It didn't, but you're fighting a lost battle. The President has taken down his own words, and that is the definitive judgment as to whether they should have been uttered.
It wasn't, it was British intelligence, and stated as such in the SOTU.
Fine. But efforts to verify the British intel failed, the President said, and so the statement should have come out.
Condoleeza Rice was on CBS pointing out that the British had multiple sources for their belief besides the forged documents someone had given the Italians, and she restated the argument that there's good reason to believe Saddam was nosing around West Africa looking for yellowcake and other internationally controlled materials. I'm not arguing with her, I'm asking (if you'll check my original post):
1. Why is Dick Cheney getting involved with the State of the Union address and underlying intelligence issues?
2. Why is the DCI putting his hand up to take the hit for a statement in the State of the Union that the President thinks shouldn't have been left in?
To which I now add:
If Condi Rice is confident, even deleting all references to the forged documents someone was peddling, that Saddam Hussein was active in shopping for radioisotopes in Africa, then doesn't that point to a simple rewrite of the statement rather than retraction? Let me be clear that I don't think the President has a whole lot to apologize for here -- but if he wants to be seen as "in charge", he ought to be claiming that the buck stops on his desk, rather than lying low while George Tenet roasts over the bonfire of the left-wing vanities. He only feeds the perceived potency of the latent accusations, by appearing to avoid them. He ought to come out instead and give these clowns a four-minute remedial course in antiterrorist epistemology and then remind them pointedly (for the benefit of the audience) that there's an election in 2004 they can declare for, if they are so bitterly disappointed in his having been elected in 2000.
Note to self: At least we can't complain that Peter Jennings isn't even a citizen anymore. The turkey-butt finally took his oath. Wonder how he'll explain that to his Canadian relatives?
He will probably tell them the truth (as I guess it--:0): That he so despises George W. Bush that he became a citizen in order to vote against him.
He will probably tell them the truth (as I guess it--:0): That he so despises George W. Bush that he became a citizen in order to vote against him.