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CIA Director George Tenet took responsibility on Friday for a false claim by US President George W. Bush over Iraq's nuclear ambitions which raised embarrassing questions about the way he made the case for war against Saddam Hussein.
"I am responsible for the approval process in my agency," Tenet said in a statement marking the latest twist in the controversy over an alleged Iraq-Niger uranium deal that has embroiled both the US and British governments.
Bush, seeking to win backing for the invasion of Iraq that US-led forces launched in March, cited the uranium deal in his State of the Union address in January, calling it evidence that Saddam was trying to develop nuclear weapons.
The White House acknowledged last week the accusation should not have been in the speech because the documents it was based on have been shown to have been forged.
"We now know that documents alleging a transaction between Iraq and Niger had been forged," White House national security spokesman Michael Anton said, stressing that the White House did not learn the documents were fraudulent before including the charge in Bush's speech.
"The other reporting that suggested that Iraq had tried to obtain uranium from Africa is not detailed or specific enough for us to be certain that such attempts were in fact made," he said.
"Because of this lack of specificity, this reporting alone did not rise to the level for inclusion in a presidential speech," the spokesman said.
Bush, who has been dogged by the issue during his tour of Africa, said on Friday the wording had been approved by his "intelligence services."
Hours later Tenet issued his statement in Washington, saying: "The president had every reason to believe that the text presented to him was sound."
Tenet said the reference to an Iraqi attempt to buy African uranium, quoting British intelligence, "should never have been included in the text."
Bush, speaking to reporters in Entebbe, Uganda, repeated he had been right to go to war against Saddam.
"I gave a speech to the nation that was cleared by the intelligence services," Bush said. "It speaks in detail to the American people of the dangers posed by the Saddam Hussein regime. My government took the appropriate response to those dangers."
Critics have accused the Bush administration and British Prime Minister Tony Blair of misleading the public by hyping a weapons-of-mass-destruction threat posed by Saddam.
In a lengthy session with reporters on the issue, US national security adviser Condoleezza Rice said: "The CIA cleared the speech in its entirety...if (Tenet) had said, 'Take this out of the speech,' then it would have been done."
Rice, accompanying Bush in Africa, said the specific reference to African uranium had been scrutinized by the CIA.
Rice said Tenet had been a "terrific DCI (Director of Central Intelligence). "I am really not blaming anybody," she said.
Rice said although Bush's statement about the uranium had cited British intelligence, the "underlying intelligence" was in the official US National Intelligence Estimate.
She said no one had expressed doubts to Bush about the information underlying the National Intelligence Estimate, a report that has input from the 13 US spy agencies and includes consensus and dissenting opinions.
On Wednesday, Britain defended its allegations that Saddam had sought uranium from Niger for a nuclear weapons program, saying its evidence was separate from the forged information.
Tenet's statement said Bush's speech was "technically" correct because the British were in fact reporting that Iraq was seeking uranium from Africa.
"This did not rise to the level of certainty which should be required for presidential speeches, and the CIA should have ensured that it was removed," Tenet said.
Senator Pat Roberts of Kansas, the Republican chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, criticized the CIA for "extremely sloppy handling" of the information.
Roberts blamed Tenet, but stopped short of calling for the CIA director's resignation, saying that such a decision was the president's call.
(China Daily July 14, 2003)
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