posted April 09, 2006 05:54 PM              

quote:

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(“Come clean” apparently being Reid’s favorite elocution. No wonder they call him “Dingy Harry.”)

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posted April 09, 2006 05:59 PM              

SUNDAY, APRIL 9, 2006
WASHINGTON When President George W. Bush authorized Vice President Dick Cheney's top aide to reveal previously classified intelligence to a reporter about Saddam Hussein's efforts to obtain uranium, as the aide has testified, that information was already being discredited by several senior officials in the administration, interviews show.

A review of the records and interviews conducted since that crucial period in June and July of 2003 also show that what the aide, I. Lewis Libby Jr., said he was authorized to portray to reporters as a "key judgment" by intelligence officials had in fact been given much less prominence in an earlier intelligence report.

Libby said he drew on that report, the October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq, when he spoke with the reporter. Records and interviews show that the key judgment's lack of prominence in the report was a reflection of doubts about its reliability.

The new account of the interactions among Bush, Cheney, and Libby was spelled out last week in a court filing by Patrick Fitzgerald, the special prosecutor in the CIA leak case. It adds considerably to a picture of an administration in some disarray as the failure to discover illicit weapons in Iraq had undermined the central rationale for the American invasion in March 2003.

Against the backdrop of what has previously been disclosed, the court filing sheds particular light on how Bush and some of his top deputies had begun to pull in different directions. Even as some officials, including Colin Powell, then secretary of state, had started to reveal deep doubts that Saddam ever sought uranium to reconstitute his nuclear program, Bush, Cheney and Libby were seeking to disseminate information suggesting they had acted on credible intelligence, while not discussing their actions with other top aides.

Fitzgerald, in his filing, said Libby had been authorized to tell Judith Miller, then a reporter for The New York Times, on July 8, 2003, that a key finding of the 2002 intelligence estimate on Iraq was that Baghdad had been vigorously seeking to acquire uranium from Africa.

But a week earlier, in an interview in his State Department office, Powell told three other reporters for The Times that intelligence agencies had essentially rejected that contention, and were "no longer carrying it as a credible item" by early 2003, when he was preparing to make the case against Iraq at the United Nations.

Powell's queasiness with some of the intelligence has been well known, but the new revelations suggest that long after he had concluded the intelligence was faulty, Bush, Cheney and Libby were still promoting it.

Much remains unknown about that period. In his filing, Fitzgerald recounted a prosecutor's summary of Libby's testimony to the grand jury. Libby was, in turn, describing conversations with Cheney that included Cheney's description of discussions he had with Bush.

The White House is not commenting on the issue, saying it is still pending in court, but it has not disputed any of the assertions in the court filing. Libby has also not disputed any of the assertions.

The events took place at a time when the administration's failure to find illicit weapons in Iraq had raised serious questions about the credibility of prewar intelligence. The White House was finding itself under fire from critics like Joseph Wilson 4th, a former ambassador, who were suggesting that the administration's claims about Iraq's efforts to acquire uranium, featured in Bush's State of the Union address in 2003, had been exaggerated.

The court filing asserts that Bush authorized the disclosure of the intelligence in part to rebut the claims that Wilson was making, including those in a television appearance and an opinion column in The New York Times on July 6, 2003.

The filing revealed for the first time testimony by Libby saying that Bush, through Cheney, had authorized Libby to tell reporters that "a key judgment of the N.I.E. held that Iraq was "vigorously trying to procure' uranium."

In fact, that was not one of the "key judgments" of the document.

Instead, it was the subject of several paragraphs on Page 24 of the document, which also acknowledged that Saddam had long had 500 tons of uranium that was under seal by international inspectors, and that no intelligence agencies ever confirmed he had successfully obtained any more of the material from Africa.

A report by the British in 2004, however, concluded that there was a reasonable basis to conclude that Saddam had sought to obtain uranium from Africa.

In addition to Powell, other administration officials, speaking on a not-for- attribution basis in early July 2003, were also acknowledging that this intelligence was widely known as seriously flawed. The White House spokesman, Ari Fleischer, admitted as much publicly in a White House briefing on July 7, 2003.

But if the new court filing is correct, the next day Libby, on behalf of Bush and Cheney, provided an exaggerated account of the intelligence conclusions.

The court filing by Fitzgerald does not assert exactly when the conversation between Bush and Cheney took place, or exactly when Cheney communicated its contents to Libby, except that it was before July 8, 2003. The context of Fitzgerald's assertions makes clear, however, that the conversation took place in late June or early July 2003.

Fitzgerald's latest filing also describes the degree to which senior White House officials kept information from one another. Even as the president was dispatching Libby to disclose what until then had been classified intelligence to Miller, other White House officials, including Stephen Hadley, now Bush's national security adviser, were debating whether this same information should be formally declassified and made public, prosecutors assert.

But Libby "consciously decided not to make Mr. Hadley aware of the fact that defendant himself had already been disseminating the N.I.E. by leaking it to reporters while Mr. Hadley sought to get it formally declassified," Fitzgerald's motion states. Hadley's spokesman declined to comment on the filing on Friday.

But a senior official close to Hadley said that "it appears that the only three people who knew about the instant declassification were Dick Cheney, George Bush and Scooter Libby." The official refused to be named because he was not authorized to discuss the issue.

According to Fitzgerald's motion, Libby testified that he was directed by Cheney and Bush to describe the uranium allegations to Miller as a "key judgment" of the National Intelligence Estimate.

Citing intelligence as a "key judgment" in such estimates carries great weight with policy makers, because the reports are meant to highlight the most important and solid judgments of the government's intelligence agencies.

"Defendant understood that he was to tell Miller, among other things, that a key judgment of the N.I.E. held that Iraq was 'vigorously trying to procure' uranium," prosecutors wrote.

In fact, the estimate's key judgments, which were officially declassified 10 days after Libby's meeting with Miller, say nothing about the uranium allegations. The key judgments on Iraq's nuclear program - namely, that Iraq was again trying to build a bomb - were based instead on other intelligence, such as the assertion that Iraq was seeking high-strength aluminum tubes for nuclear centrifuges.

In an interview with The New York Times in 2004, a senior intelligence official involved in drafting the estimate said the uranium allegations were excluded from the key judgments because the drafters knew there were serious doubts about their accuracy.

http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/04/09/news/leak.php

posted April 09, 2006 06:05 PM              

April 9 (Bloomberg) -- A senior Republican U.S. senator said President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney owe the public a ``specific explanation'' of their involvement in disclosing classified information to rebut Iraq war critics.

``It is necessary for the president and the vice president to tell the American people exactly what happened,'' Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter said on the ``Fox News Sunday'' program. Bush may have had authority to declassify intelligence material ``but that was not the right way to go about it because we ought not to have leaks in government.''

Another ranking Republican lawmaker, House Majority Leader John Boehner, declined to defend the administration's leaking of information in 2003, saying, ``I don't have the facts.''

Cheney's former chief of staff, I. Lewis Libby, testified to a grand jury that the vice president told him Bush authorized the disclosure of information from a classified intelligence report on Iraq's attempts to gain nuclear weapons when the administration's rationale for going to war was being questioned, documents filed in federal court last week say.

The documents don't allege that Bush or Cheney directed Libby or anyone else to divulge the identity of covert CIA operative Valerie Plame, whose naming in a July 2003 newspaper column prompted a Justice Department investigation. Under a 1995 executive order, the president has authority to declassify government information for release.

Discredited Information

The information that Libby says he was authorized to disclose, that Iraq had sought uranium for nuclear weapons in Africa, has since been discredited. The New York Times reported today that even as Libby was being authorized to portray the information as a ``key judgment,'' several senior administration officials had concluded it was wrong.

`Repudiate Mr. Wilson'

Documents uncovered during the course of Fitzgerald's investigation ``reveal a strong desire by many, including multiple people in the White House, to repudiate Mr. Wilson before and after July 14, 2003,'' the prosecutor's filing states.

Libby testified that Cheney ``advised him that the president had authorized defendant to disclose the relevant portions'' of a 2002 National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq's pursuit of nuclear weapons to then-New York Times reporter Judith Miller, Fitzgerald's court filing said.

Wilson said today that Bush and Cheney should release the transcripts of their interviews with the special counsel.

``I would like them to speak to the American people,'' Wilson said on the ABC program. ``We could easily clear this up by releasing those White House transcripts.''

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000087&sid=a6OqadwYEDk0&refer=top_world_news

posted April 09, 2006 06:25 PM              

quote:

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We could easily clear this up by releasing those White House transcripts--Joe Wilson

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posted April 09, 2006 06:35 PM            

Valerie Plame was identified because her jerk husband, Joe Wilson lied about who proposed him for the Niger trip. In fact, it was Valerie Plame, his wife who wrote the memo to put his name forward.

This is and always has been a dead issue. There was never any violation of law...except if Libby lied to the FBI, Justice Dept or a grand jury.

But it's a lying issue the leftist democrats have to hang on to. It's a lie but it's all they have. They are so pathetic.

posted April 09, 2006 06:56 PM            

We already know Saddam sought yellow cake from Niger and attempted to open trade talks through and intermedary with Nigerian officials.

This is some more information from an NIE delivered to Bush prior to the war.

Key Judgments [from October 2002 NIE]
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Iraq's Continuing Programs for Weapons of Mass Destruction
We judge that Iraq has continued its weapons of mass destruction (WMD) programs in defiance of UN resolutions and restrictions. Baghdad has chemical and biological weapons as well as missiles with ranges in excess of UN restrictions; if left unchecked, it probably will have a nuclear weapon during this decade. (See INR alternative view at the end of these Key Judgments.)
We judge that we are seeing only a portion of Iraq's WMD efforts, owing to Baghdad's vigorous denial and deception efforts. Revelations after the Gulf war starkly demonstrate the extensive efforts undertaken by Iraq to deny information. We lack specific information on many key aspects of Iraq's WMD programs.

Since inspections ended in 1998, Iraq has maintained its chemical weapons effort, energized its missile program, and invested more heavily in biological weapons; in the view of most agencies, Baghdad is reconstituting its nuclear weapons program.

Iraq's growing ability to sell oil illicitly increases Baghdad's capabilities to finance WMD programs; annual earnings in cash and goods have more than quadrupled, from $580 million in 1998 to about $3 billion this year.

Iraq has largely rebuilt missile and biological weapons facilities damaged during Operation Desert Fox and has expanded its chemical and biological infrastructure under the cover of civilian production.

Baghdad has exceeded UN range limits of 150 km with its ballistic missiles and is working with unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), which allow for a more lethal means to deliver biological and, less likely, chemical warfare agents.

Although we assess that Saddam does not yet have nuclear weapons or sufficient material to make any, he remains intent on acquiring them. Most agencies assess that Baghdad started reconstituting its nuclear program about the time that UNSCOM inspectors departed--December 1998.

How quickly Iraq will obtain its first nuclear weapon depends on when it acquires sufficient weapons-grade fissile material.

If Baghdad acquires sufficient fissile material from abroad it could make a nuclear weapon within several months to a year.

Without such material from abroad, Iraq probably would not be able to make a weapon until 2007 to 2009, owing to inexperience in building and operating centrifuge facilities to produce highly enriched uranium and challenges in procuring the necessary equipment and expertise.

Most agencies believe that Saddam's personal interest in and Iraq's aggressive attempts to obtain high-strength aluminum tubes for centrifuge rotors--as well as Iraq's attempts to acquire magnets, high-speed balancing machines, and machine tools--provide compelling evidence that Saddam is reconstituting a uranium enrichment effort for Baghdad's nuclear weapons program. (DOE agrees that reconstitution of the nuclear program is underway but assesses that the tubes probably are not part of the program.)

Iraq's efforts to re-establish and enhance its cadre of weapons personnel as well as activities at several suspect nuclear sites further indicate that reconstitution is underway.

All agencies agree that about 25,000 centrifuges based on tubes of the size Iraq is trying to acquire would be capable of producing approximately two weapons' worth of highly enriched uranium per year.

In a much less likely scenario, Baghdad could make enough fissile material for a nuclear weapon by 2005 to 2007 if it obtains suitable centrifuge tubes this year and has all the other materials and technological expertise necessary to build production-scale uranium enrichment facilities.

We assess that Baghdad has begun renewed production of mustard, sarin, GF (cyclosarin), and VX; its capability probably is more limited now than it was at the time of the Gulf war, although VX production and agent storage life probably have been improved.

An array of clandestine reporting reveals that Baghdad has procured covertly the types and quantities of chemicals and equipment sufficient to allow limited CW agent production hidden within Iraq's legitimate chemical industry.

Although we have little specific information on Iraq's CW stockpile, Saddam probably has stocked at least 100 metric tons (MT) and possibly as much as 500 MT of CW agents--much of it added in the last year.

The Iraqis have experience in manufacturing CW bombs, artillery rockets, and projectiles. We assess that they possess CW bulk fills for SRBM warheads, including for a limited number of covertly stored Scuds, possibly a few with extended ranges.

We judge that all key aspects--R&D, production, and weaponization--of Iraq's offensive BW program are active and that most elements are larger and more advanced than they were before the Gulf war.

We judge Iraq has some lethal and incapacitating BW agents and is capable of quickly producing and weaponizing a variety of such agents, including anthrax, for delivery by bombs, missiles, aerial sprayers, and covert operatives.

Chances are even that smallpox is part of Iraq's offensive BW program.

Baghdad probably has developed genetically engineered BW agents.

Baghdad has established a large-scale, redundant, and concealed BW agent production capability.

Baghdad has mobile facilities for producing bacterial and toxin BW agents; these facilities can evade detection and are highly survivable. Within three to six months [Corrected per Errata sheet issued in October 2002] these units probably could produce an amount of agent equal to the total that Iraq produced in the years prior to the Gulf war.

Iraq maintains a small missile force and several development programs, including for a UAV probably intended to deliver biological warfare agent.

Gaps in Iraqi accounting to UNSCOM suggest that Saddam retains a covert force of up to a few dozen Scud-variant SRBMs with ranges of 650 to 900 km.

Iraq is deploying its new al-Samoud and Ababil-100 SRBMs, which are capable of flying beyond the UN-authorized 150-km range limit; Iraq has tested an al-Samoud variant beyond 150 km--perhaps as far as 300 km.

Baghdad's UAVs could threaten Iraq's neighbors, U.S. forces in the Persian Gulf, and if brought close to, or into, the United States, the U.S. Homeland.

An Iraqi UAV procurement network attempted to procure commercially available route planning software and an associated topographic database that would be able to support targeting of the United States, according to analysis of special intelligence.

The Director, Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance, U.S. Air Force, does not agree that Iraq is developing UAVs primarily intended to be delivery platforms for chemical and biological warfare (CBW) agents. The small size of Iraq's new UAV strongly suggests a primary role of reconnaissance, although CBW delivery is an inherent capability.

Iraq is developing medium-range ballistic missile capabilities, largely through foreign assistance in building specialized facilities, including a test stand for engines more powerful than those in its current missile force.

We have low confidence in our ability to assess when Saddam would use WMD.

Saddam could decide to use chemical and biological warfare (CBW) preemptively against U.S. forces, friends, and allies in the region in an attempt to disrupt U.S. war preparations and undermine the political will of the Coalition.

Saddam might use CBW after an initial advance into Iraqi territory, but early use of WMD could foreclose diplomatic options for stalling the US advance.

He probably would use CBW when be perceived he irretrievably had lost control of the military and security situation, but we are unlikely to know when Saddam reaches that point.

We judge that Saddam would be more likely to use chemical weapons than biological weapons on the battlefield.

Saddam historically has maintained tight control over the use of WMD; however, he probably has provided contingency instructions to his commanders to use CBW in specific circumstances.

Baghdad for now appears to be drawing a line short of conducting terrorist attacks with conventional or CBW against the United States, fearing that exposure of Iraqi involvement would provide Washington a stronger cause for making war.
Iraq probably would attempt clandestine attacks against the U.S. Homeland if Baghdad feared an attack that threatened the survival of the regime were imminent or unavoidable, or possibly for revenge. Such attacks--more likely with biological than chemical agents--probably would be carried out by special forces or intelligence operatives.

The Iraqi Intelligence Service (IIS) probably has been directed to conduct clandestine attacks against US and Allied interests in the Middle East in the event the United States takes action against Iraq. The US probably would be the primary means by which Iraq would attempt to conduct any CBW attacks on the US Homeland, although we have no specific intelligence information that Saddam's regime has directed attacks against US territory.
Saddam, if sufficiently desperate, might decide that only an organization such as al-Qa'ida--with worldwide reach and extensive terrorist infrastructure, and already engaged in a life-or-death struggle against the United States--could perpetrate the type of terrorist attack that he would hope to conduct.

In such circumstances, he might decide that the extreme step of assisting the Islamist terrorists in conducting a CBW attack against the United States would be his last chance to exact vengeance by taking a large number of victims with him.

State/INR Alternative View of Iraq's Nuclear Program
The Assistant Secretary of State for Intelligence and Research (INR) believes that Saddam continues to want nuclear weapons and that available evidence indicates that Baghdad is pursuing at least a limited effort to maintain and acquire nuclear weapons-related capabilities. The activities we have detected do not, however, add up to a compelling case that Iraq is currently pursuing what INR would consider to be an integrated and comprehensive approach to acquire nuclear weapons. Iraq may be doing so, but INR considers the available evidence inadequate to support such a judgment. Lacking persuasive evidence that Baghdad has launched a coherent effort to reconstitute its nuclear weapons program, INR is unwilling to speculate that such an effort began soon after the departure of UN inspectors or to project a timeline for the completion of activities it does not now see happening. As a result, INR is unable to predict when Iraq could acquire a nuclear device or weapon.

In INR's view Iraq's efforts to acquire aluminum tubes is central to the argument that Baghdad is reconstituting its nuclear weapons program, but INR is not persuaded that the tubes in question are intended for use as centrifuge rotors. INR accepts the judgment of technical experts at the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) who have concluded that the tubes Iraq seeks to acquire are poorly suited for use in gas centrifuges to be used for uranium enrichment and finds unpersuasive the arguments advanced by others to make the case that they are intended for that purpose. INR considers it far more likely that the tubes are intended for another purpose, most likely the production of artillery rockets. The very large quantities being sought, the way the tubes were tested by the Iraqis, and the atypical lack of attention to operational security in the procurement efforts are among the factors, in addition to the DOE assessment, that lead INR to conclude that the tubes are not intended for use in Iraq's nuclear weapon program.

Confidence Levels for Selected Key Judgments in This Estimate
High Confidence:

Iraq is continuing, and in some areas expanding, its chemical, biological, nuclear and missile programs contrary to UN resolutions.

We are not detecting portions of these weapons programs.

Iraq possesses proscribed chemical and biological weapons and missiles.

Iraq could make a nuclear weapon in months to a year once it acquires sufficient weapons-grad fissile material

Moderate Confidence:

Iraq does not yet have a nuclear weapon or sufficient material to make one but is likely to have a weapon by 2007 to 2009. (See INR alternative view, page 84).

Low Confidence

When Saddam would use weapons of mass destruction.

Whether Saddam would engage in clandestine attacks against the US Homeland.

Whether in desperation Saddam would share chemical or biological weapons with al-Qa'ida.

[NIE page 24]
[...]

Uranium Acquisition. Iraq retains approximately two-and-a-half tons of 2.5 percent enriched uranium oxide, which the IAEA permits. This low-enriched material could be used as feed material to produce enough HEU for about two nuclear weapons. The use of enriched feed material also would reduce the initial number of centrifuges that Baghdad would need by about half. Iraq could divert this material -- the IAEA inspects it only once a year -- and enrich it to weapons grade before a subsequent inspection discovered it was missing. The IAEA last inspected this material in late January 2002.

Iraq has about 500 metric tons of yellowcake1 and low enriched uranium at Tuwaitha, which is inspected annually by the IAEA. Iraq also began vigorously trying to procure uranium ore and yellowcake; acquiring either would shorten the time Baghdad needs to produce nuclear weapons.

A foreign government service reported that as of early 2001, Niger planned to send several tons of "pure uranium" (probably yellowcake) to Iraq. As of early 2001, Niger and Iraq reportedly were still working out arrangements for this deal, which could be for up to 500 tons of yellowcake. We do not know the status of this arrangement.

Reports indicate Iraq also has sought uranium ore from Somalia and possibly the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

We cannot confirm whether Iraq succeeded in acquiring uranium ore and/or yellowcake from these sources. Reports suggest Iraq is shifting from domestic mining and milling of uranium to foreign acquisition. Iraq possesses significant phosphate deposits, from which uranium had been chemically extracted before Operation Desert Storm. Intelligence information on whether nuclear-related phosphate mining and/or processing has been reestablished is inconclusive, however.

1 A refined form of natural uranium.

[...]

[NIE page 84]

Annex A
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Iraq's Attempts to Acquire Aluminum Tubes
(This excerpt from a longer view includes INR's position on the African uranium issue)
INR's Alternative View: Iraq's Attempts to Acquire Aluminum Tubes
Some of the specialized but dual-use items being sought are, by all indications, bound for Iraq's missile program. Other cases are ambiguous, such as that of a planned magnet-production line whose suitability for centrifuge operations remains unknown. Some efforts involve non-controlled industrial material and equipment -- including a variety of machine tools -- and are troubling because they would help establish the infrastructure for a renewed nuclear program. But such efforts (which began well before the inspectors departed) are not clearly linked to a nuclear end-use. Finally, the claims of Iraqi pursuit of natural uranium in Africa are, in INR's assessment, highly dubious.
http://www.fas.org/irp/cia/product/iraq-wmd.html

* notice it's the seeking of "natural uranium" which is deemed dubious....not highly refined yellow cake.

posted April 09, 2006 07:02 PM              

quote:

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Valerie Plame was not a covert CIA agent and hadn't been for about 6 years.-jwhop

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where do you get this stuff jwhop? do you just make it up on the spot?

*****

The CIA Leak: Plame Was Still Covert
Newsweek

Feb. 13, 2006 issue - Newly released court papers could put holes in the defense of Dick Cheney's former chief of staff, I. Lewis (Scooter) Libby, in the Valerie Plame leak case. Lawyers for Libby, and White House allies, have repeatedly questioned whether Plame, the wife of White House critic Joe Wilson, really had covert status when she was outed to the media in July 2003. But special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald found that Plame had indeed done "covert work overseas" on counterproliferation matters in the past five years, and the CIA "was making specific efforts to conceal" her identity, according to newly released portions of a judge's opinion. (A CIA spokesman at the time is quoted as saying Plame was "unlikely" to take further trips overseas, though.) Fitzgerald concluded he could not charge Libby for violating a 1982 law banning the outing of a covert CIA agent; apparently he lacked proof Libby was aware of her covert status when he talked about her three times with New York Times reporter Judith Miller. Fitzgerald did consider charging Libby with violating the so-called Espionage Act, which prohibits the disclosure of "national defense information," the papers show; he ended up indicting Libby for lying about when and from whom he learned about Plame.

The new papers show Libby testified he was told about Plame by Cheney "in an off sort of curiosity sort of fashion" in mid-June—before he talked about her with Miller and Time magazine's Matt Cooper. Libby's trial has been put off until January 2007, keeping Cheney off the witness stand until after the elections. A spokeswoman for Libby's lawyers declined to comment on Plame's status.

—Michael Isikoff
© 2006 Newsweek,

posted April 09, 2006 07:10 PM            

quote:

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But special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald found that Plame had indeed done "covert work overseas" on counterproliferation matters in the past five years, and the CIA "was making specific efforts to conceal" her identity, according to newly released portions of a judge's opinion. (A CIA spokesman at the time is quoted as saying Plame was "unlikely" to take further trips overseas, though.)
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11179719/site/newsweek/

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posted April 09, 2006 08:22 PM              

that was precisely the b.s. that got us into the mess in iraq

**and it was only purported that iraqis went to niger and asked for 'expanded trade relations'....not for yellowcake..

***********

Uranium from Niger.

Although the NIE did not include uranium acquisition in the list of elements bolstering its conclusion about reconstitution, it did note that Iraq was "vigorously trying to procure uranium ore and yellowcake" from Africa. 58 This statement was based largely on reporting from a foreign government intelligence service that Niger planned to send up to 500 tons of yellowcake uranium to Iraq. 59 The status of the arrangement was unclear, however, at the time of the coordination of the Estimate and the NIE therefore noted that the Intelligence Community could not confirm whether Iraq succeeded in acquiring the uranium. 60 Iraq's alleged pursuit of uranium from Africa was thus not included among the NIE's Key Judgments. 61 For reasons discussed at length below, several months after the NIE, the reporting that Iraq was seeking uranium from Niger was judged to be based on forged documents and was recalled. 62

When it finally got around to reviewing the documents during the same time period, the CIA agreed that they were not authentic. Moreover, the CIA concluded that the original reporting was based on the forged documents and was thus itself unreliable. 214 CIA subsequently issued a recall notice at the beginning of April, 2003 for the three original reports, noting that "the foreign government service may have been provided with fraudulent reporting." 215 On June 17, 2003, CIA produced a memorandum for the Director of Central Intelligence (DCI) stating that "since learning that the Iraq-Niger uranium deal was based on false documents earlier this spring we no longer believe that there is sufficient other reporting to conclude that Iraq pursued uranium from abroad." 216 The NIO for Strategic and Nuclear Programs also briefed the Senate and House Intelligence Committees, on June 18 and 19, respectively, on the CIA's conclusions in this regard. 217

Given that there were already doubts about the reliability of the reporting on the uranium deal, the Intelligence Community should have reviewed the documents to evaluate their authenticity as soon as they were made available in early October 2002, rather than waiting over six months to do so. The failure to review these documents caused the Intelligence Community to rely on dubious information when providing highly important assessments to policymakers about the likelihood that Iraq was reconstituting its nuclear program. The Community's failure to undertake a real review of the documents--even though their validity was the subject of serious doubts--was a major failure of the intelligence system. 218

http://www.wmd.gov/report/report.html#chapter1

********

Biological Warfare Summary Finding

The Intelligence Community seriously misjudged the status of Iraq's biological weapons program in the 2002 NIE and other pre-war intelligence products. The primary reason for this misjudgment was the Intelligence Community's heavy reliance on a human source--codenamed "Curveball"--whose information later proved to be unreliable.

The Intelligence Community assessed with "high confidence" in the fall of 2002 that Iraq "has" biological weapons, and that "all key aspects" of Iraq's offensive BW program "are active and that most elements are larger and more advanced than they were before the Gulf War." 219 These conclusions were based largely on the Intelligence Community's judgment that Iraq had "transportable facilities for producing" BW agents. 220 That assessment, in turn, was based largely on reporting from a single human source.

Biological Warfare Finding 1

The DIA's Defense HUMINT Service's failure even to attempt to validate Curveball's reporting was a major failure in operational tradecraft.

********

Chemical Warfare Summary Finding

The Intelligence Community erred in its 2002 NIE assessment of Iraq's alleged chemical warfare program. The Community's substantial overestimation of Iraq's chemical warfare program was due chiefly to flaws in analysis and the paucity of quality information collected.

In the fall of 2002, the Intelligence Community concluded with "high confidence" that Iraq had chemical warfare agents (CW), and further assessed that it had "begun renewed production of mustard, sarin, GF (cyclosarin), and VX. "416 Although the NIE cautioned that the Intelligence Community had "little specific information on Iraq's CW stockpile," it estimated that "Saddam probably [had] stocked at least 100 metric tons (MT) and possibly as much as 500 MT of CW agents." 417 The Community further judged that "much of" Iraq's CW stockpiles had been produced in the past year, and that Iraq had "rebuilt key portions of its CW infrastructure." 418

After the war, the ISG concluded--contrary to the Intelligence Community's pre-war assessments--that Iraq had unilaterally destroyed its undeclared CW stockpile in 1991 and that there were no credible indications that Baghdad had resumed production of CW thereafter.
http://www.wmd.gov/report/report.html#chapter1

posted April 09, 2006 11:30 PM              

Prosecutor Describes Cheney, Libby as Key Voices Pitching Iraq-Niger Story

By Barton Gellman and Dafna Linzer
Washington Post Staff Writers
Sunday, April 9, 2006; Page A01

As he drew back the curtain this week on the evidence against Vice President Cheney's former top aide, Special Counsel Patrick J. Fitzgerald for the first time described a "concerted action" by "multiple people in the White House" -- using classified information -- to "discredit, punish or seek revenge against" a critic of President Bush's war in Iraq.

Bluntly and repeatedly, Fitzgerald placed Cheney at the center of that campaign. Citing grand jury testimony from the vice president's former chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Fitzgerald fingered Cheney as the first to voice a line of attack that at least three White House officials would soon deploy against former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV

Cheney, in a conversation with Libby in early July 2003, was said to describe Wilson's CIA-sponsored trip to Niger the previous year -- in which the envoy found no support for charges that Iraq tried to buy uranium there -- as "a junket set up by Mr. Wilson's wife," CIA case officer Valerie Plame.

Libby is charged with perjury and obstruction of justice for denying under oath that he disclosed Plame's CIA employment to journalists. There is no public evidence to suggest Libby made any such disclosure with Cheney's knowledge. But according to Libby's grand jury testimony, described for the first time in legal papers filed this week, Cheney "specifically directed" Libby in late June or early July 2003 to pass information to reporters from two classified CIA documents: an October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate and a March 2002 summary of Wilson's visit to Niger.

One striking feature of that decision -- unremarked until now, in part because Fitzgerald did not mention it -- is that the evidence Cheney and Libby selected to share with reporters had been disproved months before.

United Nations inspectors had exposed the main evidence for the uranium charge as crude forgeries in March 2003, but the Bush administration and British Prime Minister Tony Blair maintained they had additional, secret evidence they could not disclose. In June, a British parliamentary inquiry concluded otherwise, delivering a scathing critique of Blair's role in promoting the story. With no ally left, the White House debated whether to abandon the uranium claim and became embroiled in bitter finger-pointing about whom to fault for the error. A legal brief filed for Libby last month said that "certain officials at the CIA, the White House, and the State Department each sought to avoid or assign blame for intelligence failures relating to Iraq's weapons of mass destruction."

It was at that moment that Libby, allegedly at Cheney's direction, sought out at least three reporters to bolster the discredited uranium allegation. Libby made careful selections of language from the 2002 estimate, quoting a passage that said Iraq was "vigorously trying to procure uranium" in Africa.

The first of those conversations, according to the evidence made known thus far, came when Libby met with Bob Woodward, an assistant managing editor of The Washington Post, on June 27, 2003. In sworn testimony for Fitzgerald, according to a statement Woodward released on Nov. 14, 2005, Woodward said Libby told him of the intelligence estimate's description of Iraqi efforts to obtain "yellowcake," a processed form of natural uranium ore, in Africa. In an interview Friday, Woodward said his notes showed that Libby described those efforts as "vigorous."

Libby's next known meeting with a reporter, according to Fitzgerald's legal filing, was with Judith Miller, then of the New York Times, on July 8, 2003. He spoke again to Miller, and to Time magazine's Matt Cooper, on July 12.

At Cheney's instruction, Libby testified, he told Miller that the uranium story was a "key judgment" of the intelligence estimate, a term of art indicating there was consensus on a question of central importance.

In fact, the alleged effort to buy uranium was not among the estimate's key judgments, which were identified by a headline and bold type and set out in bullet form in the first five pages of the 96-page document.

Unknown to the reporters, the uranium claim lay deeper inside the estimate, where it said a fresh supply of uranium ore would "shorten the time Baghdad needs to produce nuclear weapons." But it also said U.S. intelligence did not know the status of Iraq's procurement efforts, "cannot confirm" any success and had "inconclusive" evidence about Iraq's domestic uranium operations.

Iraq's alleged uranium shopping had been strongly disputed in the intelligence community from the start. In a closed Senate hearing in late September 2002, shortly before the October NIE was completed, then-director of central intelligence George J. Tenet and his top weapons analyst, Robert Walpole, expressed strong doubts about the uranium story, which had recently been unveiled publicly by the British government. The State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research, likewise, called the claim "highly dubious." For those reasons, the uranium story was relegated to a brief inside passage in the October estimate.

But the White House Iraq Group, formed in August 2002 to foster "public education" about Iraq's "grave and gathering danger" to the United States, repeatedly pitched the uranium story. The alleged procurement was a minor issue for most U.S. analysts -- the hard part for Iraq would be enriching uranium, not obtaining the ore, and Niger's controlled market made it an unlikely seller -- but the Niger story proved irresistible to speechwriters. Most nuclear arguments were highly technical, but the public could easily grasp the link between uranium and a bomb.

Tenet interceded to keep the claim out of a speech Bush gave in Cincinnati on Oct. 7, 2002, but by Dec. 19 it reappeared in a State Department "fact sheet." After that, the Pentagon asked for an authoritative judgment from the National Intelligence Council, the senior coordinating body for the 15 agencies that then constituted the U.S. intelligence community. Did Iraq and Niger discuss a uranium sale, or not? If they had, the Pentagon would need to reconsider its ties with Niger.

The council's reply, drafted in a January 2003 memo by the national intelligence officer for Africa, was unequivocal: The Niger story was baseless and should be laid to rest. Four U.S. officials with firsthand knowledge said in interviews that the memo, which has not been reported before, arrived at the White House as Bush and his highest-ranking advisers made the uranium story a centerpiece of their case for the rapidly approaching war against Iraq.

Bush put his prestige behind the uranium story in his Jan. 28, 2003, State of the Union address. Less than two months later, the International Atomic Energy Agency exposed the principal U.S. evidence as bogus. A Bush-appointed commission later concluded that the evidence, a set of contracts and correspondence sold by an Italian informant, was "transparently forged."

On the ground in Iraq, meanwhile, the hunt for weapons of mass destruction was producing no results, and as the bad news converged on the White House -- weeks after a banner behind Bush declared "Mission Accomplished" on the deck of the USS Abraham Lincoln -- Wilson emerged as a key critic. He focused his ire on Cheney, who had made the administration's earliest and strongest claims about Iraq's alleged nuclear program.

Fitzgerald wrote that Cheney and his aides saw Wilson as a threat to "the credibility of the Vice President (and the President) on a matter of signal importance: the rationale for the war in Iraq." They decided to respond by implying that Wilson got his CIA assignment by "nepotism."

They were not alone. Fitzgerald reported for the first time this week that "multiple officials in the White House"-- not only Libby and White House Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove, who have previously been identified -- discussed Plame's CIA employment with reporters before and after publication of her name on July 14, 2003, in a column by Robert D. Novak. Fitzgerald said the grand jury has collected so much testimony and so many documents that "it is hard to conceive of what evidence there could be that would disprove the existence of White House efforts to 'punish' Wilson."

At the same time, top officials such as then-deputy national security adviser Stephen J. Hadley were pressing the CIA to declassify more documents in hopes of defending the president's use of the uranium claim in his State of the Union speech. It was a losing battle. A "senior Bush administration official," speaking on the condition of anonymity as the president departed for Africa on July 7, 2003, told The Post that "the reference to Iraq's attempt to acquire uranium from Africa should not have been included in the State of the Union speech." The comment appeared on the front page of the July 8 paper, the same morning that Libby met Miller at the St. Regis hotel.
Libby was still defending the uranium claim as the administration's internal battle burst into the open. White House officials tried to blame Tenet for the debacle, but Tenet made public his intervention to keep uranium out of Bush's speech a few months earlier. Hadley then acknowledged that he had known of Tenet's objections but forgot them as the State of the Union approached.
Hoping to lay the controversy to rest, Hadley claimed responsibility for the Niger remarks.
In a speech two days later, at the American Enterprise Institute, Cheney defended the war by saying that no responsible leader could ignore the evidence in the NIE. Before a roomful of conservative policymakers, Cheney listed four of the "key judgments" on Iraq's alleged weapons capabilities but made no mention of Niger or uranium.

On July 30, 2003, two senior intelligence officials said in an interview that Niger was never an important part of the CIA's analysis, and that the language of Iraq's vigorous pursuit of uranium came verbatim from a Defense Intelligence Agency report that had caught the vice president's attention. The same day, the CIA referred the Plame leak to the Justice Department for criminal prosecution, the fateful step that would eventually lead to Libby's indictment.

posted April 09, 2006 11:20 PM            

That NIE WAS NOT recalled or corrected before the start of the war.

It's a slam dunk Mr. President, Saddam has WMD.

"Contrary to what some defenders of the Intelligence Community have since asserted, these errors were not the result of a few harried months in 2002. Most of the fundamental errors were made and communicated to policymakers well before the now-infamous NIE of October 2002, and were not corrected in the months between the NIE and the start of the war.

Nice try Petron but no cookies and milk for you.

posted April 09, 2006 11:27 PM            

Ah yes, Michael Isikoff of flushing Korans down the toilet fame. Exactly how many people did Isikoff get killed with that lie acoustic?

You'll pardon me if I say I wouldn''t believe a word the little leftist liar Isikoff has to say about anything.

posted April 10, 2006 01:07 AM              

but dont ask me to prove chalabi was involved with those documents......=P

posted April 10, 2006 11:06 AM              

It is not true what you said that Valerie Plame was not an agent working covertly for the past 6 years. Where did you get that information? From Newsmax?

Truth is she was working through a phoney corporation that was set up for the purpose of covert operations at the time the leak came out. Not only did the leak reveal her identity but the whole covert operation of the phoney company.

The leak, once revealing her identity, not only caused her to lose her job because once revealed she can no longer work covertly it also endangered her life. Why would it surprise anyone that Wilson would be more than a little upset with the Bush administration for doing what they did.

Declassifying information for the public to see is not something that Bush normally does even though he has the power to do so. He has been consistently secretive about even the smallest thing. He doesn't allow Congress any information on anything. So why did he declassify this particular information that he should have known full well would divulge the identity of a CIA operative and a covert operation? He is stupid, granted, but he can't be that stupid.

It was not proper at all for Bush to declassify information that revealed the identity of a CIA operative. Nothing you can say, no defense that Bush might conjur up will change the facts. He out and out broke the law. Which is something he has actually done more than once as president.

Nixon was paranoid and Nixon was corrupt. But he is no match for Bush when it comes to paranoia and corruption. Nixon only had files stolen from the Dems during an election so he would know their strategy. And he was impeached for that. Bush just gets his cronies in corporations that manufacture voting machines ( Diebold of Texas ) to fraudulate the elections for him. In a town in Ohio during the last election where Diebold machines were used there were more votes tabulated for Bush than there were people who populated the town.

Tell me Jwhop, which category of the 30% - 33% of Americans who still support Bush do you fit into? The 25% who own all of the wealth in this country and who are prospering under Bush's corrupt government or the 5% - 8% who hold blind allegiance to Bush? Because there could be no other reason than those two for continuing to support these criminals.

posted April 10, 2006 01:26 PM            

Since you stated it's illegal to disclose the identity of ANY CIA agent Mirandee, I'm going to let you post that law right here....and a link to the text.

Valerie Plame was not undercover nor is any agent/employee who drives through the gates of CIA headquarters at Langley.

Further, Plame did not lose her job with the CIA. She was an analyst with a desk job and having her identity disclosed would not have affected her job there.

This is the person who wrote the 1982 law making it illegal to knowingly disclose the identity of a covert agent who has worked, covertly-under cover...OUT OF THE UNITED STATES within the last 5 years. Her response to your nonsense would be, BS.

ON CAPITOL HILL
Drafter of intel statute:
Rove accusers ignorant
Lawyer who wrote law to protect agents says Plame charge doesn't meet standard

Posted: July 14, 2005
1:00 a.m. Eastern
By Art Moore
WorldNetDaily.com

Valerie Plame appeared in Vanity Fair magazine with her husband Joseph Wilson in January 2004

Democrat leaders and editorialists accusing Karl Rove of treason for referring to CIA agent Valerie Plame in an off-the-record interview are ignorant of the law, according to the Washington attorney who spearheaded the legislation at the center of the controversy.

Plame's circumstances don't meet several of the criteria spelled out in a 1982 statute designed not only to protect the identity of intelligence agents but to maintain the media's ability to hold government accountable, Victoria Toensing told WorldNetDaily.

Toensing – who drafted the legislation in her role as chief counsel for the chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence – says the Beltway frenzy surrounding Plame's alleged "outing" as a covert agent is a story arising out of the capital's "silly season." *Make that the loony season which is 24/7/365*

"The hurricane season started early and so did the August silly stories," Toensing said. "What is it that qualifies as a story here?"

Democrat leaders are accusing Rove of exposing Plame's identity as an act of retribution against her husband Joe Wilson, who returned from a CIA assignment to Niger with a report disputing the administration's suspicion that Iraq wanted to acquire uranium from the African nation.

Toensing, now a private attorney in Washington, says Plame most likely was not a covert agent when Rove referred to her in a 2003 interview with Time magazine's Matt Cooper.

The federal code says the agent must have operated outside the United States within the previous five years. But Plame gave up her role as a covert agent nine years before the Rove interview, according to New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof.

Kristof said the CIA brought Plame back to Washington in 1994 because the agency suspected her undercover security had been compromised by turncoat spy Aldrich Ames.

Moreover, asserts Toensing, for the law to be violated, Rove would have had to intentionally reveal Plame's identity with the knowledge that he was disclosing a covert agent.

Toensing believes Rove's waiver allowing reporters testifying before the grand jury to reveal him as a source – signed more than 18 months ago – shows the Bush strategist did not believe he was violating the law.

Rove, according to Cooper's notes, apparently was trying to warn the reporter not to give credence to Wilson's investigation, because he had no expertise in nuclear weapons and was sent to Africa on the recommendation of his wife. Wilson had claimed he was sent by Vice President Cheney.

Joseph Wilson and Valerie Plame in July 2005 issue of Vanity Fair magazine

Another element necessary for applying the law is that the government had to be taking affirmative measures to conceal the agent's identity.

Toensing says that on the contrary, the CIA gave Plame a desk job in which she publicly went to and from work, allowed her spouse to do a mission in Africa without signing a confidentiality agreement and didn't object to his writing an op-ed piece in the New York Times about his trip.

Columnist Robert Novak, who first published Plame's name, also apparently didn't think it was a big deal, Toensing said, or he would have put it in the first paragraph.

Novak's aim was to expose the incompetence of the CIA, she argued.

posted April 10, 2006 02:33 PM              

I could go to all the trouble to give you the requested information regarding the law but it would be labor in vain if it didn't come from Fox News or Newsmax. So you look it up yourself. I'm not going to waste my time.

Good question, Proxieme!!! Bush did say exactly that. He said he considers any administration leak to be a "serious matter." He went even further and stated that they would investigate to find out who, if anyone, in his administration was responsible for the leak.