State Department Memo: '16 Words' Were False

[Wetzelbill]

State Department Memo: '16 Words' Were False
By Jason Leopold
t r u t h o u t | Report

Monday 17 April 2006

Eleven days before President Bush's January 28, 2003, State of the Union address in which he said that the US learned from British intelligence that Iraq had attempted to acquire uranium from Africa - an explosive claim that helped pave the way to war - the State Department told the CIA that the intelligence the uranium claims were based upon were forgeries, according to a newly declassified State Department memo.

The revelation of the warning from the closely guarded State Department memo is the first piece of hard evidence and the strongest to date that the Bush administration manipulated and ignored intelligence information in their zeal to win public support for invading Iraq.

On January 12, 2003, the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR) "expressed concerns to the CIA that the documents pertaining to the Iraq-Niger deal were forgeries," the memo dated July 7, 2003, says.

Moreover, the memo says that the State Department's doubts about the veracity of the uranium claims may have been expressed to the intelligence community even earlier.

Those concerns, according to the memo, are the reasons that former Secretary of State Colin Powell refused to cite the uranium claims when he appeared before the United Nations in February 5, 2003, - one week after Bush's State of the Union address - to try and win support for a possible strike against Iraq.

"After considerable back and forth between the CIA, the (State) Department, the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Association), and the British, Secretary Powell's briefing to the U.N. Security Council did not mention attempted Iraqi procurement of uranium due to CIA concerns raised during the coordination regarding the veracity of the information on the alleged Iraq-Niger agreement," the memo further states.

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/041706Y.shtml

[ClintonTyree]

1. But Powell had no problem lying about....

mobile bio-warfare production vehicles, the "tons" of Anthrax and other biological weapons stockpiled around Iraq and so forth. Powell was just a little picky about which propaganda he'd "catapult" for Massa' Bush. :eyes: How much more evidence does Congress need that Bush LIED us into his war and needs to be removed from office? I don't know what it will take, I don't think there is anything Bush could have done or could do to warrant impeachment in the Republican Congress' eyes. Guilty as sin yet they do nothing. NOTHING! :grr:

[Wetzelbill]

2. it's like getting smacked in the head by somebody

and standing there saying: "Well, I don't think they really meant to hit me on purpose, so I don't need to do anything about it right now." At what point is enough actually enough? :)

[HereSince1628]

3. I agree, Powell was in it up to his eyeballs.

But it does seem like he's having second thought. The country needs someone to step forward and spill the beans.

If you remember, John Dean did that as both a conspirator and the person who broke the Watergate hearings open.

[PurpleChez]

4. * could be caught on tape necrophilizing the corpse of Pope John Paul II

and the yellow ribbon magnet crowd would insist that his right to do so was inherent in Article 2. They'd tell us that it was actually glorious that he'd decided to anally violate a dead pontiff. And they would continue to villify democratic challengers for smoking a joint thirty years ago.

[derby378]

5. Oh, SNAP!

So, let's see if I got this right:

In early 2003, the State Department tells the CIA that the Niger document is bogus.

11 days later, Nero uses it in the SOTU anyway to justify invading Iraq.

Then, in June, Joseph Wilson publicly challenges the Niger claim.

Then Nero "declassifies" highly sensitive documents in the most underhanded way possible in order to leak the secret identity of Wilson's wife as a deep CIA spy masquerading as an energy consultant so she can track nuclear weapons and other WMDs in the Middle East.

I think Nero should be charged with treason.

[greekspeak]

6. Great story...add it to the kindling pile fo the Puke effigy burning party

The mendacity is clogging their arteries like cholesterol in blood vessels...but VERY slowly. Don't expect more than the solid left core to say much about this.