Nixing Niger in Cincinnati

TownHall.com ^ | 7/14/03 | Jay Bryant

[kattracks]

My, my, there's a lot of cackling going on about whether or not Saddam was shopping for uranium in Africa. Let's try to put it in perspective.

During the Carter administration, world prices for uranium tripled, although it would be churlish to blame Jimmy himself for this phenomenon. One of the biggest benefactors of the price rise however, was the country of Niger, an African nation three- quarters the size of Texas, but with more sand, and, to the point, more uranium.

By 1979, Niger's government revenues from uranium mines were on the order of $200 million, and the country's benevolent dictator, Col. Seyni Kountché set about building a lot of fancy infrastructure. Then, during the Reagan administration, uranium prices collapsed, so that by 1985, Niger's revenues were only about a tenth of what they had been.

Anyway, they've got uranium in Niger like they've got coffee in Brazil, and since they're sand-poor otherwise, it makes sense to think a nasty guy like Saddam Hussein might look there if he was trying to cut a deal for a few kilos of U-235. Even so, there is no evidence that Niger was the country in question when President Bush said, in his State of the Union speech,  the following: "The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa."

Niger, after all, is not Africa. There are at least 45 other countries on the continent, some of which - Namibia and South Africa, for example - also have uranium mines. We don't know what in African country (or countries) Saddam "sought" his uranium, and the British, while standing by their statement, have declined to reveal their sources, which is pretty standard in the espionage business, given the tendency of revealed sources to show up prematurely dead.

Back in October, White House speechwriters were preparing a speech for the President to give in Cincinnati, and they wanted to include a little tidbit about how some Iraqi diplomats in Niger had tried to buy some uranium. But CIA director George Tenet had no real confidence in the single source of the information and asked that it be taken out of the speech, which was done, as Condoleezza Rice told Fox News yesterday, "without question."

Tenet did not ask that the British statement be taken out of the State of the Union speech, presumably because he had no reason to doubt it.

So it was left in.

I know something about writing speeches, and if I had to write about Iraq and weapons of mass destruction last January, I would have started by defining my terms. Thus, the State of the Union says that Saddam, "pursued chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons."

Having thus asserted a point (that Saddam was "pursuing" WMD's), and three categories (chemical, biological, nuclear), I would take my next task to be supporting the assertion with a specific or two about his pursuit of each of the three categories, which is exactly what the real speechwriters did. For chemical, they referenced "intelligence estimates" that the Iraqis had up to 500 tons of sarin, mustard and VX nerve gas, along with munitions capable of delivering them. For biological, they referenced a UN report that Saddam had the capability to produce 25,000 liters of anthrax and 38,000 liters of botulinum toxin.

For nuclear, they wrote the following paragraph:

"The International Atomic Energy Agency confirmed in the 1990s that Saddam Hussein had an advanced nuclear weapons development program, had a design for a nuclear weapon and was working on five different methods of enriching uranium for a bomb. The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa. Our intelligence sources tell us that he has attempted to purchase high-strength aluminum tubes suitable for nuclear weapons production. Saddam Hussein has not credibly explained these activities. He clearly has much to hide."

State of the Union speeches go through an extensive, even cumbersome vetting process. Everyone signed off on that paragraph and not a word of it has been demonstrated to be untrue.

Ms. Rice told Fox that although she has "every reason to believe that the British services are quite reliable...we do have a standard for the president's speech that was not met here." Elsewhere she referred to a "higher standard" than the truth.

Well, you know what? That's commendable, but unnecessary.

Let's compare it to the previous administration's standard, which was "not so far from the truth that we can't explain it away to a friendly reporter," and they didn't even live up to that when things got tough.

The American people understand clearly how much higher this administration's standards are, and that is why they aren't buying all the hypocritical cackling coming from the Democratic side of the roost on the whole question of who authorized the inclusion of the British statement.

The Washington Post may think nixing Niger in Cincinnati is the same as nixing Britain in the House Chamber, but sensible Americans know otherwise.

Veteran GOP media consultant Jay Bryant’s regular columns are available at www.theoptimate.com, and his commentaries may be heard on NPR’s “All Things Considered.”

©2003 Jay Bryant

[Mind-numbed Robot]

Wasn't it shown that about ten years ago Saddam had bought yellow cake from Niger? Perhaps it was longer ago than that but in the eighties they bought a reactor fromFrance so they must have bought uranium also. France runs one of the uranium mines in Niger so the connection was there. To think he wouldn't try to reopen those channels despite the sanctions, is naive.

Regardless, this argument is not about the truth. This is just another opportunity for Democrats to splatter the wall and hope something sticks. The disappointing thing is how some administration officials are aiding and abetting them rather than jamming it back down their throats. Alas, that is typical,

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[logic]

I'm very confused here. Isn't the argument that since Bush 'lied' to us to get us to go to war, he's not credible anymore? My understanding is that:

1) Bush didn't write the speech, he delivered it, so he couldn't have intentionally misled everyone becuase he didn't go to the speech writer and say 'include this lie'.

2) The information that he delivered was completely correct, only the example/proof was proven bogus. (Iraq/Saddam was looking for uranium in Africa, but the letter that was presented by intelligence was bogus.)

3) The State of the Union Address was delivered in January, the senate vote to authorize millitary action in Iraq was done in October the previous year. Therefore the information was not used to obtain anyones permission to invade Iraq, so the whole argument is entirely moot.

Please correct me if I am wrong in anything here....