Insulating Bush

[proud2BlibKansan]

Insulating Bush

By Murray Waas, National Journal
© National Journal Group Inc.
Thursday, March 30, 2006

Karl Rove, President Bush's chief political adviser, cautioned other White House aides in the summer of 2003 that Bush's 2004 re-election prospects would be severely damaged if it was publicly disclosed that he had been personally warned that a key rationale for going to war had been challenged within the administration. Rove expressed his concerns shortly after an informal review of classified government records by then-Deputy National Security Adviser Stephen J. Hadley determined that Bush had been specifically advised that claims he later made in his 2003 State of the Union address -- that Iraq was procuring high-strength aluminum tubes to build a nuclear weapon -- might not be true, according to government records and interviews.

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."

The previously undisclosed review by Hadley was part of a damage-control effort launched after former Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV alleged that Bush's claims regarding the uranium were not true. The CIA had sent Wilson to the African nation of Niger in 2002 to investigate the purported procurement efforts by Iraq; he reported that they were most likely a hoax.

more . . .
http://news.nationaljournal.com/articles/0330nj1.htm

[saltpoint]

1. Karl Rove is a disease. An affliction. A cancer on the public interest.

The administration is intent on political survival and has never realized its first duty: to serve the public interest.

This story doesn't surprise many of us on DU but it is more widely circulated than our comments generally, and will find a wider audience. The impression that this adminsitration is bad news is more and more the norm and no longer the exception.

Karl Rove -- let me just say it again brothers and sisters -- has the ethics of a crocodile.

[acmejack]

2. You obviously hold him in higher regard than I

[saltpoint]

3. : ) ---- Hi, acmejack. Can't help it, I guess. I'm such a softie.

[proud2BlibKansan]

4. This article was recommended by

the US congressman from KC. When my friend called him about another issue, he said he recommended we all read this.

:woohoo:

[saltpoint]

5. Sounds like a pretty cool Congressman to me.

I hope a lot of red voter people read it and re-consider their positions. The 2006 midterms are coming soon, and then there's 2008.

The bluer the better.

[proud2BlibKansan]

6. He really isn't very cool

but he is waking up.