Let's get to the truth about Iraq -- land let us do it in a credible way.

It is obvious that the Congress is in no position to produce a timely -- comprehensive report.

Friday, November 4, 2005

http://www.bergen.com/page.php?qstr=eXJpcn...nFlZUVFeXkxNA==

CERTAINLY the loss of more than 2,000 American lives is as important as the lessons to be learned from Florida, 2000.

The thought occurs to me as the tardy media mea culpas for helping to foment the Bush administration's prewar hysteria trickle out. There was, most famously, the ethically appalling account that Judith Miller of The New York Times gave of how she allowed all the president's men - including the now-indicted I. "Scooter" Libby - to use her and her newspaper as an arm of their propaganda apparatus.

More brave, and more truthful, was a signed editorial in The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel last Sunday. Editorial Page Editor Ricardo Pimentel apologized to the paper's readers for having been "duped" about the alleged arsenal of weapons of mass destruction that the White House insisted was a dire threat to the United States.

"We should have been more skeptical," Pimentel wrote. "For that lack of skepticism and the failure to include the proper caveats to the WMD claim, we apologize, though I would note that, ultimately, we didn't believe that the president's central WMD argument warranted war."

Pimentel believes, as I do, that an independent inquiry along the lines of the 9/11 commission is the best way for the country to determine how we became entangled in Iraq. Was it merely incompetence - fundamentally flawed intelligence that was innocently accepted as truth? Or duplicity - deliberate distortion and outright deception by President Bush?

This panel will not be assembled. The White House and its protectors in the Republican-controlled Congress won't allow it. There is, as yet, no group of grieving families that has emerged, as did the families of 9/11 victims, to shame lawmakers into doing their jobs. Senate Democrats on Tuesday forced the chamber into closed session to push a long-obstructed intelligence committee inquiry into the administration's use - or misuse - of prewar intelligence.

But the evenly divided, bipartisan panel that resulted from this imbroglio is likely to offer accounts with two evenly divided, partisan tilts. This is not the same as the truth.

It is, in fact, the same ugly atmosphere that reduced the genuine threat to democracy that was represented by the Florida election fiasco of 2000 to a snarling tit-for-tat. But after the Supreme Court blocked the vote count and effectively awarded the presidency to Bush, the media did not declare the story dead.

A consortium of eight major media companies did a statistical analysis of Florida's contested ballots. The consortium report was released in November 2001, while the ashes of Ground Zero smoldered. The group found that Bush would have won the state under the limited recounts sought by Democrat Al Gore.

But Gore would have taken Florida, and become president, in a statewide recount of all disputed ballots. "There's no news here. It's over," White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said at the time.

That is the difference between an election and a war. A war is never really over. Not for the soldiers who are forever scarred by it, nor for the families of the fallen, nor for the civilians whose lives are a daily contest against death. October was among the deadliest months for U.S. troops in Iraq. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld says more American forces may be sent soon in anticipation of violence surrounding next month's elections.

"We can't rewind the tape of history," Sen. John Kerry said in a recent, and regretful, speech on Iraq at Georgetown University.

But there is a saying among journalists that we write the first draft of history. We've got an obligation to get it as accurate as possible, as Tim Rutten, media writer for the Los Angeles Times, has pointed out. In the run-up to the invasion of Iraq, the profession as a whole, with some notable exceptions, failed.

Public apologies serve some purpose. But there is no greater journalistic purpose than getting out the truth. If big media companies thought they owed the public an answer to the conundrum of hanging chads, then they owe readers and viewers an answer to the question of how we blundered into Iraq. A factual second draft of history must replace the falsehoods of the first.

In the absence of responsible political leadership, a media consortium of the sort that reviewed the Florida vote is as vital now as it was then. Not only could its findings rescue the country from the tragedy of repeated mistakes. Journalism might begin to rescue itself.

Marie Cocco writes for The Washington Post. Send comments to opedpage@gmail.com.

This is why we need an independent commission to look into the Iraq intelligence issue --- because the House and Senate Intelligence Committees examined the issue --- and came up with bupkus...

http://a257.g.akamaitech.net/7/257/2422/24...port_errata.pdf

SENATE AND HOUSE INTELLIGENCE COMMITTEES ANNOUNCE JOINT INQUIRY INTO THE SEPTEMBER 11th TERRORIST ATTACKS
WASHINGTON (February 14, 2002) - The Senate and House Intelligence Committees will conduct a joint inquiry into the Intelligence Community's activities before, during and since the September 11th, 2001, terrorist attacks against the United States, the panels' leaders announced today.

http://intelligence.senate.gov/020214.htm

Among the purposes of this joint effort is ascertaining why the Intelligence Community did not learn of the September 11th attacks in advance, and to identify what, if anything, might be done to better the position the Intelligence Community to warn of and prevent future terrorist attacks and other threats of the 21st Century. The Committees may seek to legislate changes to remedy any systemic deficiencies revealed by the joint inquiry.


The inquiry was announced by Senator Bob Graham, D-Florida, chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI); Representative Porter Goss, R-Florida, chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI); SSCI Vice Chairman Richard C. Shelby, R-Alabama; and HPSCI Ranking Democrat Nancy Pelosi, D-California.


The leaders said the committees are creating a separate, unified staff to support the joint inquiry, led by former CIA Inspector General L. Britt Snider. Mr. Snider retired from federal service last year after serving in a variety of positions in the intelligence field.

AND WHAT DID THEY FIND?

What the Joint Inquiry into 9/11’s Report Says About Today’s Needs
by Michael Scardaville
WebMemo #322


July 28, 2003

http://www.heritage.org/Research/HomelandDefense/wm322.cfm

The report of the Joint Inquiry into Intelligence Community Activities Before and After the Terrorist Attacks of September 11, 2001 describes a systematic failure of the United States intelligence community to respond to the then emerging terrorist threat.

While it offers no smoking gun, the report’s main value is as a reminder of what the intelligence community needs to do to maximize its effectiveness in combating terrorism. The Bush Administration and Congress should heed the lessons ingrained in the Joint Inquiry’s report and apply them to current debates about intelligence policy - as new programs are coming online, others are being developed and Congress considers the future of potentially valuable research and development efforts.

Intelligence Failures
The Joint Inquiry was formed by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence and the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence in February 2002 to analyze what information related to the attack was available to the intelligence community prior to September 11, 2001, any systemic failures that resulted in lost opportunities and offer recommendations on improving community operations.

In compiling its report the Joint Inquiry reviewed relevant documents, held public and closed hearings and interviewed numerous members of the intelligence community. Broadly, the Joint Inquiry found that the intelligence community had a significant amount of information related to the attacks, but it lacked specific information about the time, method or place. That said, the report did indicate that failures in intelligence community processes denied the federal government potential opportunities to stop the plot.

Select Findings
The Joint Inquiry divided its findings into three categories:

Factual findings focused on the chronology of events leading to the attack.
Systemic findings directed at specific points of failure.
Other findings encompassed a variety of relevant, but indirectly related facts.
A number of these conclusions – particularly those covering the failures in the systems and operations of the intelligence community – offer important lessons for a variety of current policy debates. Specifically, the report found:

The intelligence community failed to capitalize on the United States’ technological advantage. The Joint Inquiry found that the NSA failed to develop and utilize analytical tools for making sense of the vast amount of intelligence it collected. In fact, this forced some analysts to rely on manual methods, such as storing information in card files or translating by hand. Even at the FBI, which had replaced its written reports with the electronic Automated Case System in 1995, still required analysts to manually sift through electronic files to find information relevant to their investigation instead of having it automatically routed to them (in addition any information collected as a result of an investigation through the foreign intelligence surveillance act was not included in the system). This technological collapse was culminated in the failure to develop a single database for counterterrorism data.

Failure to bring data on terrorism from all sources into one central repository or to share relevant information with all agencies with a counterterrorism mission including those outside of the intelligence community. The report found that counterterrorism intelligence collected by the FBI was rarely transmitted to the CIA’s Counterterrorism Center nor was the FBI able to reliably call on the CIA for assistance in counterterrorism investigations. Similarly, FBI agents working at the Counterterrorism Center were not given full access to information.

In addition, collected data was not transformed into actionable information or preventive measures by other agencies. This failure is most vividly illustrated by the CIA’s failure to put known terrorists on the State Department and other terrorist watch lists, which prevented the State Department from denying terrorists’ visas or INS from refusing entry into the United States. In fact, the Joint Inquiry concluded that there was no system for putting suspected terrorists on a watch list, despite the importance of such tools in denying terrorists an opportunity to attack, survey or fundraise. Another example includes the FBI’s failure to inform the FAA of its investigation into terrorist flight training despite the obvious relation to aviation.

The Joint Inquiry also found that the process the FBI relied on for obtaining warrants under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (the body of law that governs the domestic investigation of agents of foreign governments and terrorist organizations on national security grounds) was hampered by an overly adversarial court and cumbersome processes, that required extraneous information and banned certain agents from appearing before it. Similarly, policy guidelines existing prior to 9/11 strove to separate foreign intelligence from domestic, which prevented the development of a coordinated counterterrorism effort.

Lessons & Solutions

The Bush Administration and Congress should heed the lessons ingrained in the Joint Inquiry’s report and apply them to current debates about intelligence policy. Specifically, they should:

Continue to invest in the research and development of data-integration and data-mining technologies, including the Terrorism Information Awareness program. The United States should not continue the trend of ignoring its technological advantage. Successfully implemented, data-integration and data-mining technology has the potential to solve a variety of problems in communication and analysis identified by the Joint Inquiry. Research such as that being conducted at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency can be used to integrate all federal terrorism databases into a virtual single database, ensure that analysts can find or receive necessary information in those databases, and replace inadequate watch lists, which are plagued by human error.

Unfortunately, the United States Congress is on the verge of cutting off funding for this crucial area of research. The current version of the Defense Appropriations Bill (H.R. 2658), recently passed by the Senate, eliminates funding for Terrorism Information Awareness despite its early success in improving intelligence sharing within the Army’s Intelligence and Security Command. In adding this provision the Senate ceded security to political correctness in a manner eerily reminiscent of the negligence of the pre-9/11 era. (For more on the Senate’s flawed amendment see, Senate Should Restore TIA Funding by Paul Rosenzweig, Michael Scardaville and Ha Nguyen.)

Ensure that the CIA’s new Terrorist Threat Integration Center (TTIC) functions as an all-source intelligence fusion center. On May 1, 2003 the CIA opened the TTIC as an interagency office dedicated to improving intelligence sharing. Unfortunately, this center is not providing the participating agencies with rapid access to all the raw intelligence collected by the intelligence community. If this trend continues communication failures are likely to persist. As a result, the President should direct the Director of Central Intelligence to use technology to ensure that all agencies represented at the TTIC have access to the full scope of intelligence related to international terrorism.

Define the Department of Homeland Security’s role in the intelligence community. When Congress passed the Homeland Security Act (P.L. 107-296) in November of 2002, it included an information analysis component, which it envisioned would function as an intelligence fusion center. Since the President established TTIC to fulfill this role, the exact purpose of the DHS’s intelligence assets is unclear, a problem exacerbated by the slow pace of its construction. Secretary of Homeland Security Tom Ridge must more clearly define the purpose of his intelligence arm. Secretary Ridge should ensure that his intelligence assets have access to the all terrorism related intelligence, including raw data; have information systems capable of accessing and storing highly classified data; and have the ability to turn raw intelligence or analytical data into actionable information and preventive measures. In addition, this arm of the Department of Homeland Security should be responsible for ensuring local law enforcement and, through the infrastructure protection directorate, the private sector receive the information they need to guide their investments in security.

Increase oversight of FISA related powers enumerated in the USA Patriot Act. The USA Patriot Act should relieve many of the obstacles in the domestic intelligence process and in integrating foreign and domestic intelligence. However, without sufficient oversight and scrutiny it will be difficult to evaluate their impact and any necessary changes. As a result, Congress should commit itself to more closely following the FBI’s implementation of the USA Patriot Act.


At best ---- the report deserved an incomplete - at worst it blamed the CIA for Bush Administration failures....and it is a reason for an independent inquiry

This is more evidence why the Senate Intelligence Committee is not competent to complete Phase II of the Iraq Intelligence Assessment.

Their findings will be leaked and amended by the White House as a matter of politics.

Prewar report doubted Iraq-al Qaeda tie
Senator: Document shows White House was 'deceptive'

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- A Democratic senator on Sunday said newly declassified information shows that Bush administration officials repeatedly accused Iraq of training al Qaeda terrorists long after interrogators concluded the source of the report was "intentionally misleading" captors.

Sen. Carl Levin, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee, cited declassified Defense Intelligence Agency documents to back up his account.

"This newly declassified information provides additional, dramatic evidence that the administration's prewar statements were deceptive," the Michigan Democrat said in a written statement.

"The underlying intelligence simply did not support the administration's repeated assertions that Iraq had provided chemical and biological weapons training to al Qaeda," said Levin, also a member of the Intelligence Committee.

Those assertions were given prominent play in the administration's arguments for the March 2003 invasion of Iraq.

Top administration officials -- including President Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, then-national security adviser Condoleezza Rice and former Secretary of State Colin Powell -- all repeated them in the months before the invasion.

But the assertions were based on the word of a captive al Qaeda operative whom the Defense Intelligence Agency had previously concluded was probably lying to his interrogators.

In February 2002, a DIA report on the questioning of Ibn Shaykh al-Libi stated, "More likely this individual is intentionally misleading the debriefers."

"Despite the DIA's findings, administration officials made numerous statements based on the detainee's claims that Iraq had provided training in chemical and biological weapons to al Qaeda," Levin said.

Levin also argued in 2004 that the Pentagon had hyped dubious intelligence linking Iraq to al Qaeda terrorist network in the months before the invasion.

His latest criticism comes as Democrats have launched a concerted effort to refocus public attention on the roots of the war, where the U.S. military's death toll climbed on Sunday to 2,047. (Full story)

Jay Rockefeller, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, said he would not have supported the 2002 congressional resolution that authorized military action "knowing what I know now."

Rockefeller told CNN's "Late Edition" that al-Libi was "an entirely unreliable individual upon whom the White House was placing substantial intelligence trust."

He said Sunday's disclosure was another reason the Intelligence Committee needs to wrap up a promised investigation into how policymakers used intelligence data to push for war. The panel's initial probe focused on the quality of the intelligence and not how policymakers used it.

"That is a classic example of a lack of accountability to the American people," Rockefeller said.

Democrats closed the Senate to the public Tuesday afternoon to pressure the Intelligence Committee's chairman, Kansas Republican Pat Roberts, to move forward on the follow-up probe -- a move Republicans blasted as a stunt.

The Senate reopened after members agreed to appoint a bipartisan task force to assess the progress of the Phase 2 probe and report back by November 14.

Roberts told CBS' "Face the Nation" on Sunday that the panel has been working on the report "for a considerable amount of time."

"We have several working drafts that we will give to members as of this week," Roberts said.

The Democrats' pressure in the Senate followed the indictment of Cheney's top aide, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, on charges including perjury and obstruction of justice.

Libby is accused of lying about the disclosure of the identity of a CIA officer whose husband had challenged a key assertion in the administration's case for war. (Full story)

Pentagon: Document 'out of context'
Pentagon spokesman Lawrence Di Rita said Sunday that the DIA report Levin cited was a single document "out of context, without the analysis or any other indication as to how it may have factored in."

In an interview with CNN, he called its release "irresponsible and ironic, given the underlying allegation that this selected release is intended to address, namely someone's perception that intelligence was used selectively."

Top administration officials, including Bush himself, repeatedly asserted that Iraq was concealing chemical, biological and nuclear weapons programs and could one day provide those weapons to terrorists.

"We have learned that Iraq has trained al Qaeda members in bombmaking, poisons and deadly gases," Bush said in a nationally televised speech from Ohio in October 2002.

"You can't distinguish between al Qaeda and Saddam when you talk about the war on terror," Bush told reporters at the White House in September 2002.

Rice, now secretary of state, made the same claim in September 2002. And Powell included the allegation in his presentation to the U.N. Security Council in February 2003.

But once a U.S.-led army had toppled Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein, none of the suspected weapons programs were found.

The independent commission investigating the 9/11 attacks concluded in 2004 that there was no collaborative relationship between al Qaeda and Iraq, though some contacts between the two sides dated back to the early 1990s.

And in 2002, the declassified DIA report said: "Saddam's regime is intensely secular and is wary of Islamic revolutionary movements. Moreover, Baghdad is unlikely to provide assistance to a group it cannot control."

White House spokesman Scott McClellan told reporters traveling with Bush in Latin America Sunday that both Democrats and Republicans "came to the same conclusion" before the war -- "that Saddam Hussein was a threat and a threat that needed to be addressed."

"We welcome the opportunity to talk about the threat that Saddam Hussein and his region posed," McClellan said. "It was a brutal regime; it was an oppressive regime and the world is better off with him removed from power."

Sen. George Allen, a Virginia Republican, said the intelligence at the time raised fears that Iraq could have provided weapons of mass destruction to terrorists.

"Recognize the mindset of this country and our leaders in this country that we got hit on 9/11, 2001, and we didn't want to sit back," said Allen, another Intelligence Committee member. "We needed to make sure we're proactive in trying to thwart and protect, thwart terrorist attacks and protect Americans."

CNN's Barbara Starr contributed to this report.








Find this article at:
http://edition.cnn.com/2005/US/11/06/iraq.intel

Well, at least, she can claim she's being used. I doubt the likes of Hannity and Scarborough. and so many others, wouldn't dare say they've been planted inside the media to be watchdogs and barkers!


A crime is deemed committed if false information is purposely given to deceive Americans and drive them to war and risk the lives of so many American soldiers, and for killling innocent lives of the nation we take to war. If the Iraq War was created on deceit, then who ever instigated it is no better than Saddam Hussein - for the killing of innocents!

SL---

What law is that?

I agree there should be a crime defined as you suggest --- but I am not aware of such a law now.

A House inquiry is worthless.

Nothing will come of it.

Only an independent commission like the 9/11 Commission can truly get to the bottom of it and find what shred of the truth might be left.

Saturday, November 12, 2005

Harman wants House inquiry into pre-war Iraq intelligence
South Bay Democrat complains the Republicans are refusing to investigate reports of information gathering flaws.

By Toby Eckert
Copley News Service

WASHINGTON -- South Bay Rep. Jane Harman, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, criticized committee Republicans on Thursday for halting an investigation into intelligence claims used to justify the Iraq war.

In unusually blunt language for the normally bipartisan panel, Harman accused Republicans, who control the committee, of reneging on a June 2003 agreement to study the "quality and objectivity" of pre-war intelligence. The investigation was stopped after the disclosure of an interim report that was critical of the Bush administration's intelligence claims, she said.

"I just think that this issue is too important," said Harman, D-El Segundo. "We've been trying to get it done for 2½ years and I felt we had to mark the spot."

The dispute mirrors a recent spat in the Senate. Last week, Democrats forced the Senate Intelligence Committee to renew a wide-ranging look at whether the Bush administration distorted intelligence about Iraqi weapons and ties to terrorism to win support for the war.

Citing the Senate action, House Intelligence Committee Chairman Peter Hoekstra, R-Mich., said there was no need for the House panel to resume its Iraq intelligence probe. Instead, it will review leaks of classified information, including one that disclosed the existence of secret CIA prisons abroad.

Interest in the intelligence used to justify the Iraq war has intensified since the indictment last month of Vice President Dick Cheney's top aide, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby. He has been charged with perjury, obstruction of justice and making false statements in an investigation of the unmasking of CIA agent Valerie Plame.

Plame's husband, former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, had publicly disputed the truth of a key claim President Bush made about Iraq's attempt to acquire materials for a nuclear weapon. No nuclear, chemical or biological weapons have been found since the invasion, though Bush cited them as the primary justification for the war.

The House Intelligence Committee interviewed Wilson before he went public with his claims.

Harman noted that in June 2003, she and then-House Intelligence Committee Chairman Porter Goss, R-Fla., outlined a process for reviewing pre-war intelligence. It included committee hearings, interviews with intelligence analysts and allowing other House members to review intelligence that had been provided to the committee.

After reviewing 19 volumes of classified information, the committee produced an interim report, in the form of a letter to then-CIA Director George Tenet, that said intelligence agencies had used outdated and uncertain information to conclude that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction and links to terrorist groups.

The Bush administration disputed the findings and, Harman said, "shortly thereafter, the Republican majority shut down the inquiry and prevented (Democratic) staff ... from meeting with administration officials whom they deemed critical for this inquiry."

Bush named Goss director of the CIA after Tenet resigned in June 2004. Harman said that, last week, she gave Hoekstra a one-page plan for how the committee could finish its investigation.

"The (Republican) majority now seems likely to reject our proposal, preferring to curtail oversight over one of the worst intelligence failures in American history," Harman said in a written statement. "The main responsibility of our committee is to conduct oversight, and this action undermines the credibility of the committee."

The White House struck back at critics of the Iraq intelligence.

"Our statements about the threat posed by Saddam Hussein were based on the aggregation of intelligence from a number of sources and represented the collective view of the intelligence community," said National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley. "Those judgments were shared by Republicans and Democrats alike."

The plan Harman presented said the 2003 investigation found an intelligence analyst "who complained of political pressure" and that the issue should be studied, along with the treatment of competing views within the Bush administration about Iraq's threat; how intelligence officials viewed public statements by Bush, Cheney and Tenet about the threat; and the drafting of presentations like former Secretary of State Colin Powell's speech to the United Nations on Iraq.

Senate Democrats were able to force the issue by invoking a rule that allowed them to take the Senate into closed session, which drew attention to their complaints that Republicans were delaying an Iraq intelligence probe. House Democrats have little leverage under that chamber's rules.

"The House and the Senate are very different creatures," said John Pike, director of GlobalSecurity.org, an independent research group. "The capacity for individual senators to make things happen is much greater than the capacity of individual House members."

Pike said he believes that a probe of pre-war intelligence would show "there was more than enough blame to go around," from poor work by intelligence analysts to distortion by administration officials eager to invade Iraq.

Find this article at:
http://www.dailybreeze.com/news/regstate/a...es/1853431.html

Prewar CIA report doubted claim that al Qaeda sought WMD in Iraq

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- A January 2003 CIA report raised doubts about a claim that al Qaeda sent operatives to Iraq to acquire chemical and biological weapons -- assertions that were repeated later by then-Secretary of State Colin Powell to the United Nations in making the case for the invasion of Iraq.

CNN on Thursday obtained a CIA document that outlined the history of the claim, which originated in 2002 with a captured al Qaeda operative who recanted two years later.

The CIA report appears to support a recently declassified document that revealed the Defense Intelligence Agency thought in February 2002 that the source, Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi, was lying to interrogators.

Sen. Carl Levin of Michigan, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee, this week released the DIA report in alleging the administration cited faulty intelligence to argue for the March 2003 invasion of Iraq.

In February 2002, al-Libi, a senior military trainer for al Qaeda in Afghanistan, claimed the terrorist network "sent operatives to Iraq" to acquire weapons. His claim was reported in a CIA paper seven months later entitled, "Iraqi Support for Terrorism."

The January 2003 updated version of the report added a key point: "That the detainee was not in a position to know if any training had taken place."

The document obtained by CNN was provided recently to Democrats on the Senate Intelligence Committee, who have been pressing for an investigation into the ways in which the Bush administration used intelligence on weapons of mass destruction in Iraq before the war.

In February 2003 Powell made assertions that Iraq had ties to al Qaeda and argued for military action to prevent Baghdad from providing its suspected stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction to terrorists.

In his speech to the U.N. Security Council, Powell did not name al-Libi, but described the U.S. source as a senior terrorist operative.

"My colleagues, every statement I make today is backed up by sources, solid sources. These are not assertions. What we're giving you are facts and conclusions based on solid intelligence. I will cite some examples, and these are from human sources," Powell told the world body.

He said the al Qaeda operative told interrogators that al Qaeda labs in Afghanistan were not capable of manufacturing chemical or biological agents.

"Where did they go? Where did they look? They went to Iraq," Powell said. "None of this should come as a surprise to any of us. Terrorism has been a tool used by Saddam [Hussein] for decades."

No such stockpiles turned up after the U.S.-led invasion, and the independent commission investigating al Qaeda's 2001 attacks on New York and Washington found no evidence of a collaborative relationship between the two entities.

Al-Libi recanted in January 2004 a number of claims he made while in custody, according to the CIA document. His reversal prompted the CIA to order all prior intelligence suggesting Iraq trained al Qaeda personnel in chemical and biological warfare "recalled and re-issued" in February 2004.

A U.S. intelligence official said the information from al-Libi used by Powell in early 2003 was "the best we had at the time" and that the CIA informed policymakers as soon as he recanted his claims.

Another official, National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley, told reporters Thursday that the intelligence used to support the war had been developed over a "long period of time."

"We all looked at the same intelligence, and most people -- on the intelligence -- reached the same conclusion," Hadley said, referring to the present and previous administrations and to Congress.

A senior administration official said Bush would "directly take on some of these false attacks by some Democratic leaders" during a Veterans Day speech Friday.

CNN's David Ensor contributed to this report.


Find this article at:
http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/11/10/iraq.intel/index.html

The Dems have to keep this pressure on.

By keeping the pressure on and forcing the Administration to continue to justify its intelligence mistakes --- the public who believes they lied will continue to think Bush is lying.

The American people no longer trust Bush so the stupid effort they are making to try a campaign like push to improve their credibility in the eyes of the American people is foolish at best.

Bush takes on critics of Iraq war
President says war is central to fight against terrorism

TOBYHANNA, Pennsylvania (CNN) -- President Bush Friday accused critics of the Iraq war of distorting the events that led to the U.S. invasion, saying Democrats viewed the same intelligence and came to similar conclusions.

"While it's perfectly legitimate to criticize my decision or the conduct of the war, it is deeply irresponsible to rewrite the history of how that war began," the president said during a Veterans Day speech in Tobyhanna, Pennsylvania.

"Some Democrats and anti-war critics are now claiming we manipulated the intelligence and misled the American people about why we went to war," Bush said. "They also know that intelligence agencies from around the world agreed with our assessment of Saddam Hussein." (Watch Bush attack his critics -- 1:17)

"These baseless attacks send the wrong signal to our troops and to an enemy that is questioning America's will," Bush said.

The president also cited a Senate Intelligence Committee report issued in July 2004 that said the committee "was not presented with any evidence that intelligence analysts changed their judgments as a result of political pressure, altered or produced intelligence products to conform with Administration policy, or that anyone even attempted to coerce, influence or pressure analysts to do so."

Senate Democrats are pressuring the committee to complete a "Phase 2" of the report that would focus on how the prewar intelligence was used by the administration. (Full Story)

A bipartisan panel headed by federal Circuit Court Judge Laurence Silberman and former Republican Sen. Charles Robb, also came to similar conclusions. However, that committee only examined the intelligence community's prewar assessments of Iraq's weapons programs, not how the intelligence was used.

Democrats respond
Democrats responded immediately -- and angrily -- to Bush's comments.

Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nevada, responded to Bush's speech in a statement, saying that the commander-in-chief missed an opportunity to lay out "a clear strategy for success in the war in Iraq."

"Attacking those patriotic Americans who have raised serious questions about the case the Bush administration made to take our country to war does not provide us a plan for success that will bring our troops home," Reid said.

"The American people are demanding a comprehensive plan and the benchmarks by which to measure our success for the war in Iraq," Reid said. "The president's continued refusal to provide that plan does nothing to support our troops or their families."

In a statement, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, noting that a majority of House Democrats voted against the resolution that authorized the war, faulted the president for politicizing Veterans Day.

"On Veterans Day we should come together to honor those who have served in our Armed Forces. Instead, President Bush is using Veterans Day to try to bolster his political standing on the war in Iraq rather than honor our nation's men and women in uniform.

"The president does a disservice to the troops and the American people when he tries to silence those asking questions about putting our men and women in uniform in harm's way," Pelosi said.

Continuing the war
Bush reiterated his argument that the United States must continue to fight to prevent Iraq from becoming a failed state from which terrorists would launch attacks on other nations to implement their radical ideology.

Bush referred to a letter he said was written by Ayman al-Zawahiri, al Qaeda's No. 2 leader. The letter, according to Bush, said the group's goal is to force the United States to leave Iraq, just as it had departed from Vietnam, Beirut and other engagements, after suffering heavy casualties. (Read a report on al-Zawahiri's letter)

The authenticity of the letter has been questioned by some terrorism experts. (Full story)

"They believe that America can be made to run again, only this time on a larger scale, with greater consequences," Bush said.

"The terrorists regard Iraq as the central front in their war against humanity," the president said. "We must recognize the Iraq war as our central front against the terrorist."

If the terrorists drive America out of Iraq, Bush said, they could develop weapons of mass destruction, intimidate Middle East regimes friendly to the West, attack the United States and "blackmail our government into isolation."

"Some might be tempted to dismiss these goals as fanatical or extreme," Bush said. "They are fanatical and extreme but they should not be dismissed."

Comparing the terrorists to Hitler, Stalin and Pol Pot, Bush said "evil men obsessed with ambition and unburdened by conscience must be taken very seriously and we must stop them before their crimes can multiply."

Staying in Iraq
Bush also dismissed critics who say the U.S. invasion of Iraq has strengthened the terrorists.

"No act of ours invited the rage of killers and no concession, bribe or act of appeasement would change or limit their plans for murder," Bush said. "Against such an enemy, there is only one effective response: We will never back down, we will never give in, we will never accept anything less than complete victory."

The president said the U.S. forces -- along with Iraqi partners -- are implementing a strategy he described as "clear, hold and build."

"We're working to clear areas from terrorist control, to hold those areas securely, and to build lasting democratic Iraqi institutions through an increasingly inclusive political process."

About 2,500 people had been expected to attend the event, including veterans and their families and members of the state's congressional delegation.

The speech was meant to "directly take on some of these false attacks that have been recently brought up by some Democratic leaders," a White House official said Thursday.

National security adviser Stephen Hadley told reporters Thursday that the thrust of Bush's speech "is to continue to talk to the American people about the war on terror, the nature of the enemy, what is at stake (and) the importance that we see it through to success."

'Campaign-style' strategy
Earlier this week, senior White House officials told CNN they were working on a "campaign-style" strategy to respond to stepped-up Democratic criticism that Bush officials manipulated intelligence in making the case for war, an accusation the administration repeatedly has denied.

The intelligence debate intensified following the October 28 indictment of I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff, who resigned the day he was indicted.

Libby was charged with obstruction of justice, perjury and making false statements to federal agents investigating the leak to reporters of the identity of CIA undercover agent Valerie Plame. Her husband, former ambassador Joe Wilson, had publicly challenged a key element of the administration's case for war.

In his briefing Thursday, Hadley detoured from the president's upcoming four-nation Asia tour to defend the administration's rationale for invading Iraq and to rebut charges that intelligence had been manipulated.

Hadley told reporters the intelligence used to support the war had been developed over a "long period of time."

2003 CIA report raised doubt
"We all looked at the same intelligence, and most people -- on the intelligence -- reached the same conclusion," Hadley said, referring to the present and previous administrations and to Congress.

Adding to the intelligence dispute is a January 2003 CIA report that raised doubts about claims that al Qaeda sent operatives to Iraq to acquire chemical and biological weapons. (Full story)

In January and February 2003, President Bush and then-Secretary of State Colin Powell made dramatic assertions that Iraq had ties to al Qaeda and argued for military action to prevent Baghdad from providing its suspected stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction to terrorists. (Watch: CIA experts question intelligence source -- 2:17)

Powell repeated the claim before the United Nations in making the case for the invasion of Iraq.

No such stockpiles turned up after the U.S.-led invasion, and the independent commission investigating al Qaeda's 2001 attacks on New York and Washington found no evidence of a collaborative relationship between the two entities.

CNN obtained a CIA document Thursday that outlined the history of the claim, which originated in 2002 with a captured al Qaeda operative who recanted two years later.

The CIA report appears to support a recently declassified document that revealed the Defense Intelligence Agency thought in February 2002 that the source, Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi, was lying to interrogators.

Sen. Carl Levin of Michigan, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee, this week released the DIA report in alleging the administration cited faulty intelligence to argue for the March 2003 invasion of Iraq.








Find this article at:
http://www.cnn.com/2005/POLITICS/11/11/bush.intel

November 9, 2005

An Incomplete Chronology
The Niger Uranium Deception and the "Plame Affair"
By GARY LEUPP

http://www.counterpunch.org/leupp11092005.html

I've been working on this timeline obsessively, the way historians do with chronologies. The more detailed they get, the more they clarify the problem. Imperfect though it is let me post it now, with these observations about its meaning.

(1) Officials in the Bush administration intent upon going to war with Iraq made it clear to their own intelligence services and those of close allies that it would welcome any information linking al-Qaeda and Iraq and indicating the Iraq sought to acquire WMD. They made it clear that any material, however questionable, would be of interest to them.

(2) The administration then used this "intelligence," including that specifically doubted by the sources, to build the case for war, attributing it where necessary to foreign sources and implying that the latter had validated it. (The most notable instance of this was President Bush's attribution of the Niger uranium story to Britain. But there were also the stories about a meeting in Prague between an Iraqi agent and Mohammed Atta, attributed to Czech intelligence, and much else.)

(3) Officials also solicited from Iraqi exiles supporting a U.S. invasion of Iraq (especially Ahmad Chalabi) any information which might help justify an attack, and used it without raising questions about its credibility. The aluminum centrifuge story that "Curveball" supplied, for example.

(4) Officials made use of friendly reporters in the U.S. and elsewhere to publish information justifying war with Iraq, assured that their comments would be attributed to unnamed sources in the administration.

(5) The officials then cited in press interviews the very published stories based on what they, or their colleagues, had planted in the press, as rationales for a war on Iraq. In public statements they referred to such reports, and to "intelligence" from foreign intelligence services, as factual information. That's what the Judith Miller Affair's all about. But she's just one complicit figure.

(6) All of this produced resistance in the administration, the CIA, and international community. This is reflected in Powell's refusal to include much material prepared by Douglas Feith in his UN presentations, and the UN's rejection of many administration claims. Powell reportedly fumed in February 2003 on the eve of his infamous UN speech, "I'm not gonna read this "expletive deleted"!" But the fact that he gave a thoroughly bogus presentation to the UN, which he now regrets, indicates who had the upper hand within the government.

(7) Officials in the administration sought to punish any persons challenging their disinformation (Annan, ElBaradei, Wilson).

(8) When their disinformation was exposed, those responsible and their allies in the press sought to attach blame for the revealed falsehoods on others (the CIA, France).

(9) The U.S. Congress, and leadership of both parties, have been extremely deferential to those engaging in campaigns of deception, and along with the mainstream press failed ask many questions. Partly this was due to intimidation campaigns. But this is changing, given the course of events.

The inescapable conclusion we must draw is that the Bush administration policy leading into the Iraq War was dominated by officials, grouped under Cheney and Rumsfeld in particular, principally neocons and including Wolfowitz, Libby, Feith, Perle, Abrams, Shulsky, Luti, Bolton, Joseph, Hadley, Wurmser, Franklin, Cambone, Ledeen, Card, Hughes, Rhode, Rove and others who as a matter of policy, and without any moral qualms, deliberately practiced deception to build their case for war. They were not duped by conniving Europeans or badly served by incompetent CIA analysts. They were engaging in "psyops," psychological operations, principally against their own people, whom they needed to delude with the most frightening imagery ("a mushroom cloud") to get their job done.

What was that job? Michael Ledeen, a central figure in the Niger uranium scandal, a sophisticated man who writes elegant prose, sums it up nicely: it requires that "Iran, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, and even Saudi Arabia" be destabilized, and that "every last drooling anti-Semitic and anti-American mullah, imam, sheikh, and ayatollah is either singing the praises of the United States of America, or pumping gasoline, for a dime a gallon, on an American military base near the Arctic Circle."

Now those guilty of deception---of foisting the Straussian "noble lies" upon the American people and the world---are involved in a desperate effort to avoid exposure, alarmed that the conventional workings of the American political system (congressional hearings, special prosecutors' investigations, FBI investigations of espionage, reinvigorated investigative journalism, etc.) might not only jeopardize the project but also land the lot of them in jail. In an effort to make them more nervous, I post this chronology, inviting readers to correct and expand it so that it does the job better.


* * * * *

1999

Sometime in 1999: French come to believe someone working abandoned uranium mines; investigate who may be buying smuggled yellowcake.
February: French intelligence agency DGSE (Directorate-General of External Security) delivers a short report to MI6 headquarters at Vauxhall Cross, London, about a visit made by Wissam al-Zahawie, Iraqi ambassador to the Vatican, to Niger. According to the DGSE, he was alleged to have asked President Ibrahim Bare Mainassara of Niger (assassinated April 1999) to supply Baghdad with yellowcake. French and British believed that following the withdrawal of UN inspectors Saddam might be striving to reconstitute a nuclear program, but would be unable to do so under sanctions.

Information about al-Zahawie visit not passed on to CIA. To do so British would have required French permission, and French felt the intelligence questionable.

[Al-Zahawie, interviewed by Independent on Sunday in London in August 2003, stated he had been "instructed to visit four West African countries (Niger, Burkina Faso, Benin and Congo-Brazzaville) to extend an invitation on behalf of the Iraqi President to their heads of state to visit Baghdad." Saddam Hussein hoped to persuade them to vote to lift sanctions if their representatives ever served on the UN Security Council. Mainassara accepted invitation but was assassinated before he was able to make the visit.]

French intelligence becomes involved with Rocco Martino, a former police officer who had worked for SISMI (Servizio per le Informazioni e la Sicurezza Militare, the Italian intelligence service) between 1976 and 1985, when he was fired. He consults contacts at the Niger embassy in Rome.

Martino contacts old friend Antonio Nucera, a policemen (carabinieri), Deputy Chief of the SISMI center in viale Pasteur in Rome, and chief of the 1st and the 8th divisions (weapons and technology transfers and WMD counterproliferation, respectively, for Africa and the Middle East). Asks for any information about uranium purchases from Niger. Nucera places him in touch with "La Signora," a 60-year-old Italian woman who works at Niger embassy and for Italian intelligence and having financial problems.

Sometime in 1999: Martino stops working as double agent for SISMI (according to Italian Defense Ministry).

2001

January 2: Break-in into the Niger Embassy in Rome. Letterhead and official seals stolen. (La Repubblica investigation in October 2005 alleges that break-in was organized by Antonio Nucera and included Martino, "La Signora," and Nigerien diplomat Zakaria Yaou Maiga.)

[In interview with Il Giornale November 6, 2005, Nucera blames La Signora for forgery scheme. Says she was eager to make money from SISMI and so he introduced her to Rocco. "I thought that she might be interested in cooperating with Rocco . . . It's like when you introduce a bricklayer to a friend who needs him to refurbish his house. I cannot take the blame if, at the end of it, the bricklayer screws everything up."]

January 31: Burglary at home of Niger Embassy official in Rome.
February 24: U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell states: "Saddam Hussein has not developed any significant capacity with respect to weapons of mass destruction. He is unable to project conventional power against his neighbors."

September 11: Twin Tower and Pentagon attacks. Bush administration immediately begins preparations for a "pre-emptive" attack upon Iraq.
[October?]: Martino brings documents to CIA station chief at U.S. embassy in Rome. According to former CIA official interviewed by the Washington Post in October 2005, the station chief "saw they were fakes and threw [Martino] out."

October 15: Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi and his newly appointed SISMI chief make official visit to Washington. Berlusconi signals willingness to support U.S. effort to implicate Saddam Hussein in 9/11. Pollari provides CIA officials with dossier indicating that Iraq had sought to buy uranium in Niger and Niger had agreed to send several tons of it to Iraq. Same intelligence passed simultaneously to Britain's MI6. There is little detail in the report and the State Department dismisses it as "highly suspect."

December 1: Michael Ledeen (former employee of the Pentagon, the State Department and the National Security Council, and associate of Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Douglas Feith) argues in World Jewish Review that perpetual war is the only useful option to ensure the submission of the Muslim World. Declares: "we will not be sated until we have had the blood of every miserable little tyrant in the Middle East, until every leader of every cell of the terror network is dead or locked securely away, and every last drooling anti-Semitic and anti-American mullah, imam, sheikh, and ayatollah is either singing the praises of the United States of America, or pumping gasoline, for a dime a gallon, on an American military base near the Arctic Circle."

[Ledeen formerly a secret agent of National Security Advisor Robert C. MacFarlane during the Reagan administration, involved in the Iran-Contra affair; associate of Iranian arms dealer Manucher Ghorbanifar; scholarly authority on Machiavelli; resident scholar in American Enterprise Institute and major figure in Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs; author of works on Italian fascism in which he evaluates "universal fascism" positively; and longtime advocate of a U.S. attack on Iran.]

Early December: Ledeen organizes meeting in Rome. Involves Ledeen, Pollari, Larry Franklin (Pentagon specialist on Iran), Harold Rhode (Office of Net Assessment at the Pentagon), Ghorbanifar, Antonio Martino (Italian Defense Minister), a former senior official of the Revolutionary Guard in Iran, and others. Meeting deals at least in part with regime change in Iran and is not authorized by the U.S. State Department or CIA. [By one report, approved by Deputy National Security Advisor (chief deputy to Condoleezza Rice) Stephen J. Hadley.]

December 12: U.S. ambassador to Italy Mel Sembler learns of meeting during a dinner with Ledeen and Martino and thereafter reports it to CIA. CIA is concerned about Ledeen's dealings and reports the matter to Hadley.

Late 2001-early 2002: CIA chief George Tenet later says U.S. found "fragmentary evidence" of Iraqi efforts to purchase uranium from Niger at this time.

2002

2002-early 2003: Vice President Dick Cheney, sometimes accompanied by his chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, visits CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia "approximately 10" times to discuss their work on intelligence pertaining to Iraq. Some analysts later complain visits made them feel pressured to provide the administration with conclusions supporting the case for war.

[February?] Pollari discusses Rome meeting with CIA chief George Tenet.
Early February: Tenet visits Hadley, discusses Ledeen's Rome meeting. Hadley instructs Feith's office to end Ledeen's dealings with Ghorbanifar.
February 12: Cheney receives from Pollari and Berlusconi expanded version of the unconfirmed Italian report. Says Iraq's then-ambassador to the Vatican had led a mission to Niger in 1999 and sealed a deal for the purchase of 500 tons of uranium in July 2000. Cheney's subordinate (including John Hannah and Libby) discusses them, and Cheney either requests a CIA investigation, or is at least believed by the CIA to have done so.

February 12: Defense Intelligence Agency reports Iraq "probably" looking for uranium for a nuclear weapons program.

February 12: Valerie Plame, an undercover CIA operative working in the Counterproliferation Division, sends a memo to a deputy chief in the CIA's Directorate of Operations saying her husband "has good relations with both the PM [prime minister] [of Niger] and the former Minister of Mines (not to mention lots of French contacts), both of whom could possibly shed light on this sort of activity."

February 13: Operations official cables an overseas officer seeking concurrence with the idea of sending Wilson.

February 26: The CIA sends Joseph Wilson to Niger to investigate whether Iraq had tried to purchase yellowcake uranium. Meets with Niger's former minister of mines, Mai Manga, who declares "there were no sales outside of International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) channels since the mid-1980s," and that he "knew of no contracts signed between Niger and any rogue states for the sale of uranium." Manga stated a "French mining consortium controls Nigerien uranium mining and keeps the uranium very tightly controlled from the time it is mined until the time it is loaded onto ships in Benin for transport overseas," and "it would be difficult, if not impossible, to arrange a special shipment of uranium to a pariah state given these controls." (Senate Intelligence Committee Report, July 2004)

March 1: Department Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR) sends memorandum to Secretary of State Colin Powell stating claims about Iraqi attempts to obtain uranium from Niger are not credible.
March 5: Returning from Niger, Wilson briefs two CIA agents in his home. Wife present but does not participate. Tells CIA and State Department that there is no basis for claims that Iraqi has tried to purchase uranium from Niger and that documents (which Wilson had never seen) indicating such must have been forged.

March 8-9: CIA circulates a report on Wilson's trip---without identifying him---to the White House and other agencies. CIA ranks information "good" (ranking 3 on a scale of 5).

March 22: Peter Ricketts, the British Foreign Office's political director, writes in memo to Foreign Secretary Jack Straw: "[E]ven the best survey of Iraq's WMD programs will not show much advance in recent years on the nuclear, missile, or chemical weapons/biological weapons fronts: the programs are extremely worrying but have not, as far as we know, been stepped up."

June: second meeting between Ghorbanifar, Rhode and Defense Department officials (in Paris).

Summer 2002: White House Iraq Group assigns Communications Director James R. Wilkinson to prepare a white paper for public release, describing the "grave and gathering danger" of Iraq's "reconstituted" nuclear weapons program. Wilkinson report claims Iraq "sought uranium oxide, an essential ingredient in the enrichment process, from Africa."

July: Ledeen contacts Sembler, tells him he plans to be in Rome in September to continue "his work" with Ghorbanifar. Sembler informs Hadley, who instructs Ledeen not to deal with Iranians.

July 23: "Downing Street memo" authored by Tony Blair's secretary Matthew Rycroft states that "the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy" of war with Iraq in Washington.

August: White House Iraq Group founded to coordinate campaign for war with Iraq. Operates out of Cheney's office, chaired by Karl Rove. Includes Libby, Andrew Card, Mary Matalin, James R. Wilkinson, Nicholas E. Calio and Karen Hughes. Meet twice weekly in White House Situation Room. (May have funneled disinformation provided by Ahmad Chalabi to Judith Miller and others in U.S. press.)

August: Pollari contacts Ledeen, who soon establishes himself as the liaison between SISMI and the Office of Special Plans.

August 26: Cheney states, "we now know that Saddam has resumed his efforts to acquire nuclear weaponsMany of us are convinced that Saddam will acquire nuclear weapons fairly soon."

September: British intelligence informs CIA it plans to include the uranium allegation in a forthcoming report about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction.

September: Office of Special Plans established in Department of Defense, out of Northern Gulf Affairs Office, by Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz. Serves as an alternative body to the CIA collecting "intelligence" in support of war with Iraq. Headed by William Luti, former naval officer and Cheney aide, answers to Douglas Feith. Staff of 16, including Abram Shulsky, Larry Franklin, Stephen A. Cambone, and Ledeen.

Contacts in other agencies include: John Bolton, Undersecretary of State for Arms Control and International; Bolton's advisor, David Wurmser, a former research fellow on the Middle East at the American Enterprise Institute, who was just recently working in a secret Pentagon planning unit at Feith's office; Elizabeth Cheney, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Near East Affairs; Hadley, Elliott Abrams, National Security Council's top Middle East aide; Defense Policy Board chairman Richard Perle, Newt Gingrich, former CIA Director James Woolsey and Kenneth Adelman of the Defense Policy Board.

September 4: Ledeen editorializes in Wall Street Journal, "The War on Terror Won't End in Baghdad:" "Stability is an unworthy American mission, and a misleading concept to boot. We do not want stability in Iran, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, and even Saudi Arabia; we want things to change. The real issue is not whether, but how to destabilize."

September 7: Judith Miller and Michael R. Gordan publish NYT article on the interception of metal tubes bound for Iraq, depicting them as centrifuges for a nuclear weapons program. Front page story quotes unnamed "American officials" and "American intelligence experts" who said the tubes were intended to be used to enrich nuclear material. Cites unnamed "Bush administration officials" who claimed that in recent months, Iraq had "stepped up its quest for nuclear weapons and has embarked on a worldwide hunt for materials to make an atomic bomb." Says "Mr. Hussein's dogged insistence on pursuing his nuclear ambitions, along with what defectors described in interviews as Iraq's push to improve and expand Baghdad's chemical and biological arsenals, have brought Iraq and the United States to the brink of war." Rice, Powell and Rumsfeld all cite this information as basis for going to war with Iraq.
Many in intelligence community skeptical of claims.

September 8: Cheney tells NBC's "Meet the Press:" "And what we've seen recently that has raised our level of concern to the current state of unrest ... is that he now is trying, through his illicit procurement network, to acquire the equipment he needs to be able to enrich uranium -- specifically, aluminum tubes." Cites Miller's September 7 piece.

September 8: Rice tells CNN's "Late Edition," "The problem here is that there will always be some uncertainty about how quickly [Saddam Hussein] can acquire nuclear weapons. But we don't want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud." [Washington Post later (August 10, 2003) suggests "The escalation of nuclear rhetoric a year ago, including the introduction of the term 'mushroom cloud' into the debate, coincided with the formation of a White House Iraq Group, or WHIG, a task force assigned to 'educate the public' about the threat from Hussein, as a participant put it."] Cites Miller's September 7 piece.

Rice says aluminum tubes Iraq sought to purchase "are only really suited for nuclear weapons programs, centrifuge programs."

September 9: According to later (October 2005) Repubblica account, Pollari meets secretly in Washington with Rice, Hadley, and other U.S. and Italian officials, in a meeting which may have been set up by Ledeen. (Rice spokesman Frederick Jones tells New York Times November 28, 2005 that meeting only a "courtesy call" lasting 15 minutes, and no one present can recall Niger uranium being discussed.) Some reports indicate a second meeting between Pollari and Hadley on the same day arranged through backchannels by Gianni Castellaneta, Berlusconi's diplomatic advisor,

September 12: President Bush delivers a speech to the United Nations calling on the organization to enforce its resolutions for disarming Iraq, implies that if the United Nations does not act, the United States will.

September 16: Baghdad announces that it will allow arms inspectors to return "without conditions." U.S. to press Security Council to approve a new UN resolution calling for Iraq to give weapons inspectors unfettered access and authorizing the use of force if Iraq does not comply.
September: Congress authorizes Bush to wage war on Iraq. President had based his case on National Intelligence Estimate of Iraq's Weapons of Mass Destruction Programs prepared in August by the Director of Central Intelligence.

September 24: British government report states, "there is intelligence that Iraq has sought the supply of significant quantities of uranium from Africa. Iraq has no active civil nuclear power programme or nuclear power plants, and therefore has no legitimate reason to acquire uranium." Also says Iraq has chemical and biological weapons "deployable within 45 minutes of an order to use them," and "constructed a new engine test stand for the development of missiles capable of reaching the UK Sovereign Base Areas in Cyprus and NATO members (Greece and Turkey), as well as all Iraq's Gulf neighbours and Israel"
September/October: U.S. intelligence officials tell Senate committees they doubt the British report regarding the Iraq/uranium claim.

October 1: CIA sends 90-plus page dossier on Iraq to the White House. Italian report about a possible Iraqi effort to acquire yellowcake from Niger is not included in "Key Judgments" section, and is mentioned only in footnotes to Annex A and labeled "highly dubious."

Early October: A classified National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) states: "A foreign government service reported that as of early 2001, Niger planned to send several tons" of uranium to Iraq and "Niger and Iraq reportedly were still working out arrangements for this deal, which could be for up to 500 tons of yellowcake [lightly processed uranium ore]." Adds, "reports indicate Iraq also has sought uranium ore from Somalia and possibly the Democratic Republic of the Congo. We cannot confirm whether Iraq succeeded in acquiring uranium ore and/or yellowcake from these sources." Contains State Department INR dissent which characterizes "claims of Iraqi pursuit of natural uranium in Africa" are "highly dubious." Condoleezza Rice does not read dissent.

October 5: CIA sends memorandum to Hadley and White House speechwriter Michael Gerson, asking them to remove a line in October 7 Bush speech in Cincinnati referring to Iraq's attempted purchase of "500 metric tons of uranium oxide fromAfrica." (Hadley will later claim in July 2003 that he did not brief Rice on the memo.)

October 6: CIA sends memorandum to the White House providing additional detail about the Iraq uranium claim and noting the U.S. Intelligence Community's differences with Britain over the intelligence. The rewritten sentence: "[T]he regime has been caught attempting to purchase substantial amounts of uranium oxide from sources in Africa" removed from speech.

October 7: In Cincinnati, Bush uses final rewrite of sentence and declares, "If the Iraqi regime is able to produce, buy, or steal an amount of highly enriched uranium a little larger than a single softball, it could have a nuclear weapon in less than a year." "Facing clear evidence of peril, we cannot wait for the final proof---the smoking gun---that could come in the form of a mushroom cloud."

October: Marino presents DGSE with documents which appeared to show that Niger had signed a deal in July 2000 to supply Iraq with yellowcake-similar to the story Italian intelligence had told the CIA. The DGSE rejects the documents as fake.

October: Martino offers the documents for $15,000 to Elisabetta Burba, Italian journalist with Panorama magazine (owned by Berlusconi). Burba receives a cache of letters and other papers supposed to be correspondence between Niger officials and Iraqis seeking to acquire uranium yellowcake from Martino, but questions its authenticity and does not publish it.

October 9: Burba delivers papers to the U.S. embassy in Rome. Embassy sends to Washington, D.C.

Oct. 15: The CIA receives the first of three top-secret reports from SISMI indicating that Niger planned to ship tons of uranium ore, or yellowcake, to Iraq.

Mid-October: (According to State Department spokesman Richard Boucher, July 17, 2003) State Department acquires documents about the Iraq-Niger uranium deal and shares them with "all the appropriate agencies." (But "a senior administration official" claimed July 18, 2003 that the CIA did not receive the documents until February 2003.)

November 8: Under U.S. pressure UNSC approves Resolution 1441; UN inspectors return to Iraq.

November 22: French finally tell Americans about their original 1999 intelligence, say they are certain that Iraq had tried and failed to obtain yellowcake.

December 7: Iraq gives UN weapons inspectors extensive declaration of the history of its WMD programs and their destruction.

December 19: Fact sheet not cleared by State Department intelligence bureau but subsequently (April 29, 2003) represented as "developed jointly by the CIA and Defense Department" charges Iraq with omitting its "efforts to procure uranium from Niger" from its December 7 declaration.
December 19: IAEA makes a formal request to U.S. to see any "actionable information" behind the uranium allegation so it can investigate.

2003

Early January 2003: Pollari (according to his account in November 2005) personally warns the CIA that the Niger documents are fake.
January: Hannah and Libby main authors of a 48-page draft speech intended to make the administration's case for war in Iraq before the United Nations. Draft provided to Powell, in advance of his UNSC speech Feb. 5. Powell and Tenet discard most of its contents about Iraq's weapons programs as exaggerated and unwarranted.

January: Debate between CIA and White House officials about whether or not to include the story about Niger uranium in President Bush's State of the Union address. National Security Council staff member and Stephen Hadley subordinate Robert Joseph (Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for Proliferation Strategy, Counterproliferation and Homeland Defense) approves inclusion if report is attributed to British intelligence. Alan Foley, director of the DCI's Center for Weapons Intelligence, Nonproliferation, and Arms Control, questions intelligence but agrees with final draft of the speech.

January 20: President Bush submits a report to Congress stating Iraq omitted "attempts to acquire uranium" from its December 7 declaration to the UN.

January 23: National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice writes in The New York Times that Iraq's declaration "fails to account for or explain Iraq's efforts to get uranium from abroad." A White House report issued the same day asserts that Iraq's weapons declaration "ignores efforts to procure uranium from abroad."

January 24: National Security Council staff puts out a call for new intelligence to bolster claims that Saddam Hussein possessed nuclear, chemical and biological weapons or programs. Robert Walpole, national intelligence officer for strategic and nuclear programs, receives request. Later tells investigators "the NSC believed the nuclear case was weak," according to a 500-page report released in 2002 by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.

January 26: Powell asks, "Why is Iraq still trying to procure uranium and the special equipment needed to transform it into material for nuclear weapons?" during a speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

January 27: IAEA Director General Mohamed ElBaradei tells the UN Security Council that IAEA inspectors "have to date found no evidence that Iraq has revived its nuclear weapons programme since the elimination of the programme in the 1990s."

January 28: President Bush asserts that "the British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa" during his State of the Union address.

January 29: Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld states in a press briefing that Iraq "recently was discovered seeking significant quantities of uranium from Africa."

January 29: IAEA head Mohamed ElBaradei tells Washington Post: "Niger denied [the Iraq uranium purchase claim], Iraq denied it, and we haven't seen any contracts." Also discounts the aluminum tubes claim.

February 1-4: Powell rehearses the speech he is to give at the UN

February 5. Cheney staff insists he "link Iraq directly to the 9/11 terrorist attacks on New York and Washington" and include the allegation that Mohammed Atta had met in Prague with an Iraqi intelligence officer in 2001. Powell's staff rejects much of the content of the drafted speech.
At one point, Powell reportedly says, "I'm not reading this. This is "expletive deleted"."

February 4: State Department officials give the IAEA the information the agency requested about Iraq's attempts to obtain uranium from Niger, telling the agency that it "cannot confirm these reports and [has] questions regarding some specific claims."

February 5: Powell presents evidence, based on U.S. intelligence, about Iraq's prohibited weapons programs to the UN Security Council. (Almost all of this subsequently disproved.) He does not mention Iraqi attempts to obtain uranium from Africa.

February 14: ElBaradei reports to the Security Council that "We have to date found no evidence of ongoing prohibited nuclear or nuclear related activities in Iraq."

February 14: IAEA makes a preliminary finding that the Niger documents are forgeries, based on the identification of several crude errors.

February: Retired Iraqi diplomat Zahawie, now living in Jordan, receives an urgent call from the Iraqi embassy in Amman, calling him to the Foreign Ministry in Baghdad as soon as possible. Arriving in Baghdad, he is interviewed by UN inspectors who inquire about his visit to Niger in 1999 and ask if he had signed a letter on July 6, 2000 to Niger regarding the sale of uranium to Iraq. Replies: "I said absolutely not, and if they had seen such a letter it must surely be a forgery. . . I have never been involved in any secret negotiations. I am willing to co-operate with anyone who wants to see me and find out more."

March: Hounded by accusations of improper business dealings including profiteering over security contracts, Richard Perle resigns as chairman of Defense Policy Board. Writes to Rumsfeld, "As I cannot quickly or easily quell criticism of me based on errors of fact concerning my activities, the least I can do under these circumstances is to ask you to accept my resignation as chairman of the Defense Policy Board." (Later leaves DPB altogether.)

March 7: ElBaradei formally reports to UN that the documents are forgeries.

March 7: U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell on NBC's "Meet the Press" denies "any falsification activities" by U.S. government and states, "It was the information that we had. We provided it. If that information is inaccurate, fine." U.S. maintains there is additional evidence provided by a second foreign government [Italy] aside from Britain. [But in April 29, 2003 letter to Senate Intelligence Panel Democrats assistant secretary of state for legislative affairs Paul V. Kelly says, "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."]

March 14: Sen. Rockefeller (West Va.) sends letter to Director Mueller requesting an investigation into the origin of the Niger documents.

March 19: U.S. invasion of Iraq begins.

April 21: Judith Miller reports in NYT that an unnamed Iraqi scientist unavailable for interview by reporters has told U.S. authorities that on the eve of the U.S. invasion, Saddam's regime "destroyed chemical weapons and biological warfare equipment" and that U.S. investigators had visited the site of destruction, and confirmed the scientist's story. Also says "Iraq had secretly sent unconventional weapons and technology to Syria, starting in the mid-1990's" and states that "more recently Iraq was cooperating with Al Qaeda. Miller says this may be "the most important discovery to date in the hunt for illegal weapons" and quotes Maj. Gen. David Petraeus, commander of the 101st Airborne Division, as saying "it may be the major discovery."

May 6: Nicholas Kristof publishes an article in New York Times mentioning that a claim central to Bush's war rationale had been investigated by a former ambassador to an African country and rejected.

May 23: Senators Roberts and Rockefeller send a letter to the CIA and State Department Inspectors General to review issues related to the Niger documents.

May 29: Libby asks Undersecretary of State John Bolton, and Marc Grossman, the undersecretary of state for political affairs, for information about news report about CIA's secret envoy to Africa in 2002. Grossman requests a classified memo from Carl Ford, the director of the State Department's intelligence bureau, and later orally briefs Libby on its contents. Frederick Fleitz, Bolton's chief of staff and concurrently a senior CIA Weapons Intelligence, Nonproliferation and Arms Control official, supplies Bolton with Plame's identity. Bolton passes this to Wurmser, who supplies it to Hannah. On receiving this information, Libby asks Bolton for a report on Wilson's trip to Niger, which Wilson presented orally to the CIA upon his return.

By June: When no evidence for a nuclear program is found, officials blame "flawed intelligence" and the CIA. CIA reorganization planned.

June: Washington Post publishes list of the people whom Karl Rove regularly consults for advice outside the administration. Foreign policy veterans shocked to find Michael Ledeen the only full-time international affairs analyst. Quotes Ledeen as saying that Rove had told him "any time you have a good idea, tell me." According to Post: "More than once, Ledeen has seen his ideas, faxed to Rove, become official policy or rhetoric."

June 2: Sen. Rockefeller issues a press release endorsing a statement made of the previous weekend by Senator Warner calling for a joint SSCI/SASC investigation into Niger document forgeries.

June 4: Senator Rockefeller issues a press release saying he would push for an investigation. Senator Roberts issues a press release saying calls for an investigation are premature.

June 9: Classified CIA documents on Wilson's trip are sent to Libby's office.

June 10: Sen. Rockefeller sends a letter to Senator Roberts asking for an investigation.

June 11: All Intelligence Committee Democrats sign a letter to Sen. Roberts asking for a meeting of the Committee to discuss the question of authorizing an inquiry into the intelligence that formed the basis for going to war.

June 11: Sen. Roberts issues a press release saying this is routine committee oversight, and that criticism of the intelligence community is unwarranted. Senator Rockefeller issues a press release calling the ongoing review inadequate.

June 11: Two government officials tell Libby that Wilson's wife works for the CIA and is believed responsible for sending him on the trip.

June 12: Cheney himself tells Libby that Valerie Plame works in the CIA's counter-proliferation division.

June: Discussions involving Libby, Cheney counsel David Addington, Hannah, Cheney press secretary Catherine Martin and other White House officials, about whether Wilson-Plame information could be shared with reporters.

June: Ghorbanifar-Rhode meeting in Paris.

June 8: Rice tells NBC's "Meet the Press," "The president quoted a British paper [about the African uranium story]. 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."

June: Office of Special Plans closed down [?]

June 9: Classified CIA documents on Wilson's trip are sent to Libby's office.

June 11: Two government officials tell Libby that Wilson's wife works for the CIA and is believed responsible for sending him on the trip.

June 12: Cheney himself tells Libby that Valerie Plame works in the CIA's counter-proliferation division.

June 12: Walter Pincus in the Washington Post provides more details about Wilson trip without mentioning his name.

June 14: Libby meets with a CIA briefer and discusses the Wilsons.
Mid-June: Powell and his deputy secretary Richard Armitage may have received a copy of the Grossman memo.

June 19: After New Republic reports that Cheney's office had sent Wilson to Niger, Libby and his then-principal deputy, Eric Edelman, discuss whether to leak the details of the trip to the press to rebut the article. Libby tells Edelman "there would be complications at the CIA" from disclosing the information.

June 23: "Scooter" Libby discusses Wilson with Judith Miller of the New York Times, mentions wife "might work at a bureau of the CIA." Miller notes say "...Libby discussed Mr. Wilson's activities and placed blame for intelligence failures on the C.I.A."

July 6: Joseph Wilson's op-ed piece in the New York Times; says, "I have little choice but to conclude that some of the intelligence related to Iraq's nuclear weapons programme was twisted to exaggerate the Iraqi threat."

July 7: British House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee issues a report on British dossier on Iraq, noting that CIA had informed British intelligence that Niger uranium documents were a hoax in 2002.

July 7: Libby tells president's press secretary that it's not widely known that Plame works for CIA.

July 8: Libby meets again with Miller at St. Regis Hotel in Washington, discusses Plame.

July 8: Administration retracts Niger allegation. White House announces, "We now know that documents alleging a transaction between Iraq and Niger had been forged." CIA Director Tenet and other White House officials say Bush's reference to African uranium should not have been included in his State of the Union address.

July 9: Cheney's office faxed classified information about Wilson trip from CIA.

July: Rove discusses Wilson and wife with Cooper.

July: Rove tells Libby about his conversation with columnist Robert Novak, and says that Novak will publish an article mentioning Plame.

July 12: Rove, Libby, Hadley and Tenet coordinate their responses to Wilson piece. Libby calls Miller and Time magazine reporter Matthew Cooper to discuss Wilson and his wife.

Summer: Senate Select Committee on Intelligence asks CIA about the Ghorbanifar-Ledeen-Department of Defense meetings.

Summer: Newsday breaks the story about the December 2001 Rome meeting involving Ledeen, Rhode, Ghorbanifar, Pollari, etc.

July 14: Novak questions Wilson's motives in going public about his Niger visit, citing two "senior administration officials" names Valerie Plame as a CIA operative. "Wilson never worked for the CIA, but his wife, Valerie Plame, is an agency operative." Suggests that nepotism is "the missing explanation of an otherwise incredible choice by the CIA."

July 7: During flight to Africa, Rice agrees to appear on the Sunday shows to "protect Cheney by explaining that he had had nothing to do with sending Wilson to Niger, and dismiss the yellowcake issue."

July 14-16: Daily Telegraph, Washington Times, FrontPage Magazine all accuse France of not allowing MI6 to share intelligence affirming Niger uranium purchase effort more credible than that contained in the forged documents.

July 16: David Corn of the Nation points out that Novak's naming of Plame "would have compromised every operation, every relationship, every network with which she had been associated her entire career."

July 16: In Rome, Niger's ambassador to Italy says no one from her country's diplomatic corps had created any fabrication, and that Nigerien President Mamadou Tandja had met with Bush the previous week to tell him that.

July: Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) demands an investigation of the Plame Affair.

July 18: News & World Report senior writer Michael Barone claims Wilson "lied" in his NYT op-ed piece.

July 21: Bush and Rice meet with Berlusconi in Crawford, Texas.

July 22: Bush's communications director Dan Bartlett calls an unusual press conference to brief reporters on uranium charge. Hadley takes the blame, saying he had forgotten about CIA objections when including the charge in the state of the union speech. Some speculate he is taking the blame in lieu of Robert Joseph. Rice turns down Hadley's offer to resign.

July 27: Niger's prime minister Hama Hamadou interviewed by The Telegraph, says his government had never had discussions with Iraq about uranium and called on Tony Blair to produce the "evidence" he claims to have to confirm that Iraq sought uranium from Niger in the 1990s.

July 30: CIA reports to Justice Department a possible offense "concerning the unauthorized disclosure of classified information."

August: CIA completes an 11-question form detailing the potential damage done.

August 3: Sunday Telegraph reports that that Herman Cohen, former assistant secretary of state for Africa, had visited President Mamadou Tandja the previous week and warned him to keep silent on the Iraq uranium purchase story. Quotes a senior Niger government official as saying there was a "clear attempt to stop any more embarrassing stories coming out of Niger." He says Washington's warning would likely to be heeded: "Mr. Cohen did not spell it out but everybody in Niger knows what the consequences of upsetting America or Britain would be. We are the world's second-poorest country and we depend on international trade to survive."

September: Tenet memo raises questions about whether the leakers had violated federal law.

September: The Washington Post reports that at least six journalists had been told of the Plame story before Novak's column appeared.

White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan says that "[i]f anyone in this administration is involved in [the leak], they would no longer be in this administration."

The Justice Department launches a probe of the leak.

September: UK parliamentary report on prewar intelligence. Claims that "The SIS [Special Intelligence Service] stated that the documents did not affect its judgment of its second source and consequently the SIS continues to believe that the Iraqis were attempting to negotiate the purchase of uranium from Niger. We have questioned the SIS about the basis of its judgment and conclude that it is reasonable." ["Second source" apart from the Italian cache apparently the French report about the 1999 Iraqi visit to Niger.]

September: After press reports quoting Sen. Roberts as saying the Intelligence Committee investigation was almost over, Sen. Rockefeller sends a letter to Roberts urging him not to rush to complete the investigation prematurely. Wants to focus on administration use of "flawed intelligence" in the buildup to war.

September 14: in interview on NBC's "Meet the Press," Cheney says he had no knowledge of how Wilson was sent to Niger: "He never submitted a report that I ever saw when he came back. I don't know Mr. Wilson. I've never met Joe Wilson. I probably shouldn't judge him. I have no idea who hired him." "I don't know who sent Joe Wilson. I have no idea who hired him." Says he didn't even know Wilson had a wife. Denies any administration effort to discredit him.

September 29: Justice Department lawyers notified then-White House Counsel Alberto R. Gonzales at about 8 p.m. that the investigation had begun. Gonzales (now attorney general) later claims he alerted Chief of Staff Andrew H. Card Jr. at once.

Early October: Karl Rove calls MSNBC's "Hardball" host Chris Matthews and tells him Valerie Plame is "fair game." White House spokesman Scott McClellan tells reporters it was "totally ridiculous" to suspect Rove had a role in outing Plame.

October 7: Bush says, "I don't know if we're going to find out the senior administration official. Now, this is a large administration, and there's [sic] a lot of senior officials."

October 8: Rove interviewed by FBI, denies having leaked Plame's name, says only mentioned it to reporters after Novak's column had appeared. Says administration enlisted conservative interest groups and the Republican National Committee to leak disparaging information about Plame. [Nearly a year after this Rove's attorney, Robert Luskin, contacts Fitzgerald to say that Rove had recalled the conversation he'd had with Cooper about Plame-Wilson and her husband, Joseph. It was only after Cooper had been forced to testify about his conversation with Rove in summer of 2005 that Rove recalled the interview, even though the conversation had taken place in July 2000]

October 10: Asked directly if Rove and two other White House aides had ever discussed Valerie Plame with any reporters, McClellan says he has spoken with Libby, Rove and Elliott Abrams, and "those individuals assured me they were not involved in this."

October 14: Senator Tom Daschle asks CIA director George Tenet to conduct a damage assessment for the leak.

October 15: New York Times reports that senior criminal prosecutors and FBI officials have criticized the Attorney General's failure to recuse himself or appoint a special counsel.

October 17: David S. Cloud from the Wall Street Journal is the first to mention (other than Novak) the existence of the 2002 CIA memo that purports to show that Plame recommended Wilson for the Niger mission.

December 14: British newspaper The Telegraph reports it has "exclusively" obtained copy of memo written to Saddam Hussein by Tahir Jalil Habbush al-Tikriti, the former head of the Iraqi Intelligence Service, dated July 1, 2001, detailing a three-day "work programme" Atta had undertaken at Abu Nidal's base in Baghdad, and including a section entitled "Niger Shipment," including a report about an unspecified shipment (which Telegraph says is "believed to be uranium") that has been transported to Iraq via Libya and Syria. (Appears to remarkably verify all main Bush administration contentions about the reasons to attack Iraq, but a probable forgery.)

December 30: Attorney General John Ashcroft recuses himself from case because of close personal relationships with principals; Patrick Fitzgerald is named special prosecutor in the case.

2004

January: Grand jury in Plame case begins hearing testimony.
February 10: Several White House officials asked to sign waivers requesting that "no member of the news media assert any privilege or refuse to answer any questions from federal law enforcement authorities on my behalf or for my benefit." Miller's lawyers receive waiver from Libby.

March 5: Libby testifies before grand jury, says he learned Plame's name from reporters.

March 26: Libby testifies again before grand jury.

March: Senate Intelligence Committee chair Roberts says of any investigation of the Office of Special Plans: "It's basically on the back burner. The bottom line is that [the White House] believed the intelligence, and the intelligence was wrong."

June 10: Bush tells reporter "yes" when asked if he would "stand by your pledge to fire anyone" that leaked Plame's name.

July 9: "Report on the U.S. Intelligence Community's Prewar Intelligence Assessments on Iraq" released by Senate Intelligence Committee.

Blames CIA for "a series of failures, particularly in analytic tradecraft" that "led to the mischaracterization of the intelligence" on Iraq's WMDs. Includes 48 pages on the Niger uranium story; says Niger's former prime minister Ibrahim Mayaki had met an Iraqi delegation expecting to discuss uranium but had avoided the subject. Says CIA viewed Wilson's report as showing that Iraq had sought uranium from Africa, while the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR) believed it backed its their assessment that Niger was unwilling and unable to sell uranium to Iraq.

Chair Pat Roberts (R-Kansas) delays Phase II of investigation (examination of administration use of intelligence) until after November election.

July 14: Mayaki denies U.S. Senate report that he met with an Iraqi delegation seeking to buy uranium in 1999. Says "I think this could be easily verified by the Western intelligence services and by the authorities in Niger."

July 14: Butler Report released in the UK. States: "We have been told that it was not until early 2003 that the British Government became aware that the US (and other states) had received from a journalistic source a number of documents alleged to cover the Iraqi procurement of uranium from Niger. Those documents were passed to the IAEA, which in its update report to the United Nations Security Council in March 2003 determined that the papers were forgeries ... The forged documents were not available to the British Government at the time its assessment was made, and so the fact of the forgery does not undermine it."

August 1-2: Sunday Times and Financial Times both report that Rocco Martino says he was the source of the false stories and documents related to Iraq's alleged attempts to buy uranium from Niger. Says he did so for profit after learning of keen French interest in preventing unauthorized sale of uranium from French-owned uranium mines in Niger.

Also states U.S. and Italian governments were behind disinformation operation. "It's true, I had a hand in the dissemination of those (Niger uranium) documents, but I was duped. Both Americans and Italians were involved behind the scenes. It was a disinformation operation."

August 12 and August 20: grand jury subpoenas issued to Judith Miller and NYT.

August 27: CBS News breaks story of FBI investigation of possible spy for Israel (Larry Franklin) working in Defense Department as Iran specialist under Feith and Wolfowitz. [Franklin a member of the Ledeen team meeting with Italians and Iranians in Rome December 2001, as well as an Office of Special Plans operative.]

September 2: CBS bumps a half-hour segment on Niger document forgeries from its prime-time "60 Minutes" broadcast in favor of one concerning Bush's National Guard service.

October 15: Rove testifies for two hours before grand jury.

November 2: George W. Bush re-elected as U.S. president.

November: Rice made Secretary of State, replacing Powell; Hadley new National Security Advisor.

December: U.S. campaigns against third term for ElBaradei as IAEA chief, ostensibly because UN officials do not normally serve out three terms. (U.S. approach Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer as replacement but he and other possible candidates decline to challenge ElBaradei.)

December 12: Washington Post reports that three U.S. government officials have told them that the Bush administration has intercepted dozens of ElBaradei's phone calls with Iranian diplomats and has been scrutinizing them in search of ammunition to oust him as director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency.

2005

March 31: Commission on the Intelligence Capabilities of the United States Regarding Weapons of Mass Destruction issues its Report to the President of the United States. States pertaining to nuclear weapons program allegations that (1) aluminum tubes assessment was "poor analytical tradecraft;" (2) "other streams" of intelligence relating to nuclear program "very thin;" (3) "other indications of reconstitution" also "did not themselves amount to a persuasive case;" and (4) "the Intelligence Community failed to authenticate in a timely fashion transparently forged documents" relating to the alleged Niger connection.

April 12: Al Jazeera reports, "When the former CIA head of counter-terrorism [Vincent Cannistaro] was asked if a Michael Ledeen had been the one who produced the Iraq documents he said 'You'd be very close.'"

April 29: Wolfowitz, nominated by Bush in January to head World Bank, leaves Defense Department.

May 1: The London Sunday Times publishes the secret "Downing Secret Memo."

May 3: FBI files criminal espionage charges against Franklin.

May 17: White House press secretary Scott McClellan says accusations stemming from the "Downing Street Memo" that intelligence was "being fixed" to support a policy of regime change in Iraq are "flat out wrong."
June: Supreme Court refuses to hear appeals from New York Times reporter Judith Miller and Time magazine's Matt Cooper to avoid testifying before the grand jury.

June: Despite U.S. campaign against him, Dr. Mohamed ElBaradei elected to a third term as IAEA Director General.

June 21: Wolfowitz becomes head of the World Bank.
July: Cooper testifies before the grand jury, after his source releases him from a confidentiality pledge.

July 6: Miller jailed for contempt; says she wants to protect the identity of source(s) who leaked Plame's name to her.
[before September 5]: John Bolton among those visiting Miller in prison.

July 7: Bush tells reporters that if anyone in his administration committed a crime in connection with the leak, that person "will no longer work in my administration."

July: Italian parliamentary report on the forged Niger uranium documents. Names four men as the likely forgers of the documents: Michael Ledeen, Dewey Clarridge (CIA operative involved in Iran-Contra Affair), Ahmed Chalabi and Francis Brookes (member of a "public relations" body formed by the Pentagon engaged to promote Chalabi and the Iraqi National Congress). Suggests forgeries may have been planned at December 2001 Rome meeting involving Ledeen, Franklin.

Late July: Italian government receives a letter from Robert Mueller, the director of the FBI, expressing the highest appreciation for Italy for its cooperation with the investigation of the Niger document forgeries.

August 1: Bolton appointed temporary U.S. ambassador to UN after Congress refuses to confirm him. Campaigns for UNSC condemnation of Syria and Iran.

August 4: Robert Novak walks off CNN's "Inside Politics" set after uttering expletive. Host Ed Henry had planned to ask him about the Plame leak issue. CNN suspends Novak.

August 8: Douglas Feith steps down, leaves Defense Department.
September 29: Miller is released from jail after 85 days behind bares and testifies before the grand jury. She says her source has "voluntarily and personally released me from my promise of confidentiality." Recalls and submits notes from June 23, 2003 conversation with Libby.

October: Italian newspaper La Repubblica publishes exposé on forged Niger documents.

October 12: Miller questioned by grand jury. Says "cannot recall" who gave her Plame's name, but says it wasn't Libby.

October 14: Rove testifies before grand jury for the fourth time.

Oct. 17: In a press conference, President Bush declines to say whether he would remove an aide under indictment.

October: ElBaradei and the IAEA jointly awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. Widely interpreted as a statement against U.S. efforts to manipulate intelligence to attack Iraq, Iran.

October 18: Neocon publication The Weekly Standard features article by staff writer Stephen F. Hayes claiming the "narrative constructed to date by the mainstream media" surrounding the Plame investigation is "very misleading." Says CIA interpreted Wilson's report as supportive of the charge that Iraq sought yellowcake from Niger, and that administrations had not targeted Wilson and his wife for punishment.

On MSNBC's Hardball with Chris Matthews, Matthews describes Hayes' article as a "brilliant piece," says Hayes is "a great reporter, and. . .probably right in every regard."

October 19: Powell tells prominent Republican senator that Cheney had become "fixated" on the relationship between Wilson and his wife after he and Bush learned about it directly from Powell.

October 23: UPI editor Martin Walker cites "NATO intelligence sources" as saying, "Fitzgerald's team of investigators has sought and obtained documentation on the forgeries from the Italian government. Fitzgerald's team has been given the full, and as yet unpublished report of the Italian parliamentary inquiry into the affair.... This opens the door to what has always been the most serious implication of the CIA leak case, that the Bush administration could face a brutally damaging and public inquiry into the case for war against Iraq being false or artificially exaggerated."

October 28: Fitzgerald indicts Libby. Libby resigns and is replaced by John Hannah as Cheney's chief of staff.

October 28: Bush in speech on terrorism in Norfolk, Va. again states that Iraq posed a threat before invasion because it was pursuing nuclear weapons.

October 31: Berlusconi, accused of urging Italian intelligence to help U.S. build case for war on Iraq, tells Italian press that he had in fact argued against war with Iraq. Former Bush advisor and "Axis of Evil" speech writer neocon David Frum declares Bush "no longer trusts" Berlusconi on eve of his visit to Washington.

October 31: After meeting with Bush in Washington, Berlusconi tells Italian reporters, "Bush himself confirmed to me that the U.S.A. did not have any information [about alleged uranium sales from Niger to Iraq] from Italian [intelligence] agencies." No joint press conference following the meeting.

October 31: Writing in National Review Online, Ledeen calls for action against Iran, urges "our dithering leaders" to "resume fighting the war against terror, a war currently limited, to their shame, to a defensive struggle within the boundaries of Iraq, while they move against us on a global scale. Faster, please."

November 1: Rumsfeld tells Pentagon reporters he does not recall talking to Vice President Dick Cheney about undercover CIA officer Valerie Plame and is not aware of any involvement in the matter by the Defense Department. But says with a department of hundreds of thousands of people, he couldn't be sure.

November 2: Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid declares: "The record will. . .show that in the months and years after 9/11, the Administration engaged in a pattern of manipulation of the facts and retribution against anyone who got in its way as it made the case for attacking Iraq." Criticizes Senate Intelligence Committee chairman Roberts for foot-dragging on Phase II of the investigation into pre-war intelligence, intended to investigate Bush administration use or misuse of intelligence. Calls for closed-door session of the Senate; Senate agrees that each party will named three senators to an informal task force to decide by Nov. 14 how to proceed.

November 5: Senate Intelligence Committee's staff director, Bill Duhnke, says that Roberts' position is that "no way is staff going to pass judgment about members of Congress or the president" pertaining to their use of intelligence. Democrats disagree.

November 6: Sen. Roberts reiterates that his panel had found no evidence of "political manipulation or pressure" in the use of intelligence before the Iraq War.

November 7: Former Sen. Bob Graham (D-Fla.), former head of Senate Intelligence Committee tells Miami Herald he believes Cheney was a "conspirator" in the effort to discredit Wilson. Says "yes" when asked if he believed Bush administration lied about Iraq intelligence before the war.

November 7: In his National Review Online column, Ledeen implies that France responsible for Niger forgeries, claims French President Jacques Chirac wanted to embarrass the Clinton administration in power at the time they were forged and help Saddam Hussein.


* * * * *

In his Universal Fascism (1995), Ledeen wrote, "In order to achieve the most noble accomplishments, the leader may have to 'enter into evil.' This is the chilling insight that has made Machi

http://www.fas.org/irp/congress/2003_cr/s1946.html

Congressional Record: November 24, 2003 (Senate)
Page S15838-S15842


STATEMENTS ON INTRODUCED BILLS AND JOINT RESOLUTIONS

By Mr. CORZINE:

S. 1946. A bill to establish an independent national commission to
examine and evaluate the collection, analysis, reporting, use, and
dissemination of intelligence related to Iraq and Operation Iraqi
Freedom; to the Select Committee on Intelligence.

Mr. CORZINE. Mr. President, I am introducing today a bill to
establish an independent, bipartisan commission to examine intelligence
issues related to Iraq. This commission is necessary because what we
have discovered on the ground in Iraq has shown our intelligence to be
wrong. It is necessary because Administration officials misused
intelligence--that is, they made public statements and submitted
reports to Congress that the Administration knew at the time to be
unsupported by the available intelligence. And it is necessary because
inaccurate and misused intelligence played a role in leading us to war.

Accurate, objective, and credible intelligence is a fundamental
cornerstone of our national security, particularly in an age of shadowy
terrorist networks and clandestine weapons programs. Unless we improve
our intelligence, we risk failing to identify serious threats to the
United States and being distracted by lesser dangers at the expense of
larger and more urgent security concerns.

This effort must include not only the collection and analysis of
intelligence, but the use, reporting, and dissemination of intelligence
assessments. If the American people are asked to go to war to preempt
an attack, or--as in the case of Iraq--to prevent a possible future
threat from emerging, it is critical that the public statements of our
officials be supported by the available intelligence. If members of
Congress are to consider authorizing the use of force, particularly
against countries that have not attacked the United States, they must
be provided with honest and complete intelligence. And if our allies
are to be asked to join us in confronting these threats, the
intelligence that we share with them and that we rely on to bolster our
case must be credible in the eyes of the world.

I first proposed an independent commission to examine intelligence
related to Iraq last summer, when it became clear that President Bush
had made an important but unsubstantiated claim in his January 2002
State of the Union address. That claim was, quote: "The British
government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant
quantities of uranium from Africa."

Although this statement has been dismissed as the "16 words," its
significant cannot be overstated. The State of the Union address is the
most important, the most scrutinized speech the President delivers. The
statement concerned the most important topic a President can discuss--
whether to send Americans to war. And this claim was the most important
element of the President's argument for war: that there was evidence
that Saddam Hussein might have the necessary materials to produce a
nuclear bomb. As for the reference to the British government, it is
hard to imagine how the use of the word "learned" could imply
anything other than that the United States independently believed that
the claim was true.

It turns out that the Bush Administration had ample reason to know at
the time that what the President was telling the nation could not be
substantiated. The CIA had sought to dissuade the White House from
making claims about uranium purchases. And on February 5, a week after
the State of the Union address, Secretary of State Powell made a
presentation to the Untied Nations in which he omitted the claim
precisely because it was not supported by the available intelligence.

Despite this knowledge, the Administration never issued a
clarification. As a result, the President's statement stood, as an
important element of the Administration's case for war. Only last
summer, after Americans learned from Ambassador Joe Wilson and others
what Administration officials knew at the time, did the Administration
acknowledge that the uranium allegation should never have been included
in the State of the Union Address.

The case generated outrage across party lines. Republicans as well as
Democrats expressed serious concern about the credibility of the
Administration and the country. They stressed that cabinet members, the
vice president, and the entire administration are responsible for
honestly representing intelligence. They called for someone in the
Administration to be held accountable. The Senate passed a resolution
by voice vote. The chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee
promised to undertake a, quote "very aggressive review." And the Bush
Administration insisted that it would cooperate. As White House
spokesman Ari Fleischer stated on June 11, quote: "The Administration
welcomes the review. It's important."

In July, when I first sought to establish this commission, there was
no dispute that the use of intelligence, as well as the collection and
analysis of intelligence, should be examined. Republicans who voted
against the commission did so, they said, because the commission would
intrude on the jurisdiction of the Intelligence Committee. I was, and
remain supportive of efforts by the committee to look into the use of
intelligence related to Iraq, an inquiry that is clearly included
within the committee's jurisdiction. But it was and is my belief that
an independent, bipartisan commission, building on the findings of
Congressional and other investigations, could undertake the most
thorough, depoliticized review possible.

Now, however, it seems an independent commission is the only
remaining means left to examine the use, or misuse, of intelligence. On
November 13, the Chairman of the Intelligence Committee announced that
there would be no examination of how intelligence was used by
policymakers. I deeply regret this decision by the chairman and
fervently hope the committee will ultimately exercise its role,
established in the resolution laying out its jurisdiction,
in overseeing the, quote: "use or dissemination" of intelligence. In
the meantime, I would expect that an independent commission would
receive strong bipartisan support.

It is now beyond question that our intelligence on Iraq was
inaccurate. After months of searching, investigative teams have yet to
find stockpiles of chemical or biological weapons. David Kay, who heads
up the Iraqi Survey Group, has stated that Iraq's nuclear program was
only at the, quote: "very most rudimentary level." The Administration
has yet to produce evidence of the high-level ties between Iraq and al
Qaeda that it warned of prior to the war. And now, tragically, we must
add to the list of intelligence failures the inability to anticipate
the current resistance to U.S. occupation. Clearly, the facts and
circumstances surrounding these failings warrant a detailed and
systematic review.

But what of the use of intelligence? As important as the State of
the Union address was, that speech was only part of a larger case made
by the Administration for war. Administration officials made many
claims--particularly those related to chemical and biological weapons--
that were expressed in terms that were more specific and more certain
than the intelligence may have supported. Most troubling, however, were
the highly dubious assessments and suggestions related to nuclear
programs and terrorism with which the Administration built its most
powerful and emotionally potent argument. That argument had three
elements: 1. That Iraq had a nuclear weapons program, and possibly even
a nuclear weapon; 2. that Saddam Hussein was allied with al Qaeda, and
that he may have been involved with the terrorist attacks of September
11; and 3. that the threat was imminent.

The Administration began to make its argument in the summer of 2002.
As vice President Cheney stated in an August 26 speech, quote: "Simply
stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass
destruction." In an indication of how Administration officials would
make their case over the next seven months, the vice president insisted
that the intelligence indicated no doubt, no internal disagreement, and
no uncertainty.

Then, on September 12, President bush, in his speech to the United
Nations, went further, stating, quote: "right now, Iraq is expanding
and improving facilities that were used for the production of
biological weapons." the President also made two statements regarding
Iraq's alleged nuclear program. The first was that Iraq had made,
quote: "several attempts to buy high-strength aluminum tubes used to
enrich uranium for a nuclear weapon." He failed to mention that
neither the Department of Energy nor the Department of State's Bureau
of Intelligence and Research believed that the tubes were intended for
that purpose. The President's second statement added the missing
ingredient: the uranium itself. As the President stated, quote:
"Should Iraq acquire fissile material, it would be able to build a
nuclear weapon within year." This was the context for the President's
claim made in the State of the Union address that Iraq had sought to
purchase uranium from Africa.

The Administration continued making its case throughout the fall of
2002, adding claims concerning ties between Saddam Hussein and al
Qaeda. One of many examples was Secretary Rumsfeld's September 26
statement that the

Administration had, quote: "very reliable reporting of senior level
contacts going back a decade."

As Congress deliberated whether to authorize the use of force against
Iraq, the Administration officials made increasingly alarming
statements about Iraq's ties to al Qaeda and about its nuclear weapons
program. On October 7, three days before the vote in the House of
Representatives and four days before the vote in the Senate, President
Bush gave a speech in which he said, unequivocally, that, quote: "We
know that Iraq and al Qaeda have had high-level contacts that go back a
decade," and, quote: "The evidence indicates the Iraq is
reconstituting its nuclear weapons program." He repeated the
allegations about uranium tubes and the warning about purchases of
uranium. Then the President put it all together--the implication that
Iraq was connected to the September 11 attacks, the implication that
Iraq could have a nuclear bomb at any time, and the warning that Saddam
Hussein could decide on any day to explode a nuclear bomb in the United
States. Here is what the President said: "Why do we need to confront
it Saddam now? And there's a reason. We've experienced the horror of
September the 11th. We have seen that those who hate America are
willing to crash airplanes into