Hadley: "It's right, it was right at the time, and it's right now."

[underpants]

Martha Raddatz blogs for ABC News: "The White House made a stunning admission Wednesday that appeared to suggest President Bush has directly contradicted himself about when he learned U.S. intelligence that Iran had halted its nuclear weapons program. . . .

"After taking a reporters' question earlier today about exactly what the President was told, White House press secretary Dana Perino provided a response to reporters Wednesday night.

"Perino stated Bush had been told in August that Iran suspended it's covert nuclear weapons program.

"'In August, DNI Director McConnell advised President Bush that the intelligence community would not be able to meet a congressionally imposed deadline requiring a National Intelligence Estimate on Iran because new information had been obtained just as they were about to finalize the report,' Perino wrote in an emailed response.


"'He said that if the new information turns out to be true, what we thought we knew for sure is right. Iran does in fact have a covert nuclear weapons program, but it may be suspended,' Perino's email said.

"Perino also said McConnell told the President the new information might cause the intelligence community to change its assessment of Iran's covert nuclear program."

Ed Henry reports for CNN: "The new account from Perino seems to contradict the president's version of his August conversation with McConnell and raised new questions about why Bush continued to warn the American public about a threat from Iran two months after being told a new assessment was in the works.

"But Perino said there was no conflict between her statement and Bush's Tuesday account of the meeting, when he said McConnell 'didn't tell me what the information was.'

"'The president wasn't given the specific details' of the revised intelligence estimate, which was released Monday, Perino said. Nor did Bush mislead Americans in October, when he warned of a third world war triggered by Iran's development of nuclear technology, she said.

"'The president didn't say we're going to cause World War III,' Perino said. 'He was saying he wanted to avoid World War III.' . . .

"And Perino called Ahmadinejad a 'liar' Wednesday, because the new NIE shows that Tehran did have a clandestine nuclear weapons program at one time.

"'If anyone wants to call the president a liar, they are misreading the situation for their own political purposes,' Perino said. 'The liar is Ahmadinejad, and he has a lot of explaining to do.'"

National security adviser Stephen Hadley spoke this morning to NPR's Renee Montagne and echoed Perino's new line.

Montagne expressed skepticism about Bush's version of his talk with McConnell: "Given that Iran is at the top of this administration's concerns, did that conversation end there?"

Hadley: "The director of national intelligence did alert the president that there was some new information. He didn't go into great detail on that information. And he also advised is that this was one of many streams of information, some of which were potentially in conflict. So he basically said, 'Mr. President, there's something that may be new, it indicated that there was a covert nuclear weapons program, but it may have been suspended -- its too soon to tell. We're going to work the information and come back to you, Mr. President.' And then they went off and worked it, and that's what you'd hope your intelligence community would do."

Montagne: "But didn't the president ask for more information on one of the most important aspects of his foreign policy?"

Hadley: "The president has been asking for more information on Iran for the last several years. He's spent a lot of time actually bringing the Iranian analysts in and interacting with them directly, trying to probe, understand what they know. . . ."

Montagne: "Why, weeks later, was he warning about Iran's nuclear weapons program possibly leading to World War III? That's pretty strong rhetoric."

Hadley: "It's right, it was right at the time, and it's right now."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/blog/2007/12/06/BL2007120601312_pf.html