Old News but: Iraq Findings Leaked by Cheney's Aide Were Disputed

[Crazy Guggenheim]

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/09/washington/09leak.html?hp&ex=1144555200&en=ae8daa5efe411a3c&ei=5094&partner=homepage

WASHINGTON, April 8 — When President Bush authorized Vice President Dick Cheney's top aide to reveal previously classified intelligence to a reporter about Saddam Hussein's efforts to obtain uranium, as the aide has testified, that information was already being discredited by several senior officials in the administration, interviews show.

A review of the records and interviews conducted since that crucial period in June and July of 2003 also show that what the aide, I. Lewis Libby Jr., said he was authorized to portray to reporters as a "key judgment" by the intelligence community had in fact been given much less prominence in an earlier intelligence report.

Mr. Libby said he drew on that report, the October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq, when he spoke with the reporter. Records and interviews show that the key judgment's lack of prominence in the report was a reflection of doubts about its reliability.

The new account of the interactions among Mr. Bush, Mr. Cheney and Mr. Libby was spelled out last week in a court filing by Patrick J. Fitzgerald, the special prosecutor in the C.I.A. leak case. It adds considerably to a picture of an administration in some disarray as the failure to discover illicit weapons in Iraq had undermined the central rationale for the American invasion in March 2003.

[Garbo 2004]

1. Older news: IAEA had publicly debunked the Niger claims before the war.

Also, the aluminum tubes claims were also publicly debunked, as I recall, prior to the war.

[Crazy Guggenheim]

2. True. But this involves the leaks.

:popcorn:

[Garbo 2004]

4. Yeah, but I don't see the leaks were particularly helpful to their cause.

And of course they didn't leak the contrary stuff.

Even Judy's account of what Libby told her in regards to their Iraq WMD claims was essentially "same old, same old." Judy already probably had more confidential Administration info regarding Iraq WMD than Libby did, LOL. ;)

[otohara]

3. Yet Still They Got Away With It

un-fucking believable - fake news, fake documents, fake uranium, fake meetings, fake drawings -

Shame, shame, shame on those who voted to authorize IWR based on a big pile of shit lies.

[rodeodance]

5. These press stories are reminding people of a dishonest WH (if nothing

else).

[Crazy Guggenheim]

6. I agree! It refreshes their memories!

:popcorn: