<< GX41301 >>

GOVERNMENT
EXHIBIT
	14131
A)	A Question Of Trust (Time)
B)	After the War Intelligence (NYT)	6
C)	WMDs Inquiry Urged (AP)
D)	White House mea culpa prompts new calls for probe of	12
	prewar intelligence (AP)	- .. - .	.	.	.	....
E)	An Fleiseher Gaggle					15
F)	Retired Envoy: Nuclear Report Ignored (WPost) ~~(k~ 74	16
G~	Report Cast Doubt on Iraq-Al Qaeda Connection (Wpost) ~ 6/2 2	20
H)	Rice on Fox News Sunday	24

-~

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A Question Of Trust (Time)
By MICHAEL DUFEY AND JAMES CARNEY
Time Magazine
July 14, 2003

TheState of the Union message is one of Americas greatest inventions, conceived by the
Founders to forc9 a powerful Chief Executive to report to a public suspicious of kings. Delivered
to a joint session of Congress in democracys biggest cathedral, it is the most important speech a
President gives each year, written and rewritten and then polished again. Yet the address George
ViT. Bush gave on Jam 28 was more consequential than most because he was making a
revolutionary cas-e~ why a nation that traditionally didnt start fights should wage a pre-emptive
war. As Bush noted that night, Every year, by law and by custom, we meet here to consider the
state of the union. This year we gather in this chamber deeply aware of decisive days that lie
ahead.

Just how aware was Bush of the accuracy of what he was about to say? Deep in his 5,400-word
speech was a single sentence that had already been the subject of considerable internal debate for
	a year. It was a line that had launched a dozen memos, several diplomatic tugs of war and
some mysterious, last-minute pencil editing. The lineThe British government has learned that
Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africawasnt the
Bush teams strongest evidence for the case that Saddam wanted nuclear weapons. It was just the
most controversial, since most government experts familiar with the statement believed it to be
unsupportable.

Last week the White House finally admitted that Bush should have jettisoned the claim.
Designed to end a long-simmering controversy, the admission instead sparked a bewildering four
days of changing explanations and unusually nasty finger pointing by the normally disciplined
Bush team. That performance raised its own questions, which went to ihe core of the
Administrations credibility: Where else did the U.S. stretch evidence to generate public support
for the war? If so many doubted the uranium allegations, who inside the government kept putting
those allegations on the table? And did the CIA go far enough to keep the bad intelligence out?

To that last question, at least, the answer was: apparently not. In what looked like a command
performance of political sacrifice, the head of the agency that expressed some of the strongest
doubts .abo~t thecliargetookresponsibility for the Presidents unsubstantiated claim. The CIA
approved the Presidents State of the Union address before it was delivered, said CIA Director
 George Tenet in a statement. I am responsible for the approval process in my agency. And
the Presidenthad every reason to believe that the text presented to him was sound. These 16
wordsshould never have been included in the text written for the President.

Yet the controversy over those 16 words would not have erupted with such force were they not
emblematic of larger concerns about Bushs reasoning for going to war in the first place. Making
the case against Saddam last year, Bush claimed that Iraqs links to al-Qaeda and weapons of
mnss destruction (WMD) made the country an imminent threat to the region and, eventually, the
U.S. He wrapped the evidence in the even more controversial doctrine of pre-emption, saying
America could no longer wait for proof of its enemies intentions before (lefendin~ itself

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<< GX41303 >>

overseasit must sometimes strike first, even, without all the evidence in hand. Much of the
world was appalled by this logic, but Congress and the American public went along. Four
months after the war started, at least one piece of key evidence has turned out to be false, the
U.S. has yet to find weapons of mass destruction, and American soldiers keep dying in a country
that has not greeted its liberators the way the Administration predicted it would. Now the false
assertion and the rising casualties are combining to take a toll on Bushs standing with the public.

FOLLOW THE YELLOWCAKE ROAD
How did a story that much of the national-security apparatus regarded as bogns wind up in the
most important speech of Bushs temi? The evidence suggests that many in the Bush
Administration simply wanted to believe it. The tale begins in the early I 980s, when iraq made
two purchases of uranium oxide from Niger totaling more than 300tons. Known as
yellowcake, uranium oxide is a partially refined ore that, when combined with fluorine and
then converted into a gas, can eventually be used to create weapons-grade uranium. No one
4isputes that Iraq had a nuclear-weapons program in the I 9 SOs, but it was dismantled afler the
first Gulf War. Then, in the mid-1990s, defectors provided evidence that Saddam was flying to
restart the program.

Finally, late in 2001, the Italian government came into possession of evidence suggesting that
Iraq was again trying to purchase yellowcake from Niger. Romes source provided haifa dozen
letters and other documents alleged to be correspondence between, Niger and iraqi officials
negotiating a sale. The Italians evidence was shared with both Britain and the U.S.

When it got to.Washiu:ton,.the Iraq-Niger uraaium report caught the eye of someone
important: Vice Pk-eside2it 1Mek Cheacy. Cheneys chief ofstaff~, Lewis Libby, 4okI TIME
that during one of his rega-lar CIA briefings, the Vice President asked a question about
the implication of the report. Oieneys interest hardly came as a surprise: he has long
been known to harbor some of the mast hard-line views of Saddams nuclear ambitions. It
was not long before the agency quietly dispatched a veteran U.S. envoy named Joseph
Wilsen to investigate. Wilson seemed like a wis.e choice for the mission. He had been a U.S.
ambassador to Gabon and had actually been the last American to speak with Saddam
before the first Gulf War. Wilson spent eight days sleuthing in Niger, meeting with current
and former go~rer~ment officials and businessmen; he came away convinced that the
allegations were untrut. Wils.u neverhad access to tiae.Italian documents 2tFd oever tiled a
written report, he tt~ld TIME. When he returned to Washington in early March, Wilson
gave an ral report about his trip to both CIA and State Department officials. On March 9
of last year, tbe CIA circulated a memo en the yellowcake story that was sent to-the White
House, ummarizii~ Wilsons assessment. Wilson was not the only official looking into the
matter. Nine days earlier, the State Departments intelligence arm had sent a memo
directly to Secretary ol State Cohn Powell that also disputed the Italian inteHigence~Ureg
Thielmann, then a high-ranking official at States research unit, told TIME that it was not
in Nigers self-iuterest to sell the Iraqis the- destabilizing ore. A whole lot of things told us
that the report was bogus, Thielmana said later. This wasnt highly contested. There
werent strong advocates en the other side. it ~vas done, shot down.

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<< GX41304 >>

Except that it wasnt. By late summer, at the very moment that the Administration was gearing
up to make its case for military mobilization, the yellowcake story took on new life. In
September, Tony Blairs government issued a 50-page dossier detailing the case against Saddam.
and while much of the evidence in the paper was old, it made the first public claim that Iraq was
seeking uranium from Africa. At the White House, An Fleischer endorsed the British dossier,
saying We agree with their findings.

THE DOUBTS THAT DIDNT GO AWAY
By now, a gap was opening behind the scenes between what U.S. officials were alleging in
public, about Iraqs nuclear ambitions and what they were saying in private. After Tenet left a
	closed hearing on CapitolHill iii September, the iruclear question arose, and a lower.-rai~1dng
official admitted to the lawmakers that the agency bad doubts about the veracity of the evidence.
Also in September; the ~CIA tri~d to persuade the British government to drop the allegation
completely. To this day, Lon&m standsby.Ihe claim.. In October, Tenet personallyintervened
with National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rices deputy, Stephen Had ley, to remove a line
about the African ore in a speech that Bush was giving in Cincinnati, Ohio. Also that month, CIA
oflicials included the Britsyelio-wcake story in thei# classified 90-page National Intelligence
Estimate on Iraqs weapons programs. The CIA said it could neither verify the Niger story nor
confirm whether Iraq succeededin acquiring uranium ore and/or yellowcake from two other
African nations. The agency also included the State Departments concerns that the allegations of
Iraqs seeking yellowcake were highly dubiousthough that assessment was printed only as a
footnote..

At a time~vhen it was trying to build public support for the war, the Bush Administration did not
share these internal doubts about the evidence with the public. In December, for example, the
State Department included the Niger claim in its public eight-point rebuttal to the 12,200-page
arms declaration that Iraq made to the U.N. two weeks earlier. And a month later, in an oped. _
column in the New York Times titled Why We Know Iraq Is Lying, top Bush aide Rice
appeared to repeat the yellowcake claim, saying, The declaration fails to account for or. explain
Iraqs efforts to get uranium from abroad. Nor did the U.S. pass on what it knew to intern~tional
monitors. When the .Intern~tional Atomic Energy Agency, a U.N. group, asked the.U.S. for data
toback up its claim inDeceinber, Washington sat tight andsaid little for six weeks.

The battle between believers and doubters finally came to a head over the State of the Union
speech. Weeks of work bad -none into the address speechwiiters had produced two dozen drafts.
But as the final fonnwast~king..sha the wording of the yellowcake passage went down to the
wire. When the time came to decide whether Bush was going to cite the allegation, the CIA
objected-.--andthen relented. Two senior Administration officials tell TIME that in a January
conversation with a key National Security Council (risc) official just a few days before the
speech, a top cia analyst named Alan Foley objected to including the allegation in the speech.
The nsc official in charge of vetting thesections on WMD, Special Assistant to the ?resident
Robert Joseph, denied through a:spokesman that he said it was O.K. to use the line as long as it
was sourced to British intelligence. But anGther official told TIME, There was a debate about
whether to cire it on our own intelligence. But once the U.K. made it public, we felt comfortable
citing whatthey had learned. And so the line ~vent in. While some argued last week that the

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<< GX41305 >>

fight should have been kicked upstairs to Rice for adjudication, While House officials claim that
it never was.

NUCLEAR FALLOUT
But if it was good enough for bush, it wasnt good enough for others. Cohn Powell omitted any
reference to the uranium when he bijefed the U.N. Security Council just eight days later; last
week he told reporters that the allegation had not stood the test of time. Nor did Tenet mention
the allegation when heAestified before the Senate panel on Feb. II. If we were trying to peddle
that theory, it would have been in our white paper, an intelligence official told TiME. It would
have been in lots of places where it wasnt. A sentence made it into the Presidents speech, and it
-	shouldnt have.

Did Bush really need to push the WMD case so hard to convince Aniericails that Saddam should
be ousted? In a TIME poll taken four weeks before coalition forces invaded, 813% of Americans
thought war was justified on the grounds that Saddam Hussein is a dictator who has killed many
citizens of his Iraq. Thats one c1~im .that has never been contested. In the same TIME poll,
however, 72% of Americans thought war was also justified because it will he eliminate
weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

The unseen threat of a Saddani with WMD was an argument that played to Bushs strengths. As a
politician, Bush has always been better at asserting his case than at making it. Afler 9111, his
sheer certitudeand the faith Americans had in his essential trustworthinessled Arhericans to
overwheln]ingly support him. The yellowcake affair may have already changed that relationship,
for as the casualties mount in Iraq, polls suggest that some of that faith is eroding. Which means
the next time Bush tells the nation where he wants to go, it may not be so quick to follow.

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After the War Intelligence (NYT)
By David E. Sanger and James Risen
The New York Times
July 12, 2003

The director of central intelligence, George J. Tenet, accepted responsibility yesterday for letting
PresidentBush use, information that turned out to be unsubstantiated in his State of the Union
address, accusing Iraq of tiying to acquire uranium from Africa to make nuclear weapons.

Mr. Tenet issued a statement last night after both the president and his national security adviser
placed blame on the CIA., which they said had reviewed the now discredited accusation and
had approved its inclusion in the speech.

For days, the White House has tried to quiet a political stomi over the discredited intelligence,
which was among many examples cited in Mr. Bushs speech to justify the need for confronting
Iraq to force the dismantlement of Saddam Husseins-arms programs.

1 gave a speech to thenation that was cleared by the-intelligence services, tfie president said
after a meeting in Uganda with President Yoweri K. Museveni, for the first time placing implicit
blame for his error on those agencies.

~ondoleezza Rice, thepresidents national security adviser, speaking to reporters on Air Force
-One en route toUganda, said, The C.I.A. cleared the speech in its entirety.

Although Mr. Tenets statement did not say he had personally cleared the speech, he said in his -
statement, I am responsible for the approval process in my agency.

In an administration that prides itself on discipline and message control, the question of how
faulty intelligence got into Mr. Busks speech has become an unusual exercise in finger-pointing,
with top officials and agencies blaming one another.

In his State of the Union address, Mr. Bush cited an Iraqi attempt to purchase uranium from
Africa as part of evidence of Mr. Husseins unconventional weapons and Iraqs desire to
reconstitute its nuclear program.

The British government, the president said, has learned that Saddam Hussein recently souglit
significant quantities of uranium from Africa.

Mr. Tenet said yesterday: 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. -

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<< GX41307 >>

In the classified version of a National Intelligence Estimate prepared by intelligence agencies last
fall, the allegation about Iraqs activities in the African nation of Niger was included along witha
footnote that said the State Department had its doubts about whether it was justified by the
evidence. Somalia and Congo were also cited in the estimate.

Ms. Rice said the administration did not learn until March that the documents that were the
primary basis for the assertion about Niger had been forged. She also said she did not learn about
the mission to Niger last year by a former American ambassador -- who found no evidence to
back up the charge -- until a month ago, when she was asked about it during a televisioii
interview.

In recent days, the C.i.A.s spokesman said Mr. Tenet had never personally approved Mr. Bushs
use of the African uranium example in the speech. But Dan Bartlett, one of Mt Bushs closest
aides, who drafted parts of the address, said in an interviewiliat the warding had been t?uleared at
the highest levels of the C.IA which would seem to mean Mr. Tenet or his deputy, John
McLaughlin.

inside the National Security Council, some senior staff members gave a slightly difI~rent
account, saying the paper trail suggests the claim about Africa. may have been approved at the
agencys rnidlevels, by a senior expert on nuclear proliferation and arms control.

A senior administration official said Ms. Rice had telephoned Mr. Tenet before she spoke to
reporters yesterdny. Asked whether the White House continued to have confidence in Mr Tenet.
Ms. Rice replied, Absolutely.

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<< GX41308 >>

But Mr. Tenet was clearly an official under fire yesterday. Senator Pat Roberts of Kansas, the
Republican chairman of the select committee on intelligence, said he was disturbed by what
appears to be extremely sloppy handling of the issue from the outset by the C.I.At

He added that he was most worried about a campaign of press leaks by the C.I.A. in an effort to
discredit the president. He accused Mr. Tenet of failing to warn Mr. Bush about any doubts in
the agency.

The Senate, by voice vote on Thursday night, called for an investigation into what led to Mr.
Bushs statement.

Ms. Rice said yesterday that the new wording Mr. Bush used in the address had been reviewed
and changed by the C.I.A., whose officials initially expressed concern about some specifics
about amount and place. After the changes, she said, the C.I.A. cleared the spee~h in its
entirety.

If the C.I.A., the director ofceutral intelii:enee, bad said, Take this out of the speech, it
would have been gone, without question, she added. If there were doubts about the
underlying intelligence,.those doubts were notcoinmunicated to the pre~ideut, to the vice
1#

president or to me.

Mr. Bush, Ms. Rice and Mr. Powell all insist that the political furor over one line in Mr. Bushs
speech obscures what they say is a larger truth: that Mr. Hussein was trying to reconstitute his
nuclear program, and had sought to ibtain key components for it around the world.

So far. investigators on the ground in Iraq have found no evidence of that rekindled effort,
though a barrel full of nuclear centrifuge plans and equipment was found buried for the last 12
years in the garden of one nuclear engineer in Baghdad. This strongly suggests that Mr.
Husseins government was holding onto key designs in case they had the opportunity torestart
the prozram.

~OO85O
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<< GX41309 >>

In the case of the uranium, Mr. Bush actually cited British intelligence because it had published
the allegation about Africa in an unclassified report in September. It cited a public document,
which probably helped,w Ms. Rice explained yesterday. 11 was also Britain, which probably
helped.

When the iirst rumors of a purchase effort in Niger surfaced, at the begin oingof2&02,........
President Dick Cheuevts office asked the C.I.A. to assess the information. Apparently
without the knowled:e of Mr. cheney or Mr. Tenet, the agency sent a former ambassador,
Joseph C. Wilson IV, to investigate. He reported back that the government of Niger had
denied thereport,. and that other indications were that it was bogus.

Before the speech, the crucial conversations between the C.I.A and White House over whether to
include the African reference in the State of the Union address were held between Robert G.
Joseph, a nuclear proliferation expert at the National Security Council, and Alan Foley, a
proliferation expert at the. C.I.A., according to government officials.

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<< GX41310 >>

There is still a dispute over what exactly was said in their conversations. Mr. Foley was said to
recall that before the speech, Mr. Joseph called him to ask about putting into the speech a
reference to reports that Iraq was trying to buy hundreds of tons of yellowcake from Niger. Mr.
Foley replied that the C.I.A. was not sure that the information was right.

Mr. Joseph then came back to Mr. Foley and poiiAed out that the British had already included the
	information in a report. Mr. Foley said yes, but noted that the C.I.A. had told the British that they
were not sure that the information was correct. Mr. Joseph then asked whether it was accurate
that the British reported the information. Mr. Foley said yes.

  Other government officials said, however, that Mr. Joseph did not recall Mr. Foleys raising any ..
concerns about the reliability of the information. If he had, they said, Mr. Joseph would have
made sure that the reference was not included in the speech.

The White House would not say what the C.LA officers had been asked, or whether the issue
had been raised with Mr. Tenet, who sees the president daily and speaks often with Ms. Rice and
Stephen J. Hadley, the deputy national security adviser.

The White House said it was stunned to learn, after the speech, that the Niger evidence was
based on false documents, and that the sources for evidence that Iraq sought the yellowcake
elsewhere in Africa were far short of reliable. What the president says has to be bulletproof, a
senior American official said. This clearly wasnt.

(~OOB5~

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<< GX41311 >>

WMDs inquiry Urged (AP)
ByDebRiechniann
The Associated Press
July 9 2003

Democrats pressed for deeper investigation of pre-war IYS. intelligence efforts Tuesday after
the White House admitted President George XV. Bush had erred in his State of the Union speech
when he said Saddam Hussein had tried to buy uranium in Africa.

As weeks have passed with the American search turning up no weapons of mass destruction in
Iraq, criticism has-been buildingconceming assertions the administration made as justification
for the war.

Michael Anton, a spokesman for the White Houses National Security Council, said in a
statement: We now know that documents alleging a transaction between Iraq and Niger bad
been forged.

Several investigations are underway. inCongress, but Democrats said much more was needed.

(~I~OS53
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<< GX41312 >>

White House mea culpa prompts new calls for probe of prewar intelligence (AP)
By Torn Raum
The Associated Press
July 9,2003

PRETORIA, South Africa (AP) - President Bush on Wednesday defended his use of prewar
intelligence on Iraq, saying he is absolutely confideat in his actions despite the discovery that
one claim he made about Saddam Husseins weapons pursuits was based on false information.

Democrats have argued that the White Houses acknowledgment that Bush misspoke earlier this
year when he said Saddam tried to buy uranium in Africa justifies a broad revie~v of how the
administration used prewar intelligence on Iraq.

Bush, at a news conference here with South African President Thabo Mbeki during a five-nation
African tour, took on his critics.

Theres no doubt in my mind that when its all said and done the facts will show the worki the
truth, he said. Theres going to be, you know, a lot of attempts to try to rewrite history, and I
can understand that. But Im absolutely confident in the decision I made.

Bush did not directly address Ihe misstatement itself, made during his State of the Union adctress.
Instead, he defended his decision to go to war based on a larger body of information.

There is no doubt in my mind that Saddam Hussein was a threat to the world peace, the
president said. And theres no doubt in my mind that the United States ... did the right thing in
removing him from power.t

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<< GX41313 >>

The Bush administration used purported Iraqi weapons of mass destruction as a major
justification for the war, and the failure to find such weapons so far has generated intense
criticism from some Democrats.

White House spokesman An Fleischer set off a furor Monday when, under questioning by
reporters, he acknowledged that Bush was incoITect in his State of the Union speech when he
said the British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant
quantities of uranium from Africa.

Wednesday, Fleischer said that this type of information should not have risen to the level of a
presidential speech.

But, he added, this is a classic issue of hindsight is 20-20.

Theres a bigger picture here, Fleischer told reporters traveling with Bush td South Africa. He
repeated administration assertions that Saddain Hussein was trying to reconstitute a weapons of
mass destruction program.

Other White House officials elaborated on Fleischers remarks Tuesday, saying the United States
had additional evidence of Iraqs nuclear intentions.

Michael Anton, a spokesman for the National Security Council, said that when Bush made the
speech, there was other intelligence indicating Iraq had tried to acquire uranium from several
countries in Africa. This other information, however, was not detailed or specific enough to
pr6ve such a contention, he said.

The claim rested significantly on a letter or letters between officials in Iraq and Niger that were
obtained by European intelligence agencies. The communications are now accepted as forged.

Anton acknowledged such on Tuesday, but also said the documents were not the sole basis for
the Iraq-Africa statement in Bushs speech.

Because of this lack of specificity; this reporting alone did not rise to the level of inclusion ma
presidential speech, Anton said. That said; the issue of Iraqs attempts to acquire uranium from
abroad was not an element underpinning the judgment reached by most intelligence agencies that
Iraq was reconstituting its nuclear weapons program.

On Sunday, Joseph Wilson, an envoy sent to Africa to investigate allegations about Iraqs nuclear
weapons program; said the Bush administration manipulated his findings, possibly to strengthen
the rationale for war.

Wilson insisted in an NBC-TV interview that his doubts about the purported Iraq-Niger
connection reached the highest levels o-f government, including Vice President Dick

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<< GX41314 >>

Cheney1s office. In fact, he said, Chenevs office inquired about the purported Niger-Iraq
link.

Fleischer said Monday thatCheney did not request information about Wilsons mission to
Nicer, was not informed of his mission and was not aware of it until press reports
acconuted for it

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<< GX41315 >>

An Fleischer Gaggle
July 7_7003

Q Can you give us the White House account of Ambassador
Wilsons account of. what happened when he went to Niger and
investigated the suggestions that Niger was passing yellow cake
to Iraq? Im sure you saw the piece yesterday in The New York
Times.

	MR. FLEISCHER: Well, there is zero; nada, nothing new here.
ktibassador Wilson, other than the fact that now people biow his
nam~, has said all this before. But the fact 6f~ the matter is in
his statements about theVice President -- the Vice presidents
office did not request the mission to Niger. The Vice
Presidents office was not informed of his mission and he was not
aware of Mr. Wilsons mission until recent press accounts -
press reports accounted for it.

	So this was something that the CIA undertook as part of
their regular review of events, where they sent him. But they
sent him on their own volition, and.the Vice Presidentts office
did not request it. Now, weve long acknowledged -- and this is
old news,. weve said this repeatedly -- that the information on
yellow cake did, indeed, turn out to be incorrect.

	Q~ Which gets to the crux of what Ambassador Wilson is now
alleging -- that he provided this information to the State
Department and the CIA 11 months before the State of the Union
and he is amazed that it, nonetheless, made it into the State of
the Union address. He believes that that information was
deliberately ignored by the White House. Your response to that?

	MR. FLEISCHER: And thats way, again, hes making the
statement that -- he is saying that surely the Vice President
must have known, or the White House must have known. And thats
not the case, prior to the State of the Union. -

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<< GX41316 >>

Retired Envoy: Nuclear Report Ignored; Bush Cited Alleged Iraqi Purchases (V/Post)
By Richard Leiby and Waiter Pincus
The Washington Post
July 6, 2003

Joseph C. Wilson, the retited United States ambassador whose CiA directed mission to Niger in
early 2002 helped debunk claims that Iraq had tried to obtain uranium there for nuclear weapons,
has said for the first time publicly that U.S. and British officials ignored his findings and
exaggerated the public case fn- invading Iraq.

Wilson, whose 23-year career included senior positions in Africa and Iraq, where he was acting
ambassador in 1991, said the false allegations that Iraq was hying to buy uranium oxide from
Niger about three years ago were used by President Bush and senior administration officials as a
central piece of evidence to support their assertions that Iraq had reconstituted its nuclear
weapons program.

It really comes down to the administration misrepresenting the facts on an issue that was a
fundamental justification for going to war, Wilson said yesterday. It begs the question, what
else are they lying about?

The Niger story --6ne piece of the administrations larger argument that Iraqs weapons of mass
destruction posed an imminent threat -- was not debunked until shortly before the war began,
when the United Nations chief nuclear inspector told the Security Council the documents were
forgeries. The White House has acknowledged that some documents were bogus, but a
spokesman has said there ~a larger body of evidence ~ I ted to purchase
	was	raq attemp
uranium in Africa, indicating it may have involved a country other than Niger.

For the past year, Wilson has spoken out against the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, but until he was
interviewed by The Post and wrote an op-ed article scheduled for publication in todays New
York Times, he had never disclosed his key role in the Niger controversy. He said Iraqi President
Saddam Hussein was not an immediate threat before the war, and predicted ~ long and bloody
U.S. occupation. In April, before U.S. troops entered Baghdad, he predicted on
	www.washingtonposLcom that Hussein is preparing to go underground to fight a guerrilla - -
	campaign, assuming he is still alive.... If our presence is seen as an occupation, rather than a-
	liberation, it is entirely possible that Saddam thinks he can rebound. . . Wilson wasthe last	
U.S. diplomat to meet with Hussein:

The CIA turned to Wilson in February 2002 because of his extensive experience with
intelligence and his relationship with senior officials in Niger. He also earned praise from the
first Bush administration as the charge daffaires in Baghdad, when he secured ihe release of 150
Americans held hostage as human shields. after Iraqi troops invaded Kuwait in 1990.

Wilsons account of his eight-day mission to Niger, including a statement he was told Vice
President Chenevs staff was interested in the truth of the allegations, h~is not been
contradicted by administration officials, but they have played down his importance and
denied his accusations.

Of~O8~8
to

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<< GX41317 >>

A senior administration official said yesterday that Wilsonts mission originated within the
CIAs clandestine service after Chenev aides raised questions during a briefing. It was not
orchestrated by the vice president and did not need high-level approval, the official said.
He added that it was reported in a routine way that he said was not memorable, did not
mention Wilsons name and did not say anything about forgeries.

Wilson has been interviewed recently by the House and Senate intelligence committees,
which are expected to focus on who in the National Security Council and the vice
presidentts office had access to a CIA cable, sent March 9, 2002, that did not name Wilson
but said Niger officials had denied the allegations.

In Wilsons view, key questions in any inquiry would include who in the White House knew the
details of his mission and who was told of his conclusions. When you task a serious
organization like the CIA [to answer a questions, it doesnt go into a black hole, he said.

Thesenior administration official said the CIA officers who dealt with Wilson may have
oversold the role of Cheneys office.

Wilson, 53, who was the Clinton administrations senior director of African affairs on the
National Security Council, said he took no pay for the assignment, only expenses. He said he
also told CIA officers he was no secret agent: I dont do clandestine  I only do discreet.

A private consultant since leaving government in. 1998, Wilson had contacts in Niger dating to
his first posting there as a foreign service officer in the 1970s. He also served in Togo, Burundi,
Smith Africa and Congo. In 1992, he became ambassador to Gabon and the Republic of Sao
Tome and Principe.

Wilson said he xvent to Niger.skeptical, knowing that the structure of the uranium industry --
controlled by a consortium of French, Spanish, German and Japanese finns -- made it highly
unlikely that anyone would officially deal with iraq because of U.N. sanctions. Wilson never saw
the dispirted documents but talked with officials whose signatures would have been required and
conchided the allegations were almost certainly false. Back in Washington, he briefed CIA
officers but did not draft his own report.

In September2002, the story of Iraq purchasing uranium in Africa made its way into .a published
British dossier on Husseins-weapons of mass destruction that got ~vide coverage. Wilson was
perplexed.

	Given the fact that we were in close cooperation, we were close allies, we were going to war
together over weapons of mass destruction, we were building the case for our respective
populations, it was unfathomable to me that this information would not have been shared with
the British, he said.

	In late September 2002, CIA Director Gcorge J. Tenet and top aides made two presentations in
	closed session on Capitol Hill and were asked about the published reports. They said there was

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information that Iraq had attempted to buy uranium but that there was some doubt the
information was credible But on Dec. 19, 2002, a State Department fact sheet listed attempts to
purchase uranium, specifically from Niger, as an item omitted from Iraqs supposedly full
disclosure of its weapons of mass destruction program.

Bush, in his State of the Union speech on Jan. 23, declared that the British government has
learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa.

After Bushs speech, Wilson said h~ contacted an associate at the State Department, noted that
the Niger story had been debunked and said, You might want to make sure the facts are
straight.

In early February, the CiA received a translation of the Niger documents and in early March,
copies of the documents, which the agency turned over to the international Atomic Energy
Agency accompanied with some of the CIAs doubts about their credibility.

After IAEA Director Mohamed ElBaradei announced they were bogus, Wilson read a March 8
front-page story in The Washington Post that quoted an unidentified U.S. official as saying, We
fell for it.

The quote provided a wake-up call. . . that somebody was not being candid about this Niger
business,, he said. interviewed that day on CNN about the Nigerdocuxnents. Wilson did not
mention his 2002 trip but said of the forgeries: It taints the whole case that the government is
trying to build against Iraq... I think its safe to say that the U.S. government should have or
did know that this report was a fake before Dr. ElBaradei mentioned it in his report at the -U.N.
yesterday.

In June, national security adviser Condoleezza Rice said in an interview on NBCs Meet the
Press that top administration officials were unaware of the faked documents at the time of the
State of the Union speech. Maybe someone knew down in the bowels of the agency, but no one
in our circles knew that there were doubts and susjicions that this might be a forgery.

But Wilson staid h.e considers that incwtceivable. Based on his experience handling
inteiIigez~ce at tire NSC, Wilson does not believe his report would have been buried. Having
been told the vice  esiden1~ oMke was interested, he said, If you are senior enough to ask
this question,yon are well above the bowels or the bureaucracy. You are in that circle.

Last week, Wilson said of Hi.assein: rmglad the tyrant is gone. Everybody is glad the tyrant is
gone. But he does not believe the war was ever about eliminating Husseins weapons of mass
destruction. It was, he said, a political push to redraw the map of the Middle East.

While his family prepared for a Fourth of July dinner, he proudly showed a reporter photos of
himself with Bushs parenis. On .a den wall was a framed cable to him in Baghdad, from the first
President Bush,.dated Nov. 20, 1990:
	-	O~3O86O
IS

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What you are doing day in and day out under the most trying conditions is truly inspiring, the
cable states~ Keep fighting the good fight. You and your stalwart colleagues are always in our
thoughts and prayers.

Wilson observed: I guess he didnt realize that one of these days I would carry that fight against
his sons administration.t

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Report Cast Doubt on 1ra~-AI Q~eda Connection(WPost)
By Walter Pincus
The Washington Post
June 22, 2003

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Sunday Show Transcripts 07/13/03

Fox News Sunda3

RICE:	I saw the speech after it has been struck. But let me just say, the Cincinnati speech
was constructed apparently with a reference to a specific incident, one specific incident,
based on a specific source. The director told Steve Hadley in a brief conversation that he
didnt wanttaken out, withwit question, taken out.

Now, the State of the Union was then constructed with language that was broader than a single
incident and a single place and a particular quantity.

SNOW:	So you...

RICE:	it was based instead on broader information, including the British report, which the
British say is broader.

SNOW:	All right, so when people are saying that the sentence in the State of die Union is simply
a cieverway of covering up a discredited story about yellow cakes from Niger, you say thats not
true. There were more sources of what?

RICE:	There were broader statements taken out of the NIE than this...

	SNOW: The National intelligence Estimate.

	 RICE: The National Intelligence Estimate--than that particular story which had been in the
Cincinnati speech.

We then sent what was in the State of the Union out for clearance. There ~vas some discussion
	about what should be said, how much could be said. The sentence that was agreed upon, which is
	the one that appeared, The British intelligence services have found so forth and so on, was
then cleared as a part of the speech in its entirety by the DCI.

SNOW:	As you luiow, Ive worked on State of the Union addresses. And typically, guidance for
that kindof language comes iom your office, from the National Security Council. The CIA
doesnt talk to speech writers, at least not very often.
	RICE: No, thats right.	-
	(LAUOHTERI

SNOW:	So...

RICE: Well, in fa~t, what we do is that we put together a lot of documentation from all kinds of
	 sources and give that to the speech writers as grist to write from.

SNOW:	Yes, and you approve--I mean, quite oflen, your office drafis language. Did your talking
points include mention of the possibility that Saddam was trying to obtain uranium from Africa?

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RICE: What was given to the speech writers was, in effect, data from various sources about
the nuclear activities of Saddam Hussein. The National Intelligence Estimate had
references to uranium acquisition, not only to the specific source, the specific case. And
that was, I understand, givento the speech writers; they wrote it.

But what we do, Tony--and I want to be very clear--is that it is also the practice, once something
is written, to send it out to the agencies and to say, Will you stand by this?

SNOW: Right. So you now saythat it doesnt rise to the standard. Is the president mad? The
president ought to be ticked about this.

RICE: The president understands that what he said was, first of all, accurate, but secondly, that
we have higher standards for what he says. And the reason that we send this out in the clearance
process is because were trying to meet that Iiigber standard.

SNOW: OK, the question thatpeople have is--I mean, you keep talking about a higher standard,
and yet this got through. There had been specific requests to delete something that was similar
from an October speech. How did it happen?

RICE: Tony, first ofall, it was not something that was similar. It was based oii different
sourcing,~d it was broader. It was also, with the British report, in the British report in a way
that Ws actually sourced in the speech.

Now, what we have to depend on, and this is what the director said, we have to depend on the
intelligen~e agencies to say, No, were not confident enough in. that for the president of the
United States to say it.

SNOW: Do you--I look at The Washington Post story and.I think, you kxiow what, this looks
like something somebody at the CIA is leaking to fire back at the White House. Howd you read
it?

RICE: I dont know. I dont know where the story comes from. Ive said what the story is. The
story is that, fbr Cincinnati, there was a reference in the speech that was specific to an amount,
and therefore.caxne from a particular source about a specific place. The director said, Cant
stand with that, took it out without question.

In the State of the Union, we looked 4 the intelligence. We did say,do you have anything
more? They said there was in tiRe NIE, the National Intelligence Estimate, a broader story
that had todo with other ~hces In Africa. And so it says, ~TheBritish have saidwhkh is
accnrateThe British haVe said that ~. forth and so on.

Now, as Director Tenet has said, be is responsible for his agencys process. I am ahave a very
close working relationship with the director.. We both agree it was a mistake for this to go in,
because it didnt meet the presidents st~ndards.

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