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July 23, 2003

Arianna: what didn't the president know?

I'd like to state for the record that I'm not a fan of the modern journalistic tactic of making any scandal a "-gate" scandal. I still like Arianna though.

In Yellowcake-gate what didn't the president know?

Commentary by Arianna Huffington
July 22, 2003

Excerpt:

As the Niger controversy — Yellowcake-gate — is turning into a political firestorm, the question should be: What didn't the president know? And why does he know less and less every day? After all, it's becoming clearer that just about everyone else involved knew that the president was using a bogus charge. Whatever the opposite of "top secret" is, this was it.

The U.S. ambassador to Niger, Barbro Owens-Kirkpatrick, knew: She had sent reports to Washington debunking the allegations. Joe Wilson, the envoy sent to Niger by the CIA, knew: His fact-finding trip quickly confirmed the ambassador's findings. The CIA knew: The agency tried unsuccessfully in September 2002 to convince the Brits to take the false charge out of an intelligence report. The State Department knew: Its Bureau of Intelligence and Research labeled it "highly dubious." The president's speechwriters knew: They were told to remove a reference to the Niger uranium in a speech the president delivered in Cincinnati Oct. 7 — three months before his State of the Union. And the National Security Council knew: NSC staff played a key role in the decision to fudge the truth by having the president source the uranium story to British intelligence.

The bottom line is this radioactive canard had been thoroughly discredited many times, but the Bush administration so badly wanted it to be true they just refused to let it die.

Full column

Read It Rating: 8.5
Left/Right Rating: L1
Freedom Rating: 1
Learning Percentage: 20%

Posted by Lance Brown at July 23, 2003 02:33 AM | TrackBack
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