WASHINGTON --- New evidence collected by a Congressional oversight committee contradicts assertions by White House officials that the CIA concurred with President Bush's claim in the 2003 State of the Union that Iraq had sought uranium from Africa.
In a letter (pdf) released today, Henry A. Waxman (D-CA), chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government reform, said information gathered in the committee's ongoing investigation "casts serious doubt on the veracity" of claims White House counsel Alberto Gonzales made that the CIA had "orally cleared" the use of the uranium line by President Bush.
The controversy surrounding the uranium claims began in September 2002, as White House officials hoped to include it in speeches by the president to bolster the administration's case for war in Iraq. The language claiming Iraq had sought uranium from Africa, allegedly for use in a nuclear weapons program, was removed from a speech Bush gave to the United Nations on Sept. 12, 2002, as well as a speech at the White House Rose Garden two weeks later.
But at the State of the Union speech on January 28, 2003, Bush uttered the claim that "the British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa" --- 16 words that have been a lightning rod of controversy ever since.
The new evidence behind Congressman Waxman's letter comes from interviews with two officials directly involved in the speech clearing process.
John Gibson, a speechwriter on the National Security Council staff, told the House committee in an interview about the insertion of the uranium claim, that the "CIA was not willing to clear that language" and "at the end of the day, they did not clear it." Jami Miscik, the Deputy Director of Intelligence at the CIA, told the committee that the White House assertions that the CIA cleared the language were "not accurate" and "misleading."
Miscik, who normally was not involved in CIA reviews of White House speeches, became involved when CIA staff asked for her help because officials who worked for Dr. Rice, then the National Security Adviser, were not deleting the uranium claim from speeches. Miscik and Rice spoke about the matter by phone.
All of this contradicts what White House Counsel Gonzales told Waxman's committee in a letter on January 6, 2004 --- that the CIA "orally cleated" the uranium claim "for use by the President" in both September 2002 speeches.
In the letter, Waxman noted he was departing the Oversight committee next month to chair the Energy and Commerce committee. It is not clear what else prompted him to release the information now, nearly six years after Bush made the uranium claim in the State of the Union.
His most famous 16 words
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