Looks like the CIA is being set up to take the blame,
courtesy of a collection of nameless "senior administration
officials" and "former government officials".

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CIA Did Not Share Doubt on Iraq Data
Bush Used Report Of Uranium Bid

By Walter Pincus
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, June 12, 2003; Page A01 

A key component of President Bush's claim in his State of the Union 
address last January that Iraq had an active nuclear weapons program 
-- its alleged attempt to buy uranium in Niger -- was disputed by a 
CIA-directed mission to the central African nation in early 2002, 
according to senior administration officials and a former government 
official. But the CIA did not pass on the detailed results of its 
investigation to the White House or other government agencies, the 
officials said.  

The CIA's failure to share what it knew, which has not been disclosed 
previously, was one of a number of steps in the Bush administration that 
helped keep the uranium story alive until the eve of the war in Iraq, when 
the United Nations' chief nuclear inspector told the Security Council that 
the claim was based on fabricated evidence.  

A senior intelligence official said the CIA's action was the result of 
"extremely sloppy" handling of a central piece of evidence in the 
administration's case against then-Iraqi President Saddam Hussein. 
But, the official added, "It is only one fact and not the reason we 
went to war. There was a lot more."  

However, a senior CIA analyst said the case "is indicative of larger 
problems" involving the handling of intelligence about Iraq's alleged 
chemical, biological and nuclear weapons programs and its links to al 
Qaeda, which the administration cited as justification for war. 
"Information not consistent with the administration agenda was 
discarded and information that was [consistent] was not seriously 
scrutinized," the analyst said.   

[snip snip snip]

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Full article at Washington Post ...
www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A46957-2003Jun11.html?nav=hptop_tb

Cheers, Steve..

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