
A CIA report last October mentioned the allegations but did not give them full credence, stating "we cannot confirm whether Iraq succeeded in acquiring uranium ore."
Because of the doubts, Tenet said he never included the allegations in his own congressional testimonies or public statements about Iraqi efforts to obtain weapons of mass destruction.
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