"The Intelligence Community failed to authenticate documents Niger"

[RedEarth]

WMD Report Doesn't Match CIA Official's Memory
By Justin Rood - April 24, 2006, 1:21 PM
I'm still rubbing my eyes over this.

Former senior CIA official Tyler Drumheller appeared on CBS News' "60 Minutes" last night to talk about what he knew of the Niger uranium fiasco. As Drumheller tells it, nobody at the CIA believed Iraq was buying uranium from Niger to begin with. The forged documents were considered inconsequential to the facts of the matter -- until the White House wanted to use them as evidence.

Drumheller says he told the same story to the White House-appointed WMD Commission. This morning I glanced back at its report, and compared bits of its Niger discussion with Drumheller's revelations last night.

Here's a sampling of what I found. In its best light, the panel appears to have engaged in some subatomic-level hair splitting that -- coincidentally -- points the blame at the intelligence community for the president's use of the Niger claims:

From last night's "60 Minutes":


n early January 2003, the National Intelligence Council, which oversees all U.S. intelligence agencies, did a final assessment of the uranium rumor and submitted a report to the White House. Their conclusion: The story was baseless. . .

Just weeks later, the president laid out his reasons for going to war in the State of the Union Address -- and there it was again.


From the White House WMD Commission report:


The Intelligence Community failed to authenticate in a timely fashion transparently forged documents purporting to show that Iraq had attempted to procure uranium from Niger.

more.......

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