Bob's Links and Rants

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Saturday, July 12, 2003

What a liar!
Q: When did you know that the reports about uranium coming out of Africa were bogus?

RUMSFELD: Well, within recent days, since the information started becoming available.


That the Niger uranium claims were fake was known publicly back on March 7, before the war started. Colin Powell acknowledged it. Ari Fleischer acknowledged it. That the Secretary of Defense was not aware of this at the time is simply not believable.

One other thing from that March 7 NY Times article that should be noted, since it relates directly to what I said in my previous post (below):

In addition to casting severe doubt on the reported Iraqi attempt to buy uranium in Niger, Dr. ElBaradei said that "there is no indication that Iraq has attempted to import aluminum tubes for use in centrifuge enrichment" of uranium into weapons-grade material. For months, American officials have cited Iraq's importation of these tubes as evidence that Mr. Hussein's scientists have been seeking to develop a nuclear capability.

The sentence immediately following the one about "uranium from Africa" in the State of the Union address is this:

Our intelligence sources tell us that he has attempted to purchase high-strength aluminum tubes suitable for nuclear weapons production.

As I said in that post, the SOTU would have been extremely short if every part of it had been subjected to the level of certainty that George Tenet says should be required for inclusion in a presidential speech.