USDOJ evidence from the Libby case: I'm very curious about this change...

[originalpckelly]

http://www.usdoj.gov/usao/iln/osc/exhibits/0125/GX52301.PDF

http://www.usdoj.gov/usao/iln/osc/exhibits/0125/GX52401.PDF

I have been reviewing the evidence from the Scooter Libby case just to see if I could find some interesting details, and I stumbled upon those two documents. In and of themselves, they confirm the notion that there are talking points written in the Bush Admin.

However, I believe I have noticed something a little more disturbing in these points. Someone made a change between these two copies of the same document. It was specifically in reference to Joe Wilson's trip and what the intelligence of the US said after it.

The change between the two sets of talking points would seem very small:

It first read:
"As late as October, the considered judgment of the intelligence community was that Saddam Hussein had indeed undertaken a vigorous effort to acquire uranium from Africa according to the National Intelligence Estimate."

It is apparent in the PDF of that statement, that the "As late as October" part was stricken, and written over it was a sentence fragment missing the word "trip" that would have made it more complete. I take that to mean this was the original version.

In the edited version it read:
"Six months after the Joe Wilson trip, the considered judgment of the intelligence community was that Saddam Hussein had indeed undertaken a vigorous effort to acquire uranium from Africa according to the National Intelligence Estimate."

In the first description of Mr. Wilson's trip in the talking points, it said October. In the second version it was a more vague "6 months".

I wonder if that might have been on purpose.

If this claim made it into the State of Union on January 28th, 2003, and the talking point had mentioned October (2002), in the minds of most a question would have arisen:
“What did US intelligence say between October 2002 and January 28, 2003?”

On the other hand, the different type of information in the later revision of the talking point is vague and talks about six months after Wilson's trip. That question didn't pop into my head when I was reading the second document. I think it might be because of the lack of a hard month, and one would have to think about the amount of time between Wilson's trip in Feb. '02 and the President's State of The Union in Jan. '03.

What's even more interesting about this revision in the talking point, is that we now know that in October of 2002 right before the President's speech in Cincinnati, OH that the CIA made sure that the Niger yellowcake information was out of the speech.

But the real kicker is this:
The President referred to “the British government” when talking about the Niger claim.

To this day, the British have not reversed their opinion on the Niger yellowcake, they still believe Saddam sought it.


I don't know if you folks noticed it, but I just proved they manipulated the intelligence.

There is no reason to refer to the British intelligence on this matter (or even more obliquely their “government”).

Right after Bush talks about the yellowcake in the 2003 SOTU he talks about “our intelligence”.

Why not talk about “our intelligence” when it came to yellowcake?

We know that “our intelligence” said it was a dubious claim.

This shows they intended just to make the most threatening case to our people, not to make the most accurate one.

They knew in October, at the White House, that this intelligence was false, yet the President still had it in his SOTU.

That is a deliberate obfuscation.

Here is the President's State of The Union from '03:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/01/20030128-19.html

[originalpckelly]

1. I wonder why they even hold press conferences...

they should just hand out the talking points and be done with it.

[babylonsister]

2. Suggestion: reference Libby's name or USDOJ in the title

so people know what this post is about.
And the change is worth questioning. Why make it unless the purpose is obfuscation. Good catch!

[originalpckelly]

4. Not only that, but it's the two pieces of information juxtaposed:

1. They deliberately obfuscate "October" in their discussions of the Iraq war intel.

2. They were told by the CIA in OCTOBER to take the Niger yellowcake claim out of the Cincinnati speech, because it was not accurate.

3. They then reference the British dossier mentioning yellowcake to get the intel into the SOTU. In the process they neglected to tell us that the CIA knew the claim was not accurate.

4. Even though it has been debunked thoroughly, to this day the British have not reversed their statements on the yellowcake claim. Highly interesting when one considers the President referenced it.

[yellerpup]

3. For a guy who mangles the language so badly

he certainly is careful on CYA issues. K&R! Good work. :kick:

[originalpckelly]

5. Furthermore, because the Cincinnati, OH speech took place on October 7...

we know that the CIA knew on or before that day the Niger claim was dubious. We know that the White House also knew, because they had to edit the claim out of the speech.

Here is the Cincinnati speech, which has become infamous for "the smoking gun that could come in the form of a mushroom cloud."

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2002/10/20021007-8.html

Ironically enough, the White House has a graphic that is ominous:

[myrna minx]

10. Well, they just plumb forgot:

:crazy:

Great catch, originalpckelly.

http://www.msnbc.com/news/973028.asp?cp1=1
snip
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.

more...

edit for better readability.

[originalpckelly]

13. And more importantly, giving that "As late as last October" part a second look...

it appears to me that conveys even more information.

"As late as October" implies that after October 2002, there was a different assessment, and that the White House was aware of it.

That would seem to contradict the statements by Rice.

[spanone]

6. These are seasoned criminals, nothing is accidental.

[originalpckelly]

7. Well, things are accidental, but here I've not just shown...

an accident, but an intentional obfuscation.

[Tin Man]

8. I think your most important point is the manner in which SOTU was crafted

...using whatever sources of "intelligence" best made the case for war (i.e. British intel for yellowcake claim, rather than US intel which countered this claim).

It's truly casts a light onto the motivation: the facts were being structured (cherry picked) to support the conclusion - and the NeoCabal intentionally crafted the SOTU to refer to the British intel rather than our own (which had been brought to the attention of the Admin in Oct) in order to make the case for war.

[originalpckelly]

11. Yes, indeed, and what the talking points from later in '03 show...

is that they were intentionally covering that up.

[mmonk]

9. Concerning this statement:

"To this day, the British have not reversed their opinion on the Niger yellowcake, they still believe Saddam sought it."

Saddam acquired yellow cake much earlier when a client state of the US. Iraq had yellow cake still there when we decided to invade, so there was no need to acquire more. What they lacked was the capacity to refine it into weapons grade uranium.

[originalpckelly]

12. Yes, I know that from reading up on the reports. He acquired it back in '81...

if I remember correctly from the Libby evidence, which contained a report from the VP's office on this matter.

[originalpckelly]

14. Thinking about a little, it would seem to me that such stale evidence...

probably could not be mentioned, because people would have asked why it was more important now than at any other time, in other words why would we have to invade them now, if they had had that for about 22 years at the time of the US invasion of Iraq.

[mmonk]

18. You noticed they used it in the state of the union address

but not during Powell's dog and pony show at the U.N.(which only concentrated on tubes and films of trucks). They know better and no one there could be fooled. Yellow cake is not dangerous unto itself unless you're going to swallow it and it isn't anywhere close to being a nuclear weapon or being close to being capable of nuclear weapons.

[originalpckelly]

19. Indeed.

Plus, they at the UN knew about it, because that's something Iraq put in their program disclosure.

[Senator]

15. I Think You Might Be "Missing Your Own Point"

As I read the change you've found, it seems to change the "date in question" from October '02 to August '02, no? Six months after Wilson's trip of February '02.

Now, the "event in question" is on the date on which "the considered judgment of the intelligence community" actually STOPPED BEING that "Saddam Hussein had indeed undertaken a vigorous effort..."

This change reveals that the "considered judgement" changed/reversed much earlier -- in August of '02.

The question it raises for me is -- What happened in August '02?

It's well known that Tenet stopped the false claim from being made in October '02. But the change you've uncovered leads me to believe that the change in August '02 is provable by some other means -- and perhaps with some even worse implication for the regime; that they initially tried (maybe successfully until now) to cover up.

Let me say though that I'm not well-versed in the details. I'm only working from your post and there could well be some known reason for the edit you cite that has no real importance. Perhaps as you say, just an attempt to obfuscate.

On one level it's clearly (impeachable) lunacy for them to claim they didn't know what the "considered judgement" was on such an important matter up to the minute. Condi's Reaganesque "We're not evil, just totally incompetent" would be laughable if they hadn't terrorized the nation with this.

But the August date does makes it seem worse that they "didn't know" for much longer. Also, that it took a mere six months to change the "considered judgement," on the forgeries displays just how weak they were.

I'm wondering if it might have some bearing on what I consider to be an insufficiently highlighted aspect of this nasty affair.

---

[BuyingThyme]

16. The Iraq Group (WHIG) formed in August 2002.

[originalpckelly]

20. I was about to post that, until I that Wilson traveled at the end of February...

they may have rounded up one month, and that would put it at September, only a month off of October. I don't think that's a very significant thing actually.

What's significant is that they had to have had some type of discussion about these points, and they had a good enough memory of the October Cincinnati stuff to, at least apparently, make sure not to mention "as late as last October (2002)" in the talking points. Yet, they couldn't have good enough memory to take it out of the SOTU.

Not only that, but this is the sentence from the Cincinnati speech that was taken out:
"and the regime has been caught attempting to purchase substantial amounts of uranium oxide from sources in Africa."

In that, note they did not mention "the British government" part before it? That's the smoking gun in a way, because it looks like they were just trying to grab at anything they could, and they'd been told by our services it was not reliable (at the very least) intelligence. If they'd used our intel. then they wouldn't have been able to put it into the speech.

[BuyingThyme]

17. kcik

[Marnieworld]

21. Not to diminish your efforts

Clearly you have taken the time to find all of this, analyze it, document it, and organize it all to share with us which is alot so thanks.

I read DU so freakin much and in 2002 we were all very aware of exactly what he was doing when he was doing it as far as twisting or manipulating intelligence to invade Iraq. It was all out in the open and yet the Democratic opposition was too frightened and the MSM wanted wartime ratings so they ignored it.

My point is, when he uttered those 16 words I picked up on your very point. Why mention another country's intelligence? We're the U.S.A. right? And no one does it better? That yellowcake stuff was so known and debunked by then that it was just another bullshit lie in a list of them that night.

Just like I cringed on 9/11 when he uttered the words, "Or those who harbor them" to state that we are no longer operating as a country as before. Up until that point terrorists were criminals that were to be brought to justice by our criminal justice system. Once he included Nation States in the mix, I knew that it would be military, war and so disproportionate to what, though absolutely horrific, had happened. I wish I was wrong and I still blame every Democrat that let them get away with this verbal slight of hand, this definition and response. But they were cowed by the circumstances and here we are now.

So anyone could have noticed all this then but no one did.
They were bugging the UN and no one talks about it and they received no punishment. Because of this illegally gathered info they knew that they were not fooling enough countries, that they weren't going to get a new authorization so they retracted their request..

In press conferences right before we invaded Bush actually said that we had to go in the country because Sadamn wouldn't let weapon inspectors in when they actually were there for a few months and had to escape the invasion.

What was that Michael Moore said a few weeks later? We live in fictitious times? Still true but because of people like you the truth will not fall down the memory hole. So thanks. :patriot: