we believe he has in fact reconstituted nuclear weapons but we don't want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud smoking gun that could come in the form of a mushroom cloud it's looking gun is an interesting phrase would noticed from my position in the foreign desk at the washington post a story developing after the war began about intelligence and information that had been gathered in italy prior to the war describing an attempt by saddam hussein to buy uranium supplies in africa which is an information that that has now become known as the sixteen words it was interesting to me to look at the genesis of those sixteen words and what was known about the information therein contained and what might have been known nuclear weapons capability of iraq the italian letter refers to a a letter an accompanying dossier provided by italian military intelligence to the cia and eventually to other intelligence organizations that proportionately purported agreement between the president of niger and saddam hussein for the sale of five hundred tons of yellowcake uranium per year starting in two thousand a couple of days after nine eleven intel italian military intelligence known as s me basically the corresponding agency of the cia contacted the cia station chief in rome and said that they had information about saddam hussein and a possible attempt to purchase uranium the response of the cia station in rome was disbelief the cia they also realized that there was no purpose for iraq to be seeking uranium supplies in africa to begin with since they had their own supplies of uranium in country the cia also knew that having a supply of uranium had very little to do with being able to convert that that uranium supply into usable material even for nuclear power plants which correct didn't have let alone weapons material because iraq had no manufacturing system for producing weapons grade uranium and so from the very outset the cia doubted and clear that the information was was very thin of a blatant fake and anyone could've with the will to do so could have realised that that the information about uranium was not true was not accurate and in fact prior to the war the united states got all sorts of signals that the charge about uranium supplies the charge about the attempt to obtain uranium supplies was false the effect one would assume that the president of niger would have known that the the there were successive constitutions that he had been operating under cia didn't look at it because they already didn't believe that the whole story was true anyway the obvious frequent question is who forged the italian letter and the accompanying documents and why in general our investigation showed that the italian letter and its accompany documents emanated from an operation within italian military intelligence in some cases operatives dusted off documents that they had from the early one nine hundred ninety s when iraq was purchasing uranium supplies before they were obliterated after the gulf war and then in other cases just doctoring up the material that was available at the niger embassy in rome where they had a an agent working for them as a secretary  to produce a story that would that would that would argue for iraq attempting to purchase uranium supplies one reason for doing this was to make money another reason for doing this was at least to put themselves in good stead with prime minister silvio berlusconi who wanted to support president bush and  provide tidbits of information that could help bush in promoting his policies that fit into what was obvious a proper obviously a propaganda campaign by the bush administration to frighten the american people  frighten congress into saying that there was no alternative but to invade iraq lest there be as they often said mushroom clouds on the horizon we believe he is in fact weapons but we don't want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud smoking gun that could come in the form of a mushroom cloud it's looking gun is an interesting phrase president bush started promoting heavily the concept of saddam hussein being a clear and present danger to the united states in the late summer and fall of two thousand and two he was doing that  as part of a campaign that was running out of the white house called the white house iraq group which was which was run by vice president cheney karl rove scooter libby  others and it was evidently and even admittedly by them a propaganda campaign to promote the war in iraq once forming that system in september of two thousand and two the white house began leaking information about the capability of putting together a nuclear program whose famously known in early september the white house leaked information about aluminum tubes that could have been used as centrifuges to the what new york times that judith miller received that information so did her colleague michael gordon they wrote a story on september eighth about these aluminum tubes and then vice president cheney and others went on television saying there's a story in the new york times this morning acquiring through this particular channel the kinds of tubes that are necessary to build a centrifuge and the centrifuge is required to take low grade uranium and enhance it into highly enriched uranium which is what you have to have in order to build  so of course they knew very well that they had the information because it was a closed loop in which they were providing the information so after that took place there was a crescendo of reporting about the nuclear program  speech that he was to give on october seventh two thousand and two in cincinnati that saddam hussein had attempted to purchase uranium supplies in an african country without naming which african country that was when that address a draft of that speech was prepared in the early days of october two thousand and two as was  routine the speechwriters at the white house provided a copy of this to the cia which which routinely vetted speeches that had national security import and to decide whether  it was it was met with the available information to the cia and to the rest of the intelligence community and when the cia saw a draft of president bush's cincinnati speech saying that there had been attempts to purchase uranium in africa the cia analysts looking at it said shouldn't be used the white house did not immediately say that's that's fine we'll just take that out they various people including the speechwriters and other aides objected to the idea of pulling it out of there's a big argument between cia analysts and white house speech preparers u ntil finally it was pushed up the chain high enough to george tenet the director of central intelligence having to intercede directly with the white house including  and others to say that the statement about uranium supplies from africa should not be included in the speech and there was a still more back and forth and still more insistence from the cia and finally when the final draft of the of the president bush's cincinnati speech was prepared and when president bush read his speech on october seventh in cincinnati that that statement was excise and the one one result of that was that the white house was so irritated by having to take the statement out that the white house staff stopped providing advanced texts of snatch and security items to the cia so they wouldn't be stopped from saying such things and between october and this january twenty eighth state of the union message six speeches and other to and including the state of the union message in which technically george tenet that was given a copy of the speech the day before which was not the normal procedure which would have been to give the cia some advanced warning so that the process would it would be able to operate normally and they'd be able to actually analyze what was being said tenet was was slipped a copy of the speech at a white house meeting he got back to his office gave it to an aide to take a look at they apparently didn't look at the speech until they heard president bush say his sixteen words at the city the new message that the british government has learned that saddam hussein recently sought significant quantities of your uranium from an african country the response of the white house was whoops we forgot that that we previously been ask not to include that statement the white house being michael gerson for instance the chief speechwriter stephen hadley the deputy national security advisor said to our mistake sorry about that in october for the cincinnati speech not for the state of being in but the cincinnati speech george tenet to ask that has been taken out of a sense that his speech the reference to two yellowcake it was taken out of cincinnati speech because whenever the director central intelligence wants something out it's gone how do you fact you know it's not a matter of getting back and it's a matter to him that three plus months later people didn't remember that george tenet had asked them to be taken out of the cincinnati speech what the bush administration was saying for years afterward including vice president cheney and president bush which was the president quoted a british paper we did not know at the time no one knew at the time year and a half of investigation my conclusion is that that that was not the intelligence available to them that was the intelligence that was manipulated to say what they wanted to say the whole story of of  joseph wilson and valerie plame and scooter libby as published and as publicized is is that at the same time key to understanding what the white house was up to an dick cheney was up to in the run up to the war and at the same time is a side story to the propaganda campaign that was going on the real danger that joseph wilson represented to to libby and to to vice president cheney was that he had reported clearly  before the war that there was no evidence to suggest that there were uranium supplies and he was suggesting that vice president cheney was a liar and not only was cheney angry about that and not only did he want to discredit wilson and bert also he was afraid that this would lead to deeper consequences which would come close to the propaganda campaign that was being waged when joseph wilson went to niger he immediately found what it already been reported to to washington that there was no possibility that saddam hussein might have been able to seek your a t m supplies in in niger because the approval supplies were owned by a french government consortium it was not possible do wilson thought that he was providing a report that they would put the charge about uranium to to  bed for once and for good he also assumed that that dick cheney would be reading that document dick cheney has not ever said whether he read that document or not some intelligence analysts believe that he did read that document if he did read that document and if you did read other intelligence as many people inside the intelligence community believe then he was saying things that he was told were not true and that comes to the center of why cheney would have been so upset and why scooter libby would have been so upset about joseph wilson and a statement that the bush administration knew from his in from his report that there were no you're any i'm attempt purchase attempts at any time prior to to the u s invasion of iraq  so any attempt at saying that that by the white house to say that there's any secrecy involved in what's still not known what wasn't known about iraq's attempts to seek uranium or to seek a nuclear program is is spurious joseph wilson after that after the state of the union message was shocked to find that the bush administration was still saying that saddam hussein had attempted to purchase weapons of mass destruction and specifically uranium from an african country he knew it couldn't be niger had to be someplace else he slowly started to first first contact journalists contact  contacted nick kristoff at the new york times and others to say he already had had in february of two thousand and two had taken a mission to niger and had put to rest the idea that there was any possible way that saddam hussein could have purchased uranium from an african country that being niger wilson clearly sa very tiny errors in his relating of events gave an accurate report on what was going on in niger when he went there he is still being reviled by some members of the bush administration and their supporters to say that that that he did a disservice and that he's a liar in some way that's that's it's a ridiculous and unfounded statement and  wilson never took a political stand on the story and also the whole the whole story about wilson and valerie plame attempting to sell the story for political reasons or vice president cheney's version of events this was a document that was released in the investigation it's a new york times op ed piece with your handwriting on it and that handwriting says or did his scooter libby is a good man he's a friend of mine he is somebody one of the most competent and capable people i've ever known he's entitled the presumption of innocence but there is a legal matter pending there is going to be a trial next year i could well be a witness in the trial and much as i would like to talk about and i certainly have struck opinions about the case i think be totally inappropriate for me to do so there was a store in the national journal that cheney authorized libby to leak confidential information can you confirm or deny that i have the authority as vice president or an executive order issued by the president and declassify information and everything i've done is consistent with problems that they haven't learned how to deal with one problem is how does how does journalism deal with official deception they haven't come up with a good way to to to deal with  it immediately they don't know how to identify it with old certitude and second i think that there's a there's a fear of getting too far ahead of the curve what they consider the curve to be about what's acceptable  and i think that this is a post vietnam syndrome in which it's very hard as it is for the american populous to the majority of the american populace to separate itself from support for the individuals that might be sent to fight versus dealing with a policy that may not be accurate there is a  difference that is that there is combat there's support for the individuals that are fighting and putting their lives on the line and in iraq but at the same time there's deepening criticism of of the policy that puts them there but the process of reaching that point was was very difficult for mainstream media to understand and they to that extent they were unable to provide the critical analysis that would have given americans to know the information to be able to question what exactly was going on that's fast forward to into the next bush administration and in ten days within the first bush administration but the current bush cheney held the cheney energy task force and in the cheney energy task force we have exxon and chevron and how a burden back dolan all of these folks gathering together to design a new oil strategy or energy strategy for the united states and one of the things that they come up with is a chart that's been titled foreign suitors to iraqi oil and this chart lists the other companies and as the other countries that saddam hussein was in fact signing oil contracts with for oil under the ground saddam was trying to get countries particularly members of the security council who would take a stand against the sanctions regime so he was signing contracts with russia china and france all the leaders of our government  well aware of the fact that this was a war fought for oil that oil is about corporate greed but it's also about regional and global global power and pure real power and they know that's right where they are if the war and us corporations in control of iraq's oil