Reply #82: Rove, Libby tried to identify Iraq nuclear aim

[niceypoo]

WASHINGTON -- At the same time in July 2003 that a CIA operative's identity was exposed, two key White House officials who talked to journalists about the officer also were working closely together on a related underlying issue: whether President Bush was correct in suggesting earlier that year that Iraq had been trying to acquire nuclear materials from Africa.

The two issues had become inextricably linked because former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, the husband of the unmasked CIA officer, had questioned Bush's assertion, prompting a damage-control effort by the White House that included challenging Wilson's standing and his credentials.

People who have been briefed on the case said that the White House officials, Karl Rove and I. Lewis Libby Jr., were helping to prepare what became the administration's primary response to criticism that a flawed phrase about the nuclear materials in Africa had been included in Bush's State of the Union address six months earlier.

At the same time, they were grappling with the fallout from an Op-Ed article on July 6, 2003, in The New York Times by Wilson in which he criticized the way the administration had used intelligence to support the claim in Bush's speech.

It is not clear what information Rove and Libby might have collected about Valerie Wilson as they worked on the Tenet statement.

The effort was particularly striking because to an unusual degree, the circle of administration officials involved included those from the White House's political and national security operations, which are often separately run. Both arms were drawn into the effort to defend the administration during the period.

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/233632_rove22.html

They had their national security and their propaganda arms both working together?? Well, duh. Gotta make that case for war no matter what!

Two years of denials. Fire the piece of crap AKA "turd blossom"