White House Iraq Group

The White House Iraq Group (aka, White House Information Group or WHIG) was the marketing arm of the White House whose purpose was to sell the 2003 invasion of Iraq to the public. 
The task force was set up in August 2002 by White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card and chaired by Karl Rove to coordinate all the executive branch elements in the run-up to the war in Iraq. One example of the WHIG's functions and influence is the "escalation of rhetoric about the danger that Iraq posed to the U.S., including the introduction of the term 'mushroom cloud'".Depiction of Threat Outgrew Supporting Evidence, Washington Post, 2005.
Similar in name and function, was the 1967 White House Information Group under President Lyndon B. Johnson.
==Members==
The members of the White House Iraq Group include: Michael Isikoff and David Corn, Hubris: The Inside Story of Spin, Scandal, and the Selling of the Iraq War, Crown Publishers, New York, (2006)The Source Beyond Rove, by Roger Morris, Former NSC staffer, Counterpunch.org, 25 July 2005
* Karl Rove
* Karen Hughes
* Mary Matalin
* Andrew Card
* James R. Wilkinson
* Nicholas E. Calio
* Condoleezza Rice
* Stephen Hadley
* I. Lewis (Scooter) Libby
* Michael Gerson
==Response to Yellowcake Forgery Issue==
In response to the Yellowcake forgery issue, the White House Iraq Group devised this strategyQuestions dog White House days, USA Today, 23 July 2003 to combat critics:
"There is a strategy now, devised by White House communications director Dan Bartlett, Mary Matalin, a former aide to Vice President Cheney, and former Bush aide Karen Hughes. Both advise the White House as a consultants to the Republican National Committee.
The plan: Release all relevant information. Try to shift attention back to Bush's leadership in the war on terrorism. Diminish the significance of that single piece of iffy intelligence by making the case that Saddam was a threat for many other reasons. Put Republican lawmakers and other Bush allies on TV to defend him. 
Most important: Question the motives of Democrats who supported the war but now are criticizing the president."
From British Report:
From our examination of the intelligence and other material on Iraqi attempts to buy uranium from Africa, we have concluded that:
a. It is accepted by all parties that Iraqi officials visited Niger in 1999.
b. The British Government had intelligence from several different sources indicating that this visit was for the purpose of acquiring uranium. Since uranium constitutes almost three-quarters of Niger's exports, the intelligence was credible.
c. The evidence was not conclusive that Iraq actually purchased, as opposed to having sought, uranium and the British Government did not claim this.
d. The forged documents were not available to the British Government at the time its assessment was made,and so the fact of the forgery does not undermine it.
==CIA leak scandal==
Records and notes of White House Iraq Group activities were subpoenaed by Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald as part of the investigation into the leak of CIA operative Valerie Plame's identity.
==References==
==External links==
* Profile: White House Iraq Group, SourceWatch.
* Profile: White House Iraq Group, Center for Cooperative Research.
* White House Iraq Group, Daily Kos.
*Not One Claim Was True, by Joseph Cirincione
* Hoodwinked: The Documents That Reveal How Bush Sold Us a War, Prados, John (Ed.), (2004), ISBN 1-56584-902-7
*Blindsided or blind?, by John Prados
*Air Force One records subpoenaed in CIA leak probe
*The Value Proposition
*Armitage Said Joe Wilson Told Everyone About Plame
Category:Iraq War 2003