Rice Feels 'Responsible' for Iraq Uranium Charge

AP ^ | July 31, 2003 | AP

[ejdrapes]

Rice Feels 'Responsible' for Iraq Uranium Charge

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Bush's national security advisor Condoleezza Rice said on Wednesday she felt personally responsible for the president's now-discredited charge that Iraq was seeking uranium from Africa.

"I certainly feel personal responsibility for this entire episode," Rice said on PBS's "Newshour" program Wednesday night.

Rice said when she read the line in the State of the Union address she at the time thought it was "completely credible," but added: "What I feel, really, most responsible for is that this has detracted from the very strong case that the president has been making."

Bush at a news conference on Wednesday for the first time also admitted responsibility for the uranium charge, saying at a news conference that he also took "personal responsibility for everything I say."

But like Rice, he emphasized that they had a strong case for the U.S.-led war on Iraq, and said his decision to go to war was based on "good, solid evidence" that Iraq was developing weapons of mass destruction.

[ejdrapes]

Transcript & audio here: PBS's "Newshour"

When is the administration going to stop apologizing for doing nothing wrong? This story will never go away if someone keeps coming out and saying "sorry".

[nothingnew]

Ah heck...I feel responsible for it too.

FMCDH

[speedy]

No, really -- it was all my fault. I saw the reference to cake -- thought to myself "pie are square" -- and then remembered, "no, cake are square, pie are round." But it was too late. The speech was delivered, and now we must apologize to Saddam Hussein and all of his friends for this dreadful error. So sorry.

[Prodigal Son]

No, I'm Spartacus! ;-)

[magua]

Dr. Rice just shut up.She keeps trying to replay this point as if she can change it.Move the blank on Dr.we are at war.

[speedy]

Pleased to meet you. I'm Brown from The Sun.

[FLAUSA]

Dr. Rice is a class act. In an America where African Americans are represented by Jessie, Big Al, and Kobe, it is refreshing to see an African American that all Americans can be proud of.

[JohnGalt]

It's a sad way for her to end her career, but she is not part of the Untouchables (Cheney, Tenet, Rummy...) so she will be deemed expendable.

If Handley hangs on to his job, or if he secures a promotion, Rice survives, but its clear that Hadley is not going down without taking Rice with him:

Hadley: What we know is, again, a copy of the memo comes to the Situation Room, it's sent to Dr. Rice, it's sent -- and that's it. You know, I can't tell you she read it. I can't even tell you she received it. But in some sense, it doesn't matter. Memo sent, we're on notice.


Steve Hadley
White House Q&A
July 22nd, 2003



We did not know at the time--no one knew at the time, in our circles--maybe someone knew down in the bowels of the Agency, but no one in our circles knew that there were doubts and suspicions that this might be a forgery.
Condi Rice
Meet the Press
June 8th, 2003

[ravingnutter]

A little known fact, that was missed by most people, at least according to the posts I have seen here, that would embarass the CIA...

An unsigned CIA memo on Oct. 5 advised that "the CIA had reservations about the British reporting" on Iraq's alleged attempts in Niger, Hadley said. A second memo, sent on Oct. 6, elaborated on the CIA's doubts, describing "some weakness in the evidence," such as the fact that Iraq already had a large stock of uranium and probably wouldn't need more, Hadley said.

Source

So their doubts about the British report were based on the "fact" that Saddam already had enough uranium to do the dirty deeds. Why wasn't this little factoid in the speech instead of the accusation that he sought uranium?

[section9]

One of the problems with the CIA assessment of British intelligence is that it came from British intelligence.

The CIA, like most beauracracies, doesn't like to admit that a smaller, leaner outfit like MI-6 actually produces top flight product by concentrating on HUMINT.

Be Seeing You,

Chris

[section9]

No one's going anywhere, John.

You're proceeding from the assumption that this "scandal" has legs. It has none. Don't be confused by what Democrats and the media do during the summer doldrums.

Hadley's resignation was refused. This "scandal" is bullshit. It is being maintained and peddled by the Democrats and the media.

That's all there is to it.

Be Seeing You,

Chris

[faithincowboys]

I am really amazed, thought I should be, at the liberal jihad against a brilliant, professional African American woman. I bet that this will anger some blacks. Though most blacks are not Republican and they wish Condi weren't, they are proud of Condi-- me thinks the white Liberal's high tech lynching of Condi Rice is a very perilous course for them.

[faithincowboys]

I meant though I shouldn't be amazed.

[JohnGalt]

You may be correct, but I am reading the reports from investment/trade newsletters written by company men. They tell a different story, though from your post, you don't seem to interested in palace intrigue.

From Chris Nelson, @ www.samuelsinternational.com
Nelson Report 7/23 ...

CIA TORPEDOES THE NSC
9. Until or unless the President steps in to provide leadership, the long-awaited showdown between the "neoconservatives" and the "pragmatists" will soon reach crisis proportions…this, due to CIA director George Tenet's extraordinary decision to name the President's staffers responsible for misleading, or false, pre-Iraq war intel, Administration sources confirm today.

-- and the war has just begun, intelligence community sources warn. The Iraq/Niger debacle is but one of "a whole series of stories which are ready to break", a source told us today, adding, "I've never seen such hostility and disdain as now being expressed between the White House and the CIA. Never…"

10. As we reported on July 17, Tenet's lengthy, closed Capitol Hill testimony "outed" not just NSC non-proliferation staffer Bob Joseph, but also Deputy National Security Advisor Steve Hadley, and, by implication, Condi Rice, and Vice President Cheney, if not Bush himself.

-- yesterday, Hadley performed a virtual repeat of Tenet's highly qualified "taking responsibility" pose by making it clear that if he has to take a fall, then Ms. Rice needs to explain why she didn't read the memos he gave her.

11. As one Administration source put it, privately, today: "Between Tenet and Hadley, Condi now has the choice of saying she's a fool, or a liar…if not both. Bottom line is she failed to protect the President…look at all this lame stuff about him not being a 'fact checker'. It's just incredible."

-- even before last week, a source close to the White House told us, "the President now sees that he's exposed on the intel problems. And he now sees who's been manipulating him, and he's not happy about it. No president likes to be embarrassed, but this stuff goes to the heart of all the reservations, pre-9/11, about his intelligence, his attention span, and his interest in foreign affairs."

12. Three weeks ago, this source speculated that it would be "difficult" for Bush to fire the senior officials responsible, for obvious reasons, since they would include Rumsfeld, Cheney, and Rice, at a minimum, and that Tenet seemingly had so ingratiated himself at the personal level, he could escape punishment.

-- today, while no one wanted to speculate about Rummy and Cheney, in the absence of new disclosures, disparate Administration sources confirm that it is "generally accepted" that Tenet will be fired from the CIA, if only because of what he started last week.

13. Where this gets really interesting is the apparent response of neoconservatives: just prior to Hadley's self-destruction yesterday, a source reported talk of trying to replace Tenet with Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz; replacing Wolfowitz with Hadley; and moving Bob Blackwill immediately up to Deputy NSC advisor…even though Blackwill is not a neo-con.

-- parenthetically, sources explain that for neo-cons, Blackwill enjoys the considerable virtue of loathing, and being loathed by, the "leaders" of the pragmatists, Secretary of State Powell, and Deputy Secretary Armitage. State sources say Blackwill was "fired" as Ambassador to India, due to his management of the Embassy, and how he worked with Armitage in various India/Pakistan crises.

[section9]

My caution is this: be wary of leaks to company men in the investment trade letter business. Leaks always have someone behind them with an axe to grind.

Condi has a constituency of one. Question; why is the CIA, an outfit that has connections to Bush's father, so eager to torpedo the Administration?

My take? Bad blood between Tenet and Rumsfeld, strangely enough. Notice the "pragmatist" v. "neocon" take on the whole affair. Like everyone else, Tenet has probably been taking a hammering from Rummy in the runup to war. So, you damage Rummy indirectly by damaging Bush, leading to a loss of face among the "neocons".

Rice isn't the target here, Rumsfeld is.

One last thing; Tenet was given extraordinary grace from Bush in the aftermath of one of America's great intelligence disasters. So why the leaks about the NSC all of a sudden? My take: the CIA thought it had a larger problem than it actually did, and did what it normally does out of habit; it started leaking to its friends in the press. They didn't have to; that's the entire point. Tenet overreacted.

Once again, take palace intrigue stories with a huge grain of salt. Everyone, and I mean everyone, has an axe to grind. It remains for the Prez, through Rice, to go in and start knocking heads together to concentrate minds towards fighting the war.

Oh, the Niger thing? What do you want to bet that Tenet is pissed off because the Brits are still standing by a story that they at CIA said was not true? MI-6 is a much better intelligence outfit than CIA ever could dream of being.

Be Seeing You,

Chris

[JohnGalt]

You are missing the point.

Condi's political career is toast. Her career is finished. She will likely become part of the permanent government sliding in and out of lobbyist and public advisor positions, or maybe she will just slide back into academia, but she is finished.

That said, the truth will never be known; it's all horse trading and power grabs from here on in.

[section9]

Naturally, I disagree.

While not making a direct comparison, Churchill underwent numerous failures before becoming Prime Minister in 1940. The disastrous Anatolian campaign of 1915 comes to mind. You will also recall that Nixon was destroyed in 1962 by Edmund G., "Pat" Brown before ascending to power by his own means in 1968.

This is nothing.

Internecine beaureaucratic warfare is to be expected in Washington, not least because it is dominated by so many mediocre people. That said, be cautious when accepting, at face value it seems, the leaks of various parties with an axe to grind.

Be Seeing You,

Chris

[ex-snook]

"We did not know at the time--no one knew at the time, in our circles--maybe someone knew down in the bowels of the Agency, but no one in our circles knew that there were doubts and suspicions that this might be a forgery. Condi Rice Meet the Press June 8th, 2003 "

Until Bush gives an enema and flushes out the crap that pushed to get the 16 words in, this will not go away.

[mtbopfuyn]

Ah, jeez. Enough already so hush up about (not you ej, but the gov). I didn't even notice it in the speech so whatever flavored cake someone was buying for the party is the least of my worries. My worry is we get SH today instead of tomorrow and Hillary goes far, far away.

[section9]

As I said, in six months, no one will care. Summer scandals are the nature of the beast in that town.

Be Seeing You,

Chris