CIA Says It cabled Key Iraq Data to White House

CIA Says It Cabled Key Data to White House

By Walter Pincus -Washington Post Staff Writer

Friday, June 13, 2003; Page A16

The CIA, facing criticism for its failure to pass on a key piece of information that put in doubt Iraq's purported attempts to buy uranium from Niger, said yesterday it sent a cable to the White House and other government agencies in March 2002 that said the claim had been denied by officials from the central African country.

But Bush administration officials acknowledged that the 11/2-page document did not include the conclusion of a former U.S. ambassador dispatched by the CIA to Niger the month before that documents outlining a transfer of uranium to Baghdad were not authentic. The CIA cable attributed the Niger officials' denials to an anonymous source, but failed to mention the name of the former ambassador, who was a recognized expert in Africa, or that it had sent him to Niger.

An administration official said yesterday that the CIA report was only one of many such cables received by the White House each day.

Rice, in defending Bush's decision to claim that Iraq was attempting to buy uranium in Africa in his State of the Union speech on Jan. 28, said she was unaware that there were doubts about the information. "Maybe someone knew down in the bowels of the agency," Rice said on NBC's "Meet the Press" on Sunday, "but no one in our circles knew that there were doubts and suspicions that this might be a forgery."

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printed from CIA Says It cabled Key Iraq Data to White House on 2004-06-20 02:06:51