How is telling the truth about the Niger forgeries a "smear campaign"?
quote]
Beacuse the CIA , based on his report, thought the Iraq-Niger deal was MORE likely , not less likely.
If he had a problem with that ,he should have complained to his bosses at the CIA.
The Iraq - Niger deal was meaningless in the decsion to invade Iraq and Bush uttered those 16 words in good faith as been proved time and again.
Read the Butler report.
Wilson, a partisan Democrat, served NO purpose in that op-ed piece but to undermine Bush.
His "bosses" at the CIA??? HE DIDN'T WORK FOR THE CIA. They weren't his bosses.
BTW, the CIA told Bush and his speechwriters to leave those words out of the speech, you knew that right?
BBC NEWS | Americas | White House 'warned over Iraq claim'
"
Now the CIA official has told the BBC that Mr Wilson's findings had been passed onto the White House as early as March 2002.
That means that the administration would have known nearly a year before the State of the Union address that the information was likely false."
A Question of Trust | TIME
"The line—"The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa"—wasn't the Bush team's strongest evidence for the case that Saddam wanted nuclear weapons.
It was just the most controversial, since most government experts familiar with the statement believed it to be unsupportable."
And, if you'll forgive me for using Truthout as a source since The Washington Post apparently has purged the file from their online archives, I'll quote the Post from 7/11/2003:
t r u t h o u t - CIA Warned British Not to Use Niger Evidence
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]
"At that time, the CIA was completing its own classified national intelligence estimate on Iraq's chemical, biological and nuclear weapons programs. Although the CIA paper mentioned alleged Iraqi attempts to buy uranium from three African countries, it warned that State Department analysts were questioning its accuracy when it came to Niger and that CIA personnel considered reports on other African countries to be "sketchy," the official said. The CIA paper's summary conclusions about whether Iraq was restarting its nuclear weapons program did not include references to Iraqi attempts to buy uranium in Africa."
let's continue:
[/FONT][FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]
" But CBS News National Security Correspondent David Martin reports that before the State of the Union speech was delivered, CIA officials warned members of the president's National Security Council staff that the intelligence was not good enough to make the flat statement Iraq tried to buy uranium from Africa.[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]
[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]
According to sources, White House officials responded that a September dossier issued by the British government contained the unequivocal assertion: "Iraq has.sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa."[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]
[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]
As long as the statement was attributed to British intelligence, the White House officials argued, it would be factually accurate. The CIA officials dropped their objections."[/FONT]
So tell me, why do you keep making stuff up to substantiate your non-existent position?
Wilsons purpose was to TELL THE TRUTH. A concept you and your ilk are apparently incapable of comprehending.