16 WORDS..........

[kpete]

16 WORDS....Remember the "16 words" in the 2003 State of the Union address? About how Iraq was seeking uranium from Africa? In the Scooter Libby trial today, the defense played a tape recording of a Bob Woodward interview with Richard Armitage and the subject came up. Here's what Armitage said:

Armitage: We're clean as a whistle. And George personally got it out of the Cincinnati speech of the president.

....Woodward: It was taken out?

Armitage: Taken out. George said you can't do this.

Woodward: How come it wasn't taken out of the State of the Union then?

Armitage: Because I think it was overruled by the types down at the White House. Condi doesn't like being in the hot spot. But she--

So that's Armitage's take: the director of the CIA tried to get the uranium nonsense taken out of the State of the Union but Condoleezza Rice didn't have the backbone to stand up to the hardliners in the White House and get it excised. Chemical and biological WMD just wasn't enough. They wanted everyone to think Saddam was working on nukes too. Evidence to the contrary simply didn't matter.

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2007_02/010734.php

[Toucano]

1. Rice on MTP - 9/28/2003

MR. RUSSERT: But when you say that no one in our circles, and it was maybe down in the bowels of the Intelligence Agency, a month after that appearance, you said this, “The CIA cleared the speech in its entirety.”

And then your top deputy, Stephen Hadley, on July 23, said this.

“Deputy National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley told reporters that he received two memos from the CIA in October that cast doubt on intelligence reports that Iraq had sough to buy uranium from Niger to use in developing nuclear weapons. Both memos were also sent to chief speechwriter Michael Gerson and one was sent to national security adviser, Dr. Condoleezza Rice, Hadley said.”

And George Tenet called Mr. Hadley directly and put—issued a warning on that information. Were you aware of any concerns by the CIA about this incident?

DR. RICE: First of all, the CIA did clear the speech in its entirety and George Tenet has said that. He’s also said that he believes that it should not have been cleared. And we apparently, with the—in October for the Cincinnati speech, not for the State of the Union, but the Cincinnati speech, George Tenet asked that this be taken out of the Cincinnati speech, the reference to yellow cake. It was taken out of the Cincinnati speech because whenever the director of Central Intelligence wants something out, it’s gone.

MR. RUSSERT: How’d it get back in?

DR. RICE: It’s not a matter of getting back in. It’s a matter, Tim, that three-plus months later, people didn’t remember that George Tenet had asked that it be taken out of the Cincinnati speech and then it was cleared by the agency. I didn’t remember. Steve Hadley didn’t remember. We are trying to put now in place methods so you don’t have to be dependent on people’s memories for something like that.

MR. RUSSERT: Did you ever read the memo that I referenced?

DR. RICE: I don’t remember the memo. It came after it had been taken out of the speech, and so it’s quite possible that I didn’t. But let me be very clear: This shouldn’t happen to the president of the United States, and we will do everything that we can to make sure that it doesn’t happen again.

MR. RUSSERT: The Washington Post framed the issue this way: “The remarks by Rice and her associates raise two uncomfortable possibilities for the national security adviser. Either she missed or overlooked numerous warnings from intelligence agencies seeking to put caveats on claims about Iraq’s nuclear weapons program, or she made public claims that she knew to be false.”

DR. RICE: Well, neither happens to be true. First of all, we had a national intelligence estimate on which we relied to talk about Iraq’s pursuit of nuclear weapons. I would never make claims that I know not to be true. Why would I do that to the president of the United States? The president of the United States has to be credible with the American people. I have to be credible with the American people. This was a mistake. The memories of people three months before did not trigger when they saw the language in the State of the Union. When I read the line in the State of the Union, I thought it was perfectly fine. And I can assure you nobody was trying to somehow slip something into the State of the Union that the director of Central Intelligence didn’t have confidence in. The State of the Union address was about the broad threat that Saddam Hussein posed. That remained the case when we went to war. That remains the case today. And it was a strong case for removing him from power.

MR. RUSSERT: A hundred and eighty members of Congress cited the potential nuclear threat when they voted for the war. If that threat did not exist, if Saddam was not as far along as had been expected or had been reported by intelligence agencies, do you believe Congress would have voted to go to go war with Saddam absent the notion that he had weapons of mass destruction?

DR. RICE: Well, weapons of mass destruction, of course, come in two other types, chemical and biological. And on chemical and biological, the national intelligence estimate was unequivocal, that he had biological and chemical weapons. He’s, of course, used chemical weapons. His biological weapons program was, of course, discovered in ’94, ’95.

http://www.msnbc.com/news/973028.asp


The faulty memory excuse didn't wash with me when she said this and it doesn't wash know.
They are lying, treasonous assholes!

We're talking about nuclear weapons, a pretty important thing for the National Security Advisor to have a handle on REMEMBERING memos and conversations about.