WAXMAN, Part 3:
fromthewilderness.com
The Honorable Condoleezza Rice July 29, 2003 Page 4
(5) You highlighted the claim that Iraq sought uranium from foreign countries in your January 23, 2003, op ed piece for the New York Times. The op ed was titled "Why We Know Iraq Is Lying," and the first example you gave of Iraq's deceptions was that Iraq's arms declaration "fails to account for or explain Iraq's efforts to get uranium from abroad."8
(a) Did you discuss with Mr. Hadley or did Mr. Hadley review the inclusion of the uranium claim in your January 23, 2003, New York Times op ed piece at any time during the preparation of the piece? If so, describe the content of such discussions or review.
(b) Did you discuss the inclusion of the uranium claim in your January 23, 2003, op ed with any other National Security Council staff, National Security Council members, officials from the CIA, the State Department, or the Department of Defense, or anyone else during the preparation of the piece? Please name all individuals with whom you had such discussions and describe the content of the discussions.
(c) Please describe all the evidence on which you based the uranium claim in your op ed.
Your Knowledge of the INR Doubts about the Uranium Claim
The release of portions of the classified NIE on July 18 also raises additional questions about what you knew about the uranium claim. Previously, you have acknowledged that the State Department's intelligence arm, the Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR), dissented from the uranium claim in the NIE. Your explanation for not knowing about the INR objections was that they were included as a "footnote" to the National Intelligence Estimate. On July 11, 2003, you stated:
All that I can tell you is that if there were doubts about the underlying intelligence in the NIE, those doubts were not communicated to the President. The only thing that was there in the NIE was a kind of a standard JNR footnote, which is kind of 59 pages away from the bulk of the NIE. That's the only thing that's there. And you have footnotes all the time in CIA I mean, in NIBs. So if there was a concern about the underlying intelligence there, the President was unaware of that concern and as was I ....
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8 Why We Know Iraq Is Lying, New York Times (Jan. 23, 2003).
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The Honorable Condoleezza Rice July 29, 2003 Page 5
[W]hat INR did not take a footnote to is the consensus view that the Iraqis were actively trying to pursue a nuclear weapons program, reconstituting and so forth.9
Now that portions of the NIB have been declassified, however, we know this description is not accurate. For instance, there are no footnotes in the NIB. Instead, there are several pages in an annex setting forth strenuous objections from the State Department. We also know that these objections were not buried in the document. To the contrary, they are referenced in the very first paragraph of the section on "Key Judgments." Specifically, the first paragraph of the NIE reads:
We judge that Iraq has continued its weapons of mass destruction (WMD) programs in defiance of UN resolutions and restrictions .... {I]f left unchecked, it probably will have a nuclear weapon during this decade. (See INR alternative view at the end of these Key Judgments.)
Moreover, contrary to your statement, we also know that the State Department disagreed with the view that Iraq was actively pursuing a nuclear weapons program. In a three paragraph section highlighted in block, the NIE explained in detail that while the State Department believed Iraq "may" be seeking to develop a nuclear program, "INR considers the available evidence inadequate to support such a judgment." The INR went on to explain that "1NR is unwilling to speculate that such an effort began soon after the departure of UN inspectors or to project a timeline for the completion of activities it does not now see happening."
As National Security Advisor, one of your primary responsibilities is to understand areas of conflict between the different intelligence agencies and to mediate these differences. This makes your claim that you were unaware of the INR views hard to understand, particularly given their prominence in the classified NIE. I therefore request answers to the following questions:
(1) Did you read the opening paragraph of the NIE? Please state which portions of the NIE, if any, that you read.
(2) At any time, did you receive a briefing on the NIB that included a description of the NR's views specifically regarding the claim that Iraq sought uranium in Africa and generally regarding whether Iraq was actively pursuing a nuclear weapons program? If so, when did you receive such a briefing?
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9 The White Rouse, Press Gaggle with Ari Fleischer and Dr. Condoleeza Rice
aboard Air Force One en Route to Entebbe, Uganda (July 11, 2003).
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The Honorable Condoleezza Rice July 29, 2003 Page 6
Your Actions Following the Disclosure of the Fraudulent Documents
Another important set of questions concerns whether you have participated in an effort to mislead the public and Congress about what the White House knew about the discredited uranium claim.
As you know, on March 7, 2003, IAEA Director Mohamed El Baradei made a formal report to the U.N. Security Council, stating:
Based on thorough analysis, the IAEA has concluded, with the concurrence of outside experts, that these documents which formed the basis for the reports of recent uranium transactions between Iraq and Niger are in fact not authentic. We have therefore concluded that these specific allegations are unfounded .... There is no indication that Iraq has attempted to import uranium since 1990. 10
The forged documents described by the IAEA constituted the only evidence the Administration provided the TABA regarding the Administration's claim that Iraq sought uranium from Africa. 11
This disclosure by the IAEA called into doubt one of the claims made by President Bush in the State of the Union address. In fulfilling your responsibilities as National Security Adviser, this would obviously be a significant development. The statutory purpose of the National Security Council is to give the President accurate advice on important national security matters such as Iraq's efforts to obtain nuclear weapons.12 It is difficult to imagine that you would not have taken this breakdown in the process seriously and asked for a full investigation of the matter.
Moreover, regardless of whether you initiated an investigation after the IAEA's March 7 announcement, you had numerous other opportunities to do so before you appeared on national television on June 8 to claim that no one in the White House was aware of doubts about the
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10 International Atomic Energy Agency, The Status of Nuclear Inspections in Iraq: An
Update (Mar. 7, 2003) (online at iaea.org 2003/ebsp2003nOO6.shtml).
11 Letter from Piet de Klerk, Director, Office of External Relation and Policy Coordination, IAEA, to Rep. Henry A. Waxman (June 20, 2003). See also What Little Intelligence Was New on Iraq 's Suspected Weapons Has Been Called into Question, Associated Press (July 13, 2003).
12 See 5OU.S.C.A. § 402.
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The Honorable Condoleezza Rice July 29, 2003 Page 7
uranium claim. In fact, it seems inconceivable that an official at your level would appear on national television on a matter of this importance without having been thoroughly briefed on what the White House knew.
Further, Vice President Cheney discussed the IAEA's findings on Meet the Press on March 16, asserting:
[H]e has, in fact, reconstituted nuclear weapons. I think Mr. El Baradei frankly is wrong. And I think if you look at the track record of the International Atomic Energy Agency and this kind of issue, especially where Iraq's concerned, they have consistently underestimated or missed what it was Saddam Hussein was doing. I don't have any reason to believe they're any more valid this time than they've been in the past. 13
Presumably you would have been involved in briefing Vice President Cheney for this television appearance and would have had some responsibility for his dismissal of the IAEA's findings.
Yet if you had asked for even a minimal investigation, surely you would have learned about the CIA and INR doubts, the CIA memos to you and Mr. Hadley, and CIA Director George Tenet's phone call to Mr. Hadley on October 7.
These circumstances raise obvious questions about whether your public statements were intended to mislead. I therefore request answers to the following questions:
(1) At any time following the IAEA's March 7 announcement of its findings regarding the forged evidence, did you discuss with Mr. Hadley how this evidence had been analyzed and characterized to White House officials by agencies and departments within the Administration? If so, please describe when such discussions occurred and the content of such discussions. If not, please explain why you did not ask Mr. Hadley whether he had been informed of doubts about the evidence.
(2) At any time following the IAEA's March 7 announcement, did you discuss with any other NSC staff, members, or any other Administration officials how the evidence had been analyzed and characterized to White House officials by agencies and departments within the Administration? If so, state the names of such individuals, when such discussions occurred, and the content of such discussions.
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13 Meet the Press, NBC News (Mar. 16, 2003).
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