Uranium debacle deepens

2003-07-13 16:07

Washington - The CIA struck a reference to Iraq seeking to buy nuclear materials from Niger from a presidential speech in October 2002, three months before President George W. Bush mentioned it in his State of the Union address, the Washington Post reported on Sunday.

CIA Director George Tenet, who Friday took responsibility for use of the now-discredited allegation in the president's January 2003 speech, intervened personally with White House officials to have the reference deleted in October, the newspaper said.

Tenet argued that the allegation, contained in a September 2002 intelligence briefing, should not be used because it came from only a single source, a senior administration official told the Post.

The "National Intelligence Estimate" said Iraq tried to purchase up to 500 tons of uranium oxide for its nuclear program from Niger.

But that allegation was not featured in a speech Bush delivered in Ohio on October 7, outlining the threat Iraq posed to the United States on the eve of a Congressional vote on whether to authorise war.

It was unclear why a less specific reference to the report made it into the later speech.

The Bush administration has been accused of exaggerating the Iraqi threat and even manipulating intelligence in its efforts to convince the United States and the world to wage war on Iraq.

Bush and his aides cited unconventional weapons as a main justification for the attack, but to date US forces have found no concrete proof of the existence of such weapons in Iraq.

Controversy over the error in Bush's January speech dogged the president as he toured five African countries this week.

T enet's confirmation Friday echoed what the White House had been saying all week - that Bush made the claim in good faith after the information had been cleared by intelligence agencies.

"The president had every reason to believe that the text presented to him was sound," Tenet said.

"I am responsible for the approval process in my agency."

The sentence in the speech that was eventually discredited was: "The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa."

"These 16 words should never have been included in the text written for the president," Tenet said.

White House officials sought to include the Niger allegation in the speech in January, the Post said.

They asked if there was more intelligence to support the claim but when told there was not, inserted a more vague statement attributed to British intelligence.

- AFX