Bush knew Niger uranium story was bunk

The most important story today has been Murray Waas' report that Bush knew perfectly well that the tale he told during the 2003 State of the Union speech about Iraq attempting to get yellow-cake uranium from Niger and that the aluminuim tubes purchased by Iraq were for acquiring weapons grade fissionable material were bunk, but he told it to the American people and the world anyway. Fortunately for Rove and Bush, the information that had been given Bush was concealed in highly classified documents.

But the fact is, Bush Lied. To everyone.

Karl Rove then spent the next year or so using every power the government has to shut down all accurate reporting that Bush had been informed the story was not true before he used the lie. Rove feared that such reports would make it much more difficult for Bush to be reelected in 2004.

Hadley was particularly concerned that the public might learn of a classified one-page summary of a National Intelligence Estimate, specifically written for Bush in October 2002. The summary said that although "most agencies judge" that the aluminum tubes were "related to a uranium enrichment effort," the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research and the Energy Department's intelligence branch "believe that the tubes more likely are intended for conventional weapons."

Three months after receiving that assessment, the president stated without qualification in his January 28, 2003, State of the Union address: "The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa. Our intelligence sources tell us that he has attempted to purchase high-strength aluminum tubes suitable for nuclear weapons production."

When Joe Wilson published his signed editorial July 6, 2003 stating that his investigations in Africa had shown that the Niger story was a hoax, Rove and the White House were in full defensive mode. July 18th, 2003 Robert Novak published his article which exposed Valerie Plame, Joe Wilson's wife, as a covert CIA agent. This had the effect of destroying her networks which were designed to prevent nuclear proliferation and it destroyed her CIA career.

As we now know, the entire White House effort to prevent the American public from knowing that Bush had knowingly lied about Iraqi nuclear weapons programs was successful, and Bush was able to muddle his way to reelection in 2004 with the assistance of major efforts by the Ohio Secretary of State to repress Democratic voter turnout.

Murray Waas has done a superb reporting job on the outing of Valerie Plame. The earlier articles he has published in the National Journal can be found at this list of links.