October 02, 2004

NYT on The Tubes

The NYT has 15-screenfuls on the aluminum tubes which were supposed to prove that Iraq had a nuclear weapons program.

I didn't read the whole thing, but from "How the White House Embraced Disputed Iraqi Arms Intelligence":

In 2002, at a crucial juncture on the path to war, senior members of the Bush administration gave a series of speeches and interviews in which they asserted that Saddam Hussein was rebuilding his nuclear weapons program...

Ms. Rice's alarming description on CNN was in keeping with the administration's overall treatment of the tubes. Senior administration officials repeatedly failed to fully disclose the contrary views of America's leading nuclear scientists, The Times found. They sometimes overstated even the most dire intelligence assessments of the tubes, yet minimized or rejected the strong doubts of their own experts. They worried privately that the nuclear case was weak, but expressed sober certitude in public...

"It is most disturbing that Winpac is essentially directing foreign policy in this matter," one Energy Department official wrote in an e-mail message. "There are some very strong points to be made in respect to Iraq's arrogant noncompliance with U.N. sanctions. However, when individuals attempt to convert those 'strong statements' into the 'knock out' punch, the Administration will ultimately look foolish - i.e., the tubes and Niger!"

On this matter, the administration seems to have failed the "global test." Perhaps we could have made our case without at the same time lowering America's credibility throughout the world.

Posted to Iraq at October 2, 2004 02:45 PM

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