Text of Tenet Statement (NYT)

[Merlin]

Text of Tenet Statement (NYT) <Contains a Flat-out Lie>

"Portions of the State of the Union speech draft came to the C.I.A. for comment shortly before the speech was given. ...the documents related to the alleged Niger-Iraqi uranium deal had not yet been determined to be forgeries..."

That's patent bullshit. Wilson put the lie to it almost a year earlier in his mission undertaken at the behest of ...who? The CIA.

Tenet's complete, convoluted statement is here:

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/07/12/international/worldspecial/12TTEX.html

Imo, you can skip everything except the first and last graph.

[lanlady]

1. not necessarily a lie

Didn't Wilson say he was not shown the forged document? I think you may be jumping the gun.

[NNN0LHI]

2. Someone was shown the forgeries

Or why did Cheney send ambassador Wilson there to check their veracity?

Don

[Merlin]

6. Here's what Kristof wrote on June 13th.

This was before Wilson went public, but he is undoubtedly the "former ambassador to Africa" discussed.

...the tale begins at the end of 2001, when third-rate forged documents turned up in West Africa purporting to show the sale by Niger to Iraq of tons of "yellowcake" uranium. Italy's intelligence service obtained the documents and shared them with British spooks, who passed them on to Washington. Mr. Cheney's office got wind of this and asked the C.I.A. to investigate.

The agency chose a former ambassador to Africa to undertake the mission, and that person flew to Niamey, Niger, in the last week of February 2002. This envoy spent one week in Niger, staying at the Sofitel and discussing his findings with the U.S. ambassador to Niger, and then flew back to Washington via Paris.

Immediately upon his return, in early March 2002, this senior envoy briefed the C.I.A. and State Department and reported that the documents were bogus, for two main reasons. First, the documents seemed phony on their face — for example, the Niger minister of energy and mines who had signed them had left that position years earlier. Second, an examination of Niger's uranium industry showed that an international consortium controls the yellowcake closely, so the Niger government does not have any yellowcake to sell.

http://www.globalpolicy.org/security/issues/iraq/unmovic/2003/0613denial.htm

Further on, Kristof says "My understanding is that while Director of Central Intelligence George Tenet may not have told Mr. Bush that the Niger documents were forged, lower C.I.A. officials did tell both the vice president's office and National Security Council staff members."

In any case, the fact that they were forged did not require an investigation. The bogus signature is prima facia evidence of that fact.

[Nottingham]

8. Merlin great article! Cheney is the major player here!

Tenet is trying to deflect the attention! :bounce:

[Rose Siding]

3. dupe- here's a link

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=9327&mesg_id=9327&listing_type=search

[AP]

4. Wilson never saw the Niger documents.

He never saw the letter. In fact, I don't think anyone who has commented on this letter has seen it first hand, which is strange.

That's why T. can say this. The letters can be referred to as this thing which gave the report tenuous credibilty.

[Merlin]

7. Doesn't that sound like a lie as well?

I referred in a post above to Kristof's column of June 13th in which he talks about Wilson's assignment, though Wilson's name was not then public:

"Immediately upon his return, in early March 2002, this senior envoy briefed the C.I.A. and State Department and reported that the documents were bogus, for two main reasons. First, the documents seemed phony on their face — for example, the Niger minister of energy and mines who had signed them had left that position years earlier. Second, an examination of Niger's uranium industry showed that an international consortium controls the yellowcake closely, so the Niger government does not have any yellowcake to sell."

Are we to believe that the CIA dispatched him because of reports from Italian and British intelligence about this document, but that they never got a copy. That's laughable.

I understand that you're repeating what Wilson said. I'm saying there is conflicting evidence on that point, and the notion the CIA hadn't seen the document and discovered it was a forgery prior to SOTU is absolute, total bullshit.

[Octafish]

5. It may be 'factually correct' to say...

... the speech accomplished its intended objective: Create a sufficiently high level of fear in the people of the United States to "justify" attacking a country with which we were at peace.

Regarding Tenet: It's a miracle the guy's still alive. While he has the goods on Smirko from all those July White House and August in Crawford briefings regarding Osama readying Operation Bojinka II, Poppy's Old Tyme pals in the Agency know who received photocopies and CD-ROMs. They know Poppy knows, too.

What Tenet needs to do is exactly what he's doing to stay protected and protect the Constitution. He's creating a public record of what was what by whom in order to invite Congressional and CIA-controlled mass media investigation.

The reason. Tenet is putting his friends in the CIA and throughuot the intelligence community on notice that Bush, indeed, is a crook.

[UTUSN]

9. Sounds Like He's Blaming the NSA and the Brits

So who wrote the sixteen words?

[VolcanoJen]

10. Dupe.... locking

Please continue discussion of this topic by posting in the original, earlier thread, which can be found here:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=102&topic_id=9327&mesg_id=9327&page=2

Thanks,
VolcanoJen
DU Moderator