CBS changes headline and more on uranium

Earlier I quoted a CBS story headlined "Bush Knew Iraq Info Was False". I went back recently to double check something on the article and discovered that the headline had been changed - to "Bush Knew Iraq Info Was Dubious". It's always interesting to see the media backpedal on something like that.

I got a couple screencaps just for reference - the first is the Google News Search Page showing the original title still in it's records, with the link URL listed in the status bar at the bottom of the page. The second is the revised CBS news page.

This isn't one of the more serious revisions, but it's still something to note.

In other news, the Washington Post is reporting that in early September, 2002, the CIA had asked the British to drop the claim about Saddam trying to buy uranium from Africa.

“WE CONSULTED about the paper and recommended against using that material,” a senior administration official familiar with the intelligence program said. The British government rejected the U.S. suggestion, saying it had separate intelligence unavailable to the United States.

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.

Tony Blair is still holding onto his claim that they have intelligence from an unidentified third country that Saddam tried to buy uranium from countries in Africa, and that they have not shared that information with us. Personally, if I were in the CIA right now, or if I were President Bush, I'd be on the phone trying to see that intelligence for myself.

Its kind of interesting that the administration is claiming that they included the information in the State of the Union speech because it was included in a British report, but the CIA tried to get the British to remove the information from their reports - and the British are trying to say they have solid information on it, but they just haven't shared it with us. Someone needs to get all this information together and figure out what's going on.

Posted by thorswitch at July 11, 2003 10:12 AM | TrackBack