here's a press briefing after the infamous "16 words" about classified

[NMDemDist2]

memos. Don't know if it sheds any light but Hadley makes clear there is a "declassification process" the release is dated July 2003

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/07/20030722-12.html

snip... Today I learned of a second memorandum sent by the CIA on October 6. This is commenting on draft eight of the Cincinnati speech. And by this time, by draft eight, the reference to Iraqi efforts to acquire uranium has already been deleted from the speech, as DCI Tenet asked me to do in his telephone request. And what the memorandum does is provide some additional rationale for the removal of the uranium reference.

The memorandum describes some weakness in the evidence, the fact that the effort was not particularly significant to Iraq's nuclear ambitions because the Iraqis already had a large stock of uranium oxide in their inventory. The memorandum also stated that the CIA had been telling Congress that the Africa story was one of two issues where we differed with the British intelligence.

This memorandum was received by the Situation Room here in the White House, and it was sent to both Dr. Rice and myself.

Q So there were two issues --

MR. HADLEY: Yes. And the other issue I think was the aluminum tubes issue. But I'm not sure. We need to check that. I was not party to those conversations, so we're going to have to find out from the agency what the second issue was. And we can get that --

Q It doesn't say so in --

MR. HADLEY: No. It just says, one of two issues.

Q This memorandum is classified?

MR. HADLEY: Yes.

Q Are they about to be declassified?

MR. HADLEY: That's not my call.

MR. BARTLETT: I'll try to get answers to these questions. At this time, we do not -- we'll try to give you all the information we have as soon as we get it. We'll see what we can do as far as declassification.

MR. HADLEY: I'm not being flip. I'm not part of that declassification process.

Based on these memorandum, the fact is that I had been advised on October 5 that CIA had reservations about British reporting on attempts by Iraq to purchase up to 500 metric tons of uranium oxide from Africa, which I understood to involve Niger. And these reservations were reaffirmed by the CIA memorandum on October 6.

[stop the bleeding]

1. thank you - all research is helpful on this n/t