Tenet Testifies on Uranium Claim
Wednesday, July 16, 2003
URL:http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,92068,00.html
WASHINGTON — CIA Director George Tenet (search) tried again Wednesday to explain to senators why President Bush claimed last January that Iraq was trying to buy African uranium to build nuclear weapons.
Tenet appeared before a closed hearing of the Senate Select Intelligence Committee, answering questions about how hard he tried to wave President Bush off faulty intelligence about Iraq's nuclear weapons pursuit and whether he felt pressure to help the president make the case against Iraq.
Democratic critics have been asking sharper and sharper questions about the president's January State of the Union (search) address in which Bush said British intelligence had reported Iraq was trying to buy uranium in Africa. It turns out the intelligence was based in part on phony documents.
Tenet has already taken responsibility for allowing the claim to appear in the president's annual speech to the nation, even though aides say he made it clear he was skeptical about the intelligence.
Before the closed hearing, North Carolina Sen. John Edwards (search), a presidential contender, said he has serious questions about the president's credibility.
"First, I want to find out how many people in the White House knew, before the president gave the speech, that there were serious questions about the truthfulness of the statement, and the reliability of it," Edwards said.
Edwards also went after the president over what is happening now in Iraq, where, he said, the lives of young American men and women are at risk.
"One of the reasons their lives are at risk is because the administration did such a poor job of planning for the aftermath. This is a critical issue. The president made an enormous mistake by not planning properly," he said.
Democrats say the question comes down to whether the intelligence supported the urgency of the threat the White House portrayed and whether Bush ignored caveats and qualifiers that may have made the case for war less compelling.
But Republican Sen. Christopher "Kit" Bond (search), R-Mo., said that intelligence is supposed to be non-partisan and not second-guessed.
"[The intelligence] ultimately proved successful for winning the war in Iraq, and number two, pointing out the fact of weapons of mass destruction, had we not intervened, might have in the future resulted in nuclear weapons. So this is regrettably a politicization of intelligence," Bond told Fox News.
That so-called politicization continued throughout the day. Another Democratic presidential candidate, Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry, took even broader shots at Bush, starting with what he called a "lack of credibility" in the president's arguments about going to war in Iraq.
"Americans should be able to trust that what the president tells them is true — especially when it comes to the life and death decisions of war," Kerry said.
Saying it is time for the truth, Kerry clearly accused the president of being dishonest in some way about pre-war intelligence. He also accused the president of dropping the ball on homeland security by underfunding police and firefighters —- what Kerry called "a preparedness gap."
"It's time we were told the truth about America's safety. It's time we had a president who will truly make America more secure," he said, adding that Americans have a right to ask whether they are safer today than they were in the days after the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks.
White House spokesman Scott McClellan had a ready answer.
"I recognize there are a number of Democratic candidates trying to gain an advantage in an election. But the bottom line is, America is safer, more secure, and better prepared than we were on Sept. 11, 2001," McClellan said.
McClellan also returned fire against Kerry, noting that he had a different view of Saddam's weapons and threats when President Clinton was in office.
McClellan noted that in 1998, Kerry called Saddam's weapons a "threat to the stability of the Middle East" and a threat with a potential for terrorist activities.
Quoting Kerry, McClellan said, "If we don't face this today, we will face it at some point down the road."
He added that critics are trying to rewrite history by questioning the idea that Iraq didn't pose a threat, and he said that Democrats are trying to benefit politically by criticizing a war many of them supported.
Back on the Hill, Rep. Jane Harman, D-Calif., the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, said she wants to look into the claims made as well as the documents on which they were based.
"I appreciate that the administration and [Tenet] have acknowledged that it was a mistake to have included this information in the president's speech, but big questions remain about who forged the documents and the paper trail that followed," she said in a statement.
So far, Republican and some Democratic lawmakers have continued to show support for Tenet. House Intelligence Committee Chairman Porter Goss, R-Fla., said he remains confident in Tenet's ability to lead the CIA.
Asked whether Tenet should resign or be dismissed, House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Texas, responded, "Absolutely not."
Fox News' Jim Angle and Wendell Goler contributed to this report. |
