It looks like this story has legs. I could post stories from here to the moon about the lies of the Bush (mis)administration. They now are trying to spin the Niger comment that was in the State of the Union speech (SOTU). They are saying that:

While continuing to acknowledge, as the White House and the Central Intelligence Agency did last week, that the phrase should not have been uttered, they emphasized today that the British had indeed, as Mr. Bush said, reported Iraq's interest in acquiring African uranium.

Let me see: it was correct, but it should not have been in the speech. Is that doublespeak? At the very least, it's a cheesy way to run a government. I think that the (mis)administration wanted something about "nucular" weapons in the speech because nothing instills fear like nukes. So even though they knew the information was false, they could get around it later, if it came out, by saying, 'we said it based on what the British said.' Now we find an article discussing the fact that the CIA had told the British that the Niger claim was wrong.

'The media has reported that the CIA expressed reservations to us about this element [the Niger connection] of the September dossier. This is correct. However, the US comment was unsupported by explanation and UK officials were confident that the dossier's statement was based on reliable intelligence which had not been shared with the US. A judgment was therefore made to retain it.'

At this point, I think the way they are trying to get out of this is by saying it was just one line in one speech. The problem is that they lied about the whole reason for the war. WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION! Maureen Dowd does a good job of explaining what's going on: National House of Waffles. A good listen on this subject can be found here: Sen. Jay Rockefeller: WMD Flap 'Far From Over'. He says that it goes beyond the Niger case and into the whole case for WMD.

This is just like the September 11th story. As soon as a person understands that the president lied about WMD, they can start to understand the whole issue. Then they can see that the Wolfowitz comment, “For bureaucratic reasons, we settled on one issue, weapons of mass destruction, because it was the one reason everyone could agree on,” explains it all. What this statement says is that it was just something we could all agree on that would scare the public into going along on an invasion of Iraq. From there, they had to dig up evidence to support their cause and if they had to play with the facts a little, well, it's for our own good. We, the American people, are just too stupid to understand. I don't know when or how this will end. I hope the intelligence community doesn't lay down and take the fall for this. I hope everyone pays attention and digs through all the reporting going on to find out the facts for themselves.

A great summation of the whole issue: The Dubious Suicide of George Tenet.

A list of the lies so far, 20 Lies About the War.

An LA Times profile of Dennis J. Kucinich.

And it continues: U.S. soldier killed in Iraq ambush.

MUST SEE PHOTOS SHOW BUSH REWRITING, REVISING SPEECH.
- posted by Mom/Dad @ 7:49 AM