:: NEWS COCKTAIL aka BlahBlahBlog ::

:: 7.09.2003 ::

:: White House on Defensive Over Intelligence ::

From the LA Times:

WASHINGTON — The White House scrambled Tuesday to defend President Bush's credibility, one day after conceding that he had been wrong to assert in his State of the Union address in January that Saddam Hussein had tried to obtain uranium from Africa.

That statement had been one of Bush's central arguments as he presented the case for war against Iraq to the United States and the world.

At the core of the claim was a British report, now acknowledged to have been bogus, that Iraq had tried to obtain a form of uranium, known as yellowcake, that can be used to make a nuclear bomb. The administration used the British allegation to bolster its assertion that Hussein had embarked on a program to build weapons of mass destruction that would threaten the United States.

On Tuesday, the administration's use of that intelligence entered the presidential election debate.

Sen. Bob Graham of Florida, a candidate for the Democratic nomination, called for a broad inquiry into the intelligence available to the administration as it prepared for war. Rep. Richard A. Gephardt of Missouri, another Democratic hopeful, agreed, saying, "This continued recklessness represents a failure of presidential leadership."

And Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.), joining the call for an investigation, said: "It's bad enough that such a glaring blunder became part of the president's case for war. It's far worse if the case for war was made by deliberate deception We cannot risk American lives based on shoddy intelligence or outright lies."

posted by me

:: 8:58:00 AM [+] ::
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