WMDgate: Fixing Intelligence Around Policy, Part 2C: The Pathological Condi Rice
by eriposte
This post is part of a series (see Introduction and Parts 1, 2A-1, 2A-2, 2A-3, 2A-4, 2A-5, 2B-1, 2B-2) focused on building a case to demonstrate the Bush White House's intelligence manipulation, fixing and misrepresentation, mostly using published Congressional reports like the Phase I Senate (SSCI) Report, the Robb-Silberman WMD Commission Report, etc. While it is clear that even without the use of Congressional reports, the case against the Bush White House is pretty solid - see here and here for example - I wanted to demonstrate that the parliamentary reports, rather than make the case against the White House weaker, actually make it stronger. [Note: All extracts from published reports may have lost some original formatting (in particular, italics). This is unintentional, but it does not change the meaning or content in any way. All emphasis used in this post is mine].
In previous parts of this series I have demonstrated that the Bush administration repeatedly made false or deliberately misleading statements about the intended end use of the aluminum tubes (and an earlier series on the uranium from Africa issue demonstrated similar behavior in that case). However, I want to dedicate one post to focus specifically on the astonishing duplicity of Condoleezza Rice, especially on the topic of the aluminum tubes and Saddam Hussein's nuclear programs/capabilities. In particular, her answers to the Press aboard Air Force One on July 11, 2003, in the aftermath of the Joseph Wilson op-ed, were simply breathtaking in their sheer mendacity. As Bush's then National Security Advisor and spokesperson, Rice demonstrated a strong inclination towards what can only be fairly described as compulsive lying (on a variety of topics) in order to deliberately deceive the American public. It is also fair to say that outside of Bush and Cheney, no one lied so casually and blatantly and deceived Americans as wilfully as Rice did (which may explain why, like Bush and Cheney, she has long been a press corpse favorite).
So, today, as Bush rolls out his millionth speech filled with fakery on Iraq, this post is a small reminder, an epitome, of the countless falsehoods that were used to take us to Iraq and keep us there. [Note: since Rice transmitted many falsehoods even on the topic of "uranium from Africa", I also include some of those examples here. Of course, most of these examples are from the post-invasion period but that is intentional since the rest of the series focuses on the pre-war lies and I wanted to provide additional context to the cover-up that followed it.]
1. Aluminum tubes only suited for centrifuges
2. No caveat on aluminum tubes in NIE
3. Not reading the NIE in its entirety
4. CIA stood by uranium claim in NIE
5. Lack of awareness of challenges to uranium from Africa claim
6. Uranium from Africa claim involved other countries than Niger
7. Trust in British Intelligence
8. Uranium claim was not a major issue
9. INR did not dissent on the nuclear claims as a whole
10. Conclusions
1. Aluminum tubes only suited for centrifuges
CLAIM
We do know that there have been shipments going into...Iraq, for instance, of aluminum tubes that really are only suited to -- high-quality aluminum tubes* that are only really suited for nuclear weapons programs, centrifuge programs.
[*NOTE: The transcript says "tools" but it refers to the tubes - which is what other quotes of Rice seem to indicate. I'm not sure what exactly was stated but I'm using the term "tubes".]
FACTS
This was a flat out, brazen lie.
In Part 2A-1 through Part 2A-5 of this series, I demonstrated that prior to early September 2002:
- There was no certainty within the U.S. IC (including the CIA and DIA) regarding the intended end use of the tubes and that CIA/DIA reports repeatedly acknowledged possible alternative uses for the tubes (in conventional weapons)
- The U.S. IC's nuclear experts (DOE) had reported that the tubes were most likely intended for rockets and not centrifuges (a view backed up by INR)
- Foreign intelligence agencies that were consulted by the U.S. IC were very clear that the tubes could be used for rockets and were unconvinced that they were for centrifuges; moreover, they were aware that there was a strong ongoing debate in the U.S. on the intended end use
Rice's mendacity becomes even more obvious when you consider her admission that she read all CIA reports prepared for the President on WMDs. (Perhaps, Senator Pat Roberts (R-Extreme Corruption), should make a note of it).
What's worse, Rice's subsequent admission of her having been aware of a debate in the IC at the time she made the false claim on the aluminum tubes was truly astonishing spin - a mastery in fakery designed for a compliant and conservatively tilted mainstream media. Here's what she said:
Rice said she was vaguely aware of a debate about the tubes but believed that the intelligence community "as a whole" agreed they were meant for nuclear weapons work.
"If you're a policymaker, you do not want to end up on the short side," she said on CNN's "Late Edition."
Rice said that when she said the tubes were "only really suited for nuclear weapons programs," she "knew there was some debate out there but ... I didn't know the nature of the debate."
The debate was over whether the tubes might have been intended for use not in nuclear weapons but rather in small artillery launchers.
The only debate was whether the tubes could be used in other applications than nuclear weapons. That was the debate. So to claim that she didn't know about the "nature" of the debate makes no sense if she knew there "was some debate"!
As reader KM also pointed out:
Assume for a moment that account is true. If indeed she knew there was a debate about the tubes but didn't know what its "nature" was (a typically shifty/ambiguous statement, but no matter -- every possible interpretation is equally damning), then the conclusion is unassailable: she had no basis whatsoever for, and was in absolutely no position to make, her statement about the tubes only really being suited for centrifuge programmes. Moreover, by making her public statement while well aware (as her spin logically entails) that she was unqualified to do so, she would have been acting, by her own admission, in a patently dishonest and unethical fashion.
2. No caveat on aluminum tubes in NIE
CLAIM
If you got to the Secretary's statement, you will also see that on the aluminum tubes, the Secretary says that there's some disagreement about the nature of these aluminum tubes. That was also a consensus judgment of the NIA [NIE] that the aluminum tubes were likely for nuclear centrifuges. The INR had taken an exception. So the Secretary noted that exception, as well.
...
David, don't put words in my mouth. I said that there were several -- first of all, things got left out because they didn't make the presentation. Secondly, the Secretary [Colin Powell] chose to leave out some things and to caveat some things that the NIE did not caveat. The NIE is -- on the aluminum tubes, the judgment is they're for particular things. The Secretary says, there's a debate about this.
FACTS
This was again, a flat out lie.
The NIE specifically had strong dissents by INR (both in the Key Judgments section and well as in the Annex) and DOE (directly in the NIE annex (apparently) and indirectly in the INR Key Judgements Alternative View text box that mentioned the DOE view), that said that the tubes were poorly suited for centrifuges and were most likely intended for rockets. So, it was not just Powell's presentation that mentioned a "debate", the NIE did as well. Thus, the NIE did not express a "consensus judgment" that the tubes were likely for nuclear centrifuges.
Let me emphasize that Rice's statement is particularly brazen considering that the IC's nuclear experts, DOE, were objecting to the tubes-for-centrifuges claim. Here is the relevant portion from the Key Judgements of the NIE:
We judge that Iraq has continued its weapons of mass destruction (WMD) programs in defiance of UN resolutions and restrictions. Baghdad has chemical and biological weapons as well as missiles with ranges in excess of UN restrictions; if left unchecked, it probably will have a nuclear weapon during this decade. (See INR alternative view at the end of these Key Judgments.)
...
Most agencies believe that Saddam’s personal interest in and Iraq’s aggressive attempts to obtain high-strength aluminum tubes for centrifuge rotors—as well as Iraq’s attempts to acquire magnets, high-speed balancing machines, and machine tools—provide compelling evidence that Saddam is reconstituting a uranium enrichment effort for Baghdad’s nuclear weapons program. (DOE [Department of Energy] agrees that reconstitution of the nuclear program is underway but assesses that the tubes probably are not part of the program.)
...
State/INR Alternative View of Iraq’s Nuclear Program...
In INR’s view Iraq’s efforts to acquire aluminum tubes is central to the argument that Baghdad is reconstituting its nuclear weapons program, but INR is not persuaded that the tubes in question are intended for use as centrifuge rotors. INR accepts the judgment of technical experts at the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) who have concluded that the tubes Iraq seeks to acquire are poorly suited for use in gas centrifuges to be used for uranium enrichment and finds unpersuasive the arguments advanced by others to make the case that they are intended for that purpose. INR considers it far more likely that the tubes are intended for another purpose, most likely the production of artillery rockets. The very large quantities being sought, the way the tubes were tested by the Iraqis, and the atypical lack of attention to operational security in the procurement efforts are among the factors, in addition to the DOE assessment, that lead INR to conclude that the tubes are not intended for use in Iraq’s nuclear weapon program.
3. Not reading the NIE in its entirety
CLAIM
The only thing that was there in the NIE was a kind of a standard INR 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 NIEs. So if there was a concern about the underlying intelligence there, the President was unaware of that concern and as was I.
In other words, Rice was saying that she did not read the so-called "footnote". This was subsequently confirmed by a Bush administration official.
A senior administration official who briefed reporters yesterday said neither Bush nor national security adviser Condoleezza Rice read the NIE in its entirety. “They did not read footnotes in a 90-page document,” said the official, referring to the “Annex” that contained the State Department’s dissent…The official said Bush was “briefed” on the NIE’s contents, but “I don’t think he sat down over a long weekend and read every word of it.”
FACTS
Of course, "neither...read the NIE in its entirety" could mean a lot of different things (with emphasis being on "entirety"). But, at least as far as Condi Rice is concerned, that statement was another flat out lie, as certified by none other than Condi Rice herself - soon afterwards, in early August 2003. Here's Bob Somerby's note on that admission which the mainstream media (including Rice's shill of an interviewer Gwen Ifill) slept through, as usual :
RICE: ...I did read everything that the CIA produced for the president on weapons of mass destruction. I read the National Intelligence Estimate cover to cover a couple of times. I read the reports; I was briefed on the reports. This is—after 20 years, as somebody who has read a lot of intelligence reports—this is one of the strongest cases about weapons of mass destruction that I had ever read.
In other words, Rice not only read the NIE in its entirety, she also read the so-called "footnote" - which was not really a footnote but an Annex which was very much part of the NIE.
4. CIA stood by uranium claim in NIE
CLAIM
I'm saying that when we put it together, put together the Secretary's remarks, the Secretary decided that he would caveat the aluminum tubes, which he did -- he said there's some disagreement about what this might be -- and he decided that he would not use the uranium story. The Secretary also has an intelligence arm that happened to hold that view. But the NIE, which, by the way, the Agency was standing by at the time of the -- the time of the State of the Union, and was standing by at the time of the Secretary's speech, has the yellow cake story in it, had the aluminum tube story in it. Now, if there were doubts about the underlying intelligence to that NIE, those doubts were not communicated to the President, to the Vice President, or to me.
And had there been even a peep that the agency did not want that sentence in or that George Tenet did not want that sentence in, that the director of Central Intelligence did not want it in, it would have been gone.
FACTS
The claim that the CIA was standing by the uranium claim in the NIE at the time of the State of the Union was at best deliberately misleading, and objectively speaking, just false.
One of the reasons why is explained in brief by the Iraq on the Record report:
Ms. Rice was responding to questions regarding how the claim that Iraq sought uranium in Africa made it into the President's January 28, 2003, State of the Union address. The statement that the Director of Central Intelligence and the CIA did not object to the claim was false. In October 2002, the CIA expressed doubts about the claim in two memos to the White House, including one addressed to Ms. Rice. Director of Central Intelligence George Tenet also warned against using the claim in a telephone call to Ms. Rice’s deputy in October 2002.
Actually, the evidence against Rice's claim is richer. So, let's take a closer look at what happened, using extracts from the Senate (SSCI) Report, to understand why Rice's claim was at best misleading, and based on a strict interpretation, just false.
4.1 NIE Timeline
4.2 Post-NIE backtracking and CIA White Paper
4.3 Cincinnati Speech
4.4 2003 State of the Union
4.5 Inferences
4.1 NIE Timeline
The work on the NIE got started on 12 September 2002:
On September 12, 2002, the DCI officially directed the National Intelligence Officer (NIO) for Strategic and Nuclear Programs to begin to draft an NIE. The National Intelligence Council (NIC) staff drew the discussion of nuclear reconstitution for the draft NIE largely from an August 2002 CIA assessment and a September 2002 DIA assessment, Iraq's Reemerging Nuclear Weapons Programs. The NIO sent a draft of the entire NIE to IC analysts on September 23, 2002 for coordination and comments and held an interagency coordination meeting on September 25, 2002 to discuss the draft and work out any changes.
The Senate Report points out that the IC deliberately left out the uranium from Africa reporting from the Key Judgements of the NIE, and only included a brief mention of it in the body of the NIE (I won't go into the reasons here). The NIE was released on October 1, 2002:
On October 1, 2002, the NIC published the NIE on Iraq's Continuing Programs for Weapons of Mass Destruction. The language on Iraq's efforts to acquire uranium from Africa appeared as it did in the draft version and INR's position that "claims of Iraqi pursuit of natural uranium in Africa are highly dubious" was included in a text box, separated by about 60 pages from the discussion of the uranium issue.
4.2 Post-NIE backtracking and CIA White Paper
However, immediately after the NIE was released, senior CIA officials started to dramatically backtrack from the uranium claim:
(U) On October 2, 2002, the Deputy DCI testified before the SSCI. Senator Jon Kyl asked the Deputy DCI whether he had read the British white paper and whether he disagreed with anything in the report. The Deputy DCI testified that "the one thing where I think they stretched a little bit beyond where we would stretch is on the points about Iraq seeking uranium from various African locations. We've looked at those reports and we don't think they are very credible. It doesn't diminish our conviction that he's going for nuclear weapons, but I think they reached a little bit on that one point. Otherwise I think it's very solid."
(U) On October 4, 2002, the NIO for Strategic and Nuclear Programs testified before the SSCI. When asked by Senator Fred Thompson if there was disagreement with the British white paper, the NIO said that "they put more emphasis on the uranium acquisition in Africa than we would." He added, "there is some information on attempts and, as we said, maybe not to this committee, but in the last couple of weeks, there's a question about some of those attempts because of the control of the material in those countries. In one case the mine is completely flooded and how would they get the material. For us it's more the concern that they have uranium in-country now. It's under inspection. It's under control of the IAEA - the International Atomic Energy Agency - but they only inspect it once a year." The NIO told Committee staff that he was speaking as an IC representative and was representing INR's known view on the issue. He said at the time of his remarks, he did not believe that the CIA had any problem with the credibility of the reporting, but said the CIA may have believed that the uranium information should not be included in an unclassified white paper.
(U) Also, on October 4, 2002, CIA published an unclassified White Paper, Iraq's Weapons of Mass Destruction Programs. The NIO for NESA started work on the white paper in the spring of 2002, well before efforts began on the classified NIE. A CIA NESA analyst drafted the body of the White Paper and did not include text on Iraqi attempts to acquire uranium from Africa.
The CIA's unclassified White Paper (which was actually a truncated version of the Key Judgements section of the classified NIE) that was released *after* the NIE was released, did not mention the uranium from Africa claim. This is important to note because even if the CIA did not want to reveal "sources and methods" (as was incredulously claimed by the WINPAC Director to the SSCI as being the reason they wanted the claim removed from the Bush 2003 SOTU - see 4.4 below) they could easily have introduced a simple, general statement that Saddam Hussein was seeking uranium from Africa, in the NIE Key Judgements and the White Paper. That would not have revealed sources or methods. Yet they chose not to do so - because the claim was not based on credible or reliable intelligence.
4.3 Cincinnati Speech
What's more, the CIA's seniormost officials (including George Tenet himself) made deliberate attempts to dissuade the White House from using the uranium claim in a speech in October 2002 (after the NIE's release) - a claim that the White House NSC had included in the speech draft even though the uranium claim was not part of the Key Judgements in the NIE:
(U) On October 4, 2002, the NSC sent a draft of a speech they were preparing for the President to deliver in Cincinnati, Ohio. It was draft six of the speech and contained the line, "and the regime has been caught attempting to purchase up to 500 metric tons of uranium oxide from Africa - an essential ingredient in the enrichment process."
(U) The CIA's former Associate Deputy Director for Intelligence (ADDI) for Strategic Programs, told Committee staff he was tasked by the Deputy Director for Intelligence (DDI) to handle coordination of the speech within the CIA. On October 5, 2002, the ADDI brought together representatives for each of the areas of Iraq that the speech covered and asked the analysts to bring forward any issues that they thought should be addressed with the NSC. The ADDI said an Iraq nuclear analyst - he could not remember who - raised concerns about the sourcing and some of the facts of the Niger reporting, specifically that the control of the mines in Niger would have made it very difficult to get yellowcake to Iraq.
[DELETED] Both WINPAC Iraq nuclear analysts who had followed the Iraq-Niger uranium issue told Committee staff they were not involved in coordinating the Cincinnati speech and did not participate in the speech coordination session on October 5, 2002. The WINPAC Deputy Director for Analysis also told Committee staff he did not recall being involved in the Cincinnati speech, but later clarified his remarks to the Committee in writing saying that he remembered participating in the speech, but did not recall commenting on the section of the speech dealing with the Niger information. Committee staff asked the CIA to identify who might have attended the Cincinnati speech coordination meeting and raised concerns with the ADDI about the sourcing and facts of the Niger reporting. The CIA told Committee staff that the NESA Iraq analyst, [DELETED] believes he may have been the one who attended the meeting and raised concerns about the Niger reporting with the ADDI.
(U) Based on the analyst's comments, the ADDI drafted a memo for the NSC outlining the facts that the CIA believed needed to be changed, and faxed it to the Deputy National Security Advisor and the speech writers. Referring to the sentence on uranium from Africa the CIA said, "remove the sentence because the amount is in dispute and it is debatable whether it can be acquired from the source. We told Congress that the Brits have exaggerated this issue. Finally, the Iraqis already have 550 metric tons of uranium oxide in their inventory."
[DELETED] Later that day, the NSC staff prepared draft seven of the Cincinnati speech which contained the line, "and the regime has been caught attempting to purchase substantial amounts of uranium oxide from sources in Africa." Draft seven was sent to CIA for coordination.
[DELETED] The ADDI told Committee staff he received the new draft on October 6, 2002 and noticed that the uranium information had "not been addressed," so he alerted the DCI. The DCI called the Deputy National Security Advisor directly to outline the CIA's concerns. On July 16, 2003, the DCI testified before the SSCI that he told the Deputy National Security Advisor that the "President should not be a fact witness on this issue," because his analysts had told him the "reporting was weak." The NSC then removed the uranium reference from the draft of the speech.
[DELETED] Although the NSC had already removed the uranium reference from the speech, later on October 6, 2002 the CIA sent a second fax to the White House which said, "more on why we recommend removing the sentence about procuring uranium oxide from Africa: Three points (1) The evidence is weak. One of the two mines cited by the source as the location of the uranium oxide is flooded. The other mine cited by the source is under the control of the French authorities. (2) The procurement is not particularly significant to Iraq's nuclear ambitions because the Iraqis already have a large stock of uranium oxide in their inventory. And (3) we have shared points one and two with Congress, telling them that the Africa story is overblown and telling them this is one of the two issues where we differed with the British."
(U) On October 7, 2002, President Bush delivered the speech in Cincinnati without the uranium reference.
Now, the Senate Report also points out that despite these attempts by the CIA, (presumably) other individuals in the CIA were, on other occasions, approving White House papers or other documents that included the uranium from Africa claim (were these the WINPAC analysts who did not participate in the Cincinnati speech? - more on this in a future post). However, the fact remains that the White House knew that the seniormost leadership of the CIA, including the DCI, were most definitely not "standing by" the NIE claim on uranium from Africa. On more than one occasion after the NIE had been published (and before the State of the Union speech was drafted) the CIA tried to dissuade the White House from using even a generalized uranium from Africa claim because they did not trust the credibility of those reports, or the claim of the British Government in this regard.
4.4 2003 State of the Union
The CIA's reticence was also apparent at the time of the SOTU. To understand that, let's compare how the draft of the SOTU started off and how it ended up, and why.
The Senate Report notes that the White House was the one that included the uranium claim in the SOTU draft they sent to the CIA (barely a day before the actual SOTU speech):
On January 27, 2003, the DCI was provided with a hardcopy draft of the State of the Union address at an NSC meeting.
...
The White House also told the Committee that the text they sent to the CIA in January said, "we also know that he has recently sought to buy uranium in Africa."
According to the Senate Report, the CIA (WINPAC Director) expressed discomfort at the mention of the uranium claim, although it is claimed incredulously as having to do with revealing "classified information" or "sources and methods" rather than the "credibility" of the reporting. The latter was an obviously false cover story simply because the actual statement in the draft did not reveal either sources or methods and did not reveal classified information since a uranium from Africa claim had already been mentioned in declassified documents and speeches by both the British Government and the American Government by then.
The Senate Report notes that the WINPAC Director subsequently agreed to a change in language whereby the speech would refer to the British White Paper ("the British government has learned") rather than to the claim that "we also know".
4.5 Inferences
(a) Technically speaking, Rice's claim that "had there been even a peep that the agency did not want that sentence in or that George Tenet did not want that sentence in, that the director of Central Intelligence did not want it in, it would have been gone" was deliberately misleading since it clearly did not apply to the original uranium from Africa claim inserted by the White House into the SOTU speech. There was *more* than a "peep" - there was active opposition to the wording originally proposed by the White House on the uranium allegation.
(b) Rice's claim that "But the NIE, which, by the way, the Agency was standing by at the time of the -- the time of the State of the Union" was flat out false. After all, the CIA WINPAC Director was doing the *opposite* of "standing by" the NIE claim. Let's recall that the NIE said the following (and provided names of countries in Africa, associated with this claim):
Iraq also began vigorously trying to procure uranium ore and yellowcake...
Yet, the CIA balked at the following text in the White House draft:
...we also know that he has recently sought to buy uranium in Africa...
There is no fundamental difference between the two statements. Yet, the CIA opposed the statement because the CIA had already declared, after the NIE had been published, that they did not find the uranium from Africa claim credible.
To put it in another way, the CIA WINPAC Director was taking the position that the claim, at least in so far as it referred to U.S. intelligence knowledge on the uranium claim, was not something the CIA was willing to stand by, regardless of what the NIE may have stated. The claim that he was concerned about revealing "sources and methods" was clearly a false cover story because the actual statement in the SOTU draft did not reveal either sources or methods and did not reveal classified information since a uranium from Africa (or Niger) claim had already been mentioned in declassified documents and speeches by both the British Government and the American Government by then. Yet, the WINPAC Director agreed to leave the uranium claim in the speech if it referred to British intelligence - even though the CIA thought the British claim was not trustworthy - and the WINPAC Director also claimed to the SSCI that he told the NSC Special Assistant that the CIA had asked the British to remove the uranium claim from their White Paper (something the Special Assistant denied).
There is only one explanation for this game that was played: the White House wanted to keep the claim in the speech despite CIA opposition and the CIA gave in by telling the WH they could refer to the British claim if they wanted, but not to the CIA itself. Thus, even the most generous interpretation of Rice's "had there been even a peep" comment indicates that it was deliberately misleading.
(c) There is a more basic point. The White House introduced the uranium claim in the SOTU draft in January 2003 despite George Tenet having told the White House in October 2002 that the "President should not be a fact witness on this issue" (to stop the White House from using the claim in the Cincinnati speech at that time, despite CIA objections). The White House insisted on keeping the claim in the SOTU speech despite CIA opposition or discomfort with the claim at the time of the SOTU, and decided to refer to British intelligence (which the CIA did not consider reliable on this matter) rather than their own NIE. Moreover, the White House's chief speechwriter had also been informed of the dubiousness of the uranium from Africa claim in October 2002 (see below). So, it is at the minimum grossly misleading to assert, as Rice did, that there was not a peep from the CIA or George Tenet expressing reservations about the uranium claim.
It is no surprise, then, that Rice later conveniently attributed her statement as having been based on a faulty memory (see Section 5 below).
NOTE: Let's also remember that the CIA memos expressing concern over the use of the uranium from Africa claim in the Cincinnati speech were also sent to the the White House's Chief Speechwriter:
MR. RUSSERT: But when you say that no one in our circles, and it was maybe down in the bowels of the Intelligence Agency, a month after that appearance, you said this, “The CIA cleared the speech in its entirety.”
And then your top deputy, Stephen Hadley, on July 23, said this.
“Deputy National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley told reporters that he received two memos from the CIA in October that cast doubt on intelligence reports that Iraq had sough[t] to buy uranium from Niger to use in developing nuclear weapons. Both memos were also sent to chief speechwriter Michael Gerson and one was sent to national security adviser, Dr. Condoleezza Rice, Hadley said.”
All in all, Rice's claim was false.
5. Lack of awareness of challenges to uranium from Africa claim
CLAIM
The intelligence community did not know at that time or at levels that got to us that this, that there was serious questions about this report.
The only thing that was there in the NIE was a kind of a standard INR 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 NIEs. So if there was a concern about the underlying intelligence there, the President was unaware of that concern and as was I.
FACTS
This aspect was discussed, indirectly, in Section 3 and Section 4 above. That discussion proved that this claim was also flat out false.
As the Iraq on the Record summarized in brief:
This statement was false. Ms. Rice was claiming in this statement that the doubts intelligence officials had regarding the claim in the National Intelligence Estimate that Iraq sought uranium in Africa were not communicated to her. In fact, following the issuance of the National Intelligence Estimate, the CIA expressed doubts about the uranium claim in two memos to the White House, including one addressed to Ms. Rice. In addition, shortly after the issuance of the NIE, Director of Central Intelligence George Tenet warned against using the claim in a telephone call to Ms. Rice's deputy. Further, the fact that INR objected to the NIE's nuclear statements was noted prominently in the first paragraph of the NIE's key judgments.
Moreover, the INR dissent on the uranium from Africa claim was in the NIE's Annex and as discussed in Section 3 above, Rice also said she read the NIE "cover to cover" - not once, but twice.
In fact, on September 28, 2003, Rice backtracked from the above "did not know at that time or at levels that got to us" claim and attributed her lapse to, you guessed it, faulty memory:
DR. RICE: It’s not a matter of getting back in. It’s a matter, Tim, that three-plus months later, people didn’t remember that George Tenet had asked that it be taken out of the Cincinnati speech and then it was cleared by the agency. I didn’t remember. Steve Hadley didn’t remember. We are trying to put now in place methods so you don’t have to be dependent on people’s memories for something like that.
How convenient indeed.
6. Uranium from Africa claim involved other countries than Niger
CLAIM
There were other reports, as well, about Saddam Hussein trying to acquire yellow cake. It was not this Niger document alone. There are even other African countries that are cited in the NIE, not just Niger.
...
There are still reports out there that they sought materials from the DROC, that they sought materials from Somalia.
...
When the President stood up in the State of the Union and said, we had reports from -- the British were the primary reporters on this, I mean, the NIE also relying on the British reporting on this particular piece -- that we had reporting that Saddam Hussein had sought yellow cake in Africa. That's all it says.Now, as I've said to you several times, that may well still be true. It is not, given all that we know of equality, that we would put in a State of the Union, which is why we've been saying to you, look, it should not have gotten in. It's not that it was false. It's not that it was erroneous.
...
But even with the forged document, there are other reports of his seeking yellow cake in Africa.
FACTS
This was again, at best deliberately misleading and more objectively, just false.
Throughout her 7/11/03 Q&A, Rice tried to falsely pin the blame on the CIA for the uranium from Africa claim in the SOTU and emphasized how the claim was justified since the CIA did not object to it. Yet, in continuing to peddle the story that there was still other reporting from "other African counties", she chose not to mention that those reports were not considered credible by the CIA, were not the basis of Bush's SOTU claim according to the CIA and that the CIA had withdrawn the uranium claim in its entirety (Niger or other countries) prior to her July Q&A.
For example, the Senate Report points out:
On February 27, 2003, the CIA responded to a letter from Senator Carl Levin, dated January 29, 2003, which asked the CIA to detail "what the U.S. IC knows about Saddam Hussein seeking significant quantities of uranium from Africa." The CIA's response was almost identical to the U.S. Government points passed to the IAEA/INVO in early February, saying "[redacted] of reporting suggest Iraq had attempted to acquire uranium from Niger." The response says the CIA believes the government of Niger's assurances that it did not contract with Iraq but says, "nonetheless, we question, [redacted], whether Baghdad may have been probing Niger for access to yellowcake in the 1999 time frame." The CIA's response made no mention of any concerns about the validity of the documents and left out the sentence, "we cannot confirm these reports and have questions regarding some specific claims," that had been included in the U.S. Government IAEA/INVO points.
Note that the CIA's response to the IAEA and to Sen. Levin referred only to Niger even though the question was about Africa.
This was very similar to the response, in April 2003, from the State Department's Paul Kelly (directly on behalf of the White House) to Rep. Henry Waxman, where he also replied to the question about uranium from Africa by only referring to Niger:
This is in response to your March 17 letter to the President outlining your concerns about the reliability of evidence purporting that Iraq attempted to procure uranium from Africa. The White House has asked the Department of State to respond on behalf of the President.
Beginning in late 2001, the United States obtained information through several channels, including U.S. intelligence sources and overt sources, reporting that Iraq had attempted to procure uranium from Africa. In addition, two Western European allies in formed us of similar reporting from their own intelligence services. As you know, the UK made this information public in its September 2002 dossier on "Iraq's Weapons of Mass Destruction." The other Western European ally relayed the information to us privately and said, while it did not believe any uranium had been shipped to Iraq, it believed Iraq had sought to purchase uranium from Niger. We sought several times to determine the basis for the latter assessment, and whether it was based on independent evidence not otherwise available to the U.S. Not until March 4 did we learn that in fact the second Western European government had based its assessment on the evidence already available to the U.S. that was subsequently discredited.
Based on what appeared at the time to be multiple sources for the information in question, we acted in good faith in providing the information earlier this year to the International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors responsible for verifying Iraq's claims regarding its nuclear program. In similar good faith, the December 19 State Department fact sheet that illustrated omissions from the December 7 Iraqi declaration to the UN Security Council included a summary reference to the reported uranium procurement attempt...
Also, note Kelly's mention of the State Department fact sheet which explicitly called out Niger alone.
The Robb-Silberman report also says in the Iraq section ("Nuclear Weapons Finding 4"):
When it finally got around to reviewing the documents during the same time period, the CIA agreed that they were not authentic. Moreover, the CIA concluded that the original reporting was based on the forged documents and was thus itself unreliable [214]. CIA subsequently issued a recall notice at the beginning of April, 2003 for the three original reports, noting that "the foreign government service may have been provided with fraudulent reporting." [215] On June 17, 2003, CIA produced a memorandum for the Director of Central Intelligence (DCI) stating that "since learning that the Iraq-Niger uranium deal was based on false documents earlier this spring we no longer believe that there is sufficient other reporting to conclude that Iraq pursued uranium from abroad." [216] The NIO for Strategic and Nuclear Programs also briefed the Senate and House Intelligence Committees, on June 18 and 19, respectively, on the CIA's conclusions in this regard. [217]
...
[192] Classified intelligence report (Oct. 2001); Classified intelligence report (Feb. 2002); Classified intelligence report (March 2002). There was additional reporting that Iraq was seeking to procure uranium from Africa, but this reporting was not considered reliable by most analysts at the time, and it was subsequently judged not credible and recalled. Interview with CIA WINPAC nuclear analysts (Aug. 11, 2004); CIA, Memorandum for the DCI, In Response to Your Questions for Our Current Assessment and Additional Details on Iraq's Alleged Pursuits of Uranium From Abroad (June 17, 2003) at p. 2...
To wrap up this section, here's some icing on the cake.
On June 8, 2003, Condi Rice herself responded to a question on "uranium from Africa", framed by equating Africa with Niger, by solely referring to the Niger forgeries (and this was before Joseph Wilson's op-ed appeared):
MR. RUSSERT: Let me show you a specific comment the president made in his State of the Union message on January 28, 2003, when he talked about uranium from Africa. Let’s watch:
(Videotape, January 28):
PRES. BUSH: The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa.
(End videotape)
MR. RUSSERT: Now, five weeks later, this is what appeared in The Washington Post: “A key piece of evidence linking Iraq to a nuclear weapons program appears to have been fabricated, the United Nations’ chief nuclear inspector said in a report that called into question U.S. and British claims about Iraq’s secret nuclear ambitions. Documents that purportedly showed Iraqi officials shopping for uranium in Africa two years ago were deemed ‘not authentic’ after careful scrutiny by U.N. and independent experts... ‘We fell for it,’ said one U.S. official who reviewed the documents.”
In light of that, should the president retract those comments? And should there be a full, open government investigation into our intelligence agencies?
DR. RICE: The president quoted a British paper. We did not know at the time—no one knew at the time, in our circles—maybe someone knew down in the bowels of the agency, but no one in our circles knew that there were doubts and suspicions that this might be a forgery. Of course, it was information that was mistaken. But the—it was a relatively small part of the case about nuclear weapons and nuclear reconstitution.
Incidentally, even the British uranium claim was entirely bogus.
7. Trust in British Intelligence
CLAIM
Q: Just one brief one, Dr. Rice. Are you saying that in hindsight, with the experience that we're going through now, you would be more careful to rely on British intelligence in the future --
DR. RICE: No.
Q: -- especially when it comes to putting it into State of the Union addresses?
DR. RICE: No. It has nothing to do with British intelligence, nothing to do with British intelligence. We have great trust and faith in British intelligence. It is the fact that the underlying -- some of the underlying information later turned out not to be true, or turned out to be -- there apparently was a forged document involved. Anybody who, knowing that, would not say, oh, perhaps we shouldn't have put that in the State of the Union, would be pulling your leg. Of course, you step back and say, had I known that there was a forged document here, would I put this in the State of the Union? No.
But even with the forged document, there are other reports of his seeking yellow cake in Africa. It's just that we have a higher standard for the President. We don't make him his own fact witness. That's why we send things out to people and say, you know, you have problems with this.
FACTS
Another brazen lie. In fact this is the basis of the fraud that was used to prop up the Bush State of the Union Claim.
I have explained the main reason for why this is a lie in Section 4 above - namely, the CIA and IC did not consider the British uranium claim credible or trustworthy and said so again and again. So, for Rice to claim that the British intelligence was trustworthy was an outright lie.
As I also pointed out previously:
Even if we ignore the details of the British Government's deceptions and manipulation of intelligence on the "uranium from Africa" claim, a straightforward reading of Bush's SOTU claim shows why it was false.
Here are the exact words used by George W. Bush in the 2003 State of the Union (SOTU):
The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa
The word "learned" implies two things. First, that the British had credible, believable evidence, that Saddam recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa. Second, that the U.S. trusted the British claim. This latter part is obvious because Bush did not say that the British "claimed...", but rather that the British had "learned...".
The discussion in the previous sections [here] showed that the British government, in reality, learned no such thing. The British claimed (i.e., asserted) that Saddam sought uranium from Africa, but a reasonably critical review of their claims reveals them to be mere assertions (bunk); indeed, the evidence makes it clear that the British Government made numerous false or misleading claims in order to peddle their so-called evidence.
The fact is, the CIA did not consider the British intel to be credible and they said so repeatedly prior to the Bush 2003 State of the Union (SOTU). INR had always considered the uranium claim to not be credible. So, Bush's SOTU statement was false since he was confidently endorsing a claim that our own intelligence agencies had discarded as not being credible. In other words, if A knew B was peddling something that is not credible and therefore discarded B's claims, for A to later claim that we trust B because B trusts itself is the height of dishonesty. Either you trust B or you don't. Both cannot simultaneously be true.
8. Uranium claim was not a major issue
CLAIM
I'm going to tell you, we never really thought that this yellow cake issue was a major issue, because the overwhelming story about Iraqi nuclear reconstitution was really based fundamentally on every -- on these other factors. And so this yellow cake issue, we did not consider to be a major issue. So I'm also not surprised the Secretary didn't put it in.
FACTS
This is a deliberately misleading statement, bordering on a falsehood.
It is true that the uranium claim was not considered to be a major issue in the IC at the time the NIE was prepared, but it was also recognized prior to the SOTU that, per the Senate Report:
Other WINPAC analysts told Committee staff that by January, they had come to believe that if Iraq was in fact attempting to acquire uranium from Africa, it would bolster their argument that Iraq was reconstituting its nuclear weapons program because Iraq had no other use for uranium. Most of the other elements of the reconstitution case, the tubes, magnets, machine tools and balancing machines, were all dual use materials, while for Iraq, uranium had only one potential use - a nuclear weapons program.
So, there were at least some people in the Bush administration who thought the uranium issue was important (or "major").
Moreover, Rice's claim is also deliberately misleading because even though she claimed the issue was not a "major" one, the White House kept inserting the uranium claim into speeches (in the draft of the Cincinnati speech and in the draft of the 2003 SOTU speech) even after the CIA had made multiple attempts to get the White House to drop this claim, including a personal communication from George Tenet to Condi Rice's deputy that the "President should not be a fact witness on this issue". Now, why would something that was not considered a "major issue" by the White House, repeatedly get emphasized, even after the CIA had objected to its inclusion in speeches in one form or another?
9. INR did not dissent on the nuclear claims as a whole
CLAIM
Well, the CIA is the premier intelligence agency for the United States. And it is the one with a worldwide network, and so forth. So it's maybe not so surprising. But you do get footnotes from other agencies to the consensus argument fairly often. But what 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.
FACTS
This was one of the most brazen lies from Rice.
In fact, one of the two INR text boxes in the NIE, specifically the one that was attached to the Key Judgements on the NIE said the following:
We judge that Iraq has continued its weapons of mass destruction (WMD) programs in defiance of UN resolutions and restrictions. Baghdad has chemical and biological weapons as well as missiles with ranges in excess of UN restrictions; if left unchecked, it probably will have a nuclear weapon during this decade. (See INR alternative view at the end of these Key Judgments.)
...
State/INR Alternative View of Iraq’s Nuclear ProgramThe Assistant Secretary of State for Intelligence and Research (INR) believes that Saddam continues to want nuclear weapons and that available evidence indicates that Baghdad is pursuing at least a limited effort to maintain and acquire nuclear weapon-related capabilities. The activities we have detected do not, however, add up to a compelling case that Iraq is currently pursuing what INR would consider to be an integrated and comprehensive approach to acquire nuclear weapons. Iraq may be doing so, but INR considers the available evidence inadequate to support such a judgment. Lacking persuasive evidence that Baghdad has launched a coherent effort to reconstitute its nuclear weapons program, INR 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 a result, INR is unable to predict when Iraq could acquire a nuclear device or weapon.
In INR’s view Iraq’s efforts to acquire aluminum tubes is central to the argument that Baghdad is reconstituting its nuclear weapons program, but INR is not persuaded that the tubes in question are intended for use as centrifuge rotors. INR accepts the judgment of technical experts at the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) who have concluded that the tubes Iraq seeks to acquire are poorly suited for use in gas centrifuges to be used for uranium enrichment and finds unpersuasive the arguments advanced by others to make the case that they are intended for that purpose. INR considers it far more likely that the tubes are intended for another purpose, most likely the production of artillery rockets. The very large quantities being sought, the way the tubes were tested by the Iraqis, and the atypical lack of attention to operational security in the procurement efforts are among the factors, in addition to the DOE assessment, that lead INR to conclude that the tubes are not intended for use in Iraq’s nuclear weapon program.
That's not all. INR had a second text box which was not part of the Key Judgements but part of an Annex (in the classified NIE). It should be no surprise to readers that this second text box was also not included in the "White Paper". Here is what it said:
INR’s Alternative View: Iraq’s Attempts to Acquire Aluminum Tubes
Some of the specialized but dual-use items being sought are, by all indications, bound for Iraq’s missile program. Other cases are ambiguous, such as that of a planned magnet-production line whose suitability for centrifuge operations remains unknown. Some efforts involve noncontrolled industrial material and equipment—including a variety of machine tools—and are troubling because they would help establish the infrastructure for a renewed nuclear program. But such efforts (which began well before the inspectors departed) are not clearly linked to a nuclear end-use. Finally, the claims of Iraqi pursuit of natural uranium in Africa are, in INR’s assessment, highly dubious.
10. Conclusions
In previous parts of this series I demonstrated that the Bush administration repeatedly made false or deliberately misleading statements about the intended end use of the aluminum tubes (and an earlier series on the uranium from Africa issue demonstrated similar behavior in that case).
In this post, I decided to focus specifically on the astonishing duplicity of Condoleezza Rice, especially on the topic of the aluminum tubes and Saddam Hussein's nuclear programs/capabilities, because, as Bush's then National Security Advisor and spokesperson, Rice demonstrated a strong inclination towards what can only be fairly described as pathological lying (on a variety of topics) in order to deliberately deceive the American public. It is also fair to say that outside of Bush and Cheney, no one lied so casually and blatantly and deceived Americans as wilfully as Rice did (which may explain why, like Bush and Cheney, she has long been a press corpse favorite).
The examples discussed in this post make an open-and-shut case on Rice's mendacity on the nuclear issue.