Come clean Mr Bush, say Democrats
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Greg Miller & Edwin Chen
indianexpress.com
Washington, July 13: US President George W. Bush expressed support on Saturday for beleaguered CIA Director George J. Tenet, a day after the director acknowledged that the agency had failed to strip erroneous allegations against Iraq from the President’s State of the Union speech. But the administration effort to have Tenet take the blame triggered new recriminations — including a sharp rebuke from a key Democrat — that suggest the issue is far from closed.
Winding up his trip to Africa, Bush told reporters that he still trusts Tenet. ‘‘Yes I do, absolutely. I’ve got confidence in George Tenet. I’ve got confidence in the men and women who work at the CIA and I look forward to working with them as we win this war.’’ But even as White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said ‘‘the President considers the matter closed and wants to move on,’’ the administration continued to face persistent questions.
In particular, Fleischer was pressed to explain why the White House had not admitted the mistake after it learned that Bush’s assertion in the State of the Union was wrong.
The President said British intelligence indicated that Iraq had sought to acquire uranium from Africa to help reconstitute its alleged nuclear weapons programme. Fleischer said the record was corrected in March, when the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) reported that documents that were the basis for the claim — a memorandum purporting to show a transaction between Iraq and Niger — were crude forgeries.
But the White House continued to stand behind the claim, part of its rationale for invading Iraq, until last week, even though there were indications before the war that it was erroneous.
For example, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell refused to include the uranium claims in his February 5 speech before the UN because the underlying intelligence was flawed. And other US sources said that last October, Tenet told Deputy National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley to remove similar language on Iraq and African uranium from a speech Bush delivered in Cincinnati building the case for war.
Sen. John D. Rockefeller, vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said the White House has yet to explain how dubious claims made their way to the President’s speech to begin with.
Rockefeller directed particularly pointed criticism at National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, saying her very public role in pinning the blame on Tenet is ‘‘dishonourable.’’ ‘‘Why does this all fall on George Tenet? Because it’s convenient,’’ Rockefeller said.
Rice, who accompanied the President on his recent tour of Africa, could not be reached for comment late Saturday. A National Security Council spokesman would say only ‘‘Dr Rice and Director Tenet have fully explained the facts of this matter. We consider this matter behind us.’’
Fleischer said Tenet’s mea culpa Friday was the product of several days of discussions between the White House and the CIA director. Asked whether Tenet was prompted to make the statement, Fleischer said, ‘‘It was mutual. The resident is pleased that (Tenet) acknowledged what needed to be acknowledged.’’
Other Democrats also criticised the administration’s handling of the matter, saying Tenet should not be singled out for a failure that some believe reflects a broader effort by the administration to exaggerate the evidence on which it based its case for going to war with Iraq. Richard Gephardt, a candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination said: ‘‘in the end the President is responsible for the information he puts out to the American people’’. (LAT-WP) |
