The Associated Press quotes White House spokesman Ari Fleischer as saying on Monday:
"I think the bottom has been gotten to... No one can accurately tell you it was wrong. That is not known."
Sounds a bit like Reagan's "Mistakes were made." Bureaucratic obfuscators avoiding responsibility for their actions choose the passive voice. "The bottom has been gotten to." By whom? Not the Bush Administration, who for the last 2 months steadfastly insisted that Iraq had attempted to buy material to build a nuclear weapon from "an African country."
But now they have done a complete 180, and lay blame for the mistake at the Director of the CIA's feet. Being a good lackey, Tenet has accepted the blame, despite the fact that the CIA had questioned the reports of Niger selling Iraq uranium. In February 2002, the CIA sent former US ambassador Joseph C. Wilson to check on the report that Niger had sold yellow cake to Iraq. As he explains in
this editorial in the New York Times he reported back in March of 2003 that in all likelihood, the report was false; that the documents upon which the report was based were forged.
Somehow, despite the fact that VP Cheney's office should have received this report or briefing in March, Cheney and the Bush Administration continued to assert that Iraq had attempted to get uranium from an African country. Perhaps in the intervening months, they were looking for other evidence to retroactively substantiate their claim, though they had already invaded Iraq. (Ooops!) Regardless, they continued to stand behind their assertion that Iraq had attempted to acquire nuclear material from an African country, until it was apparent to all who cared to look that the Bush Administration's claim was baseless and unsubstantiated.
I only see two possibilities for why they would act in this way:
- The Bush Administration deliberately and knowingly lied to the US public, in order to gain the necessary support to invade another sovereign country, knowing that this would kill thousands of people -- many of them civilians.
- The Bush Administration was (still) acting incompetently in March 2003 and some how misplaced or misunderstood critical evidence and reports from the CIA.
A year and a half after the US was (supposedly) blindsided by the September 11 attacks, we simply cannot tolerate
either of the above explanations. Bush is either incompetent or he so hates Saddam Hussein he is willing to kill innocent people to get Hussein out of power. Either way, we should not allow the head of our country's foreign policy and military to remain in power when he is so obviously incapable of acting morally and competently. George the II and 100% of his cabinet must go, the sooner the better. Bush will argue that to change administrations now, or even after the upcoming 2004 elections would be dangerous during "a time of war." But he's more concerned about the "danger" to himself and his lackeys than to the US. A change of leadership is less dangerous than waiting to see if the Bush Administration will continue invading other countries who are not direct threats, while ignoring entities and issues that clearly are more important, such as fully securing and rebuilding Afghanistan, finding bin Laden, completely destroying Al Qaeda, or dealing with North Korea's blatant threats.
Yes, as Ari says, "the bottom has been gotten to." But the truth of the matter wasn't found by the Bush Administration who can't seem to tell if Iraq bought uranium or not. However, the Bush Administration may be able to claim they have gotten to the same "bottom as Nixon did during Watergate and Reagan did during Iran-Contra: They have lied to and misled the US public in matters with the gravest of consequences. And they have done so either out of unacceptable incompetence or for the sole purpose of advancing their otherwise unpopular and self-serving goals of conquest.