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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Steeny who wrote (82870)	3/17/2003 1:12:23 AM
From: stockman_scott	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

Dubious claims erode US credibility By John Donnelly and Elizabeth Neuffer Boston Globe Staff 3/16/2003 boston.com <<...WASHINGTON -- Questionable US and British intelligence assertions about purported Iraqi weapons of mass destruction have undercut the Bush administration's credibility in building a case before the UN Security Council, according to analysts and some diplomats. The most serious blunder, put forth by British intelligence and cited by President Bush in his State of the Union address, involved an assertion that Niger, the West African country, had sold tons of uranium to Iraq. The Central Intelligence Agency, as well as Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, acknowledged late last week that the documents were forged, six days after top UN nuclear weapons inspector, Mohamed ElBaradei, said his team had found the documents to lack authenticity...>> <<...But former US military and intelligence officials say the challenged US claims have hurt the administration's case. The analysts said the administration probably pushed forward some unproven intelligence because of public pressure to make its case. ''They want it too badly,'' said Jay C. Farrar, a former senior Pentagon and National Security Council official. '' `Intel' is not evidence. Intel is information, and it's information that is the best available. But it is not foolproof.'' Patrick G. Eddington, a CIA analyst on Iraq in the 1990s, said the United States may be depending too much on the word of senior Iraqi defectors. He said the Niger claim was the most damaging. ''It looks like they are trying to set up Iraq,'' he said. ''I think there is enough information there to make their case. You never need to embellish. ''I think it's a matter of the administration's desperation to make some kind of a case.''...>>