Bush admin: 'okay, Niger claims were false'

Little by little, administration LIES are being exposed.

"Knowing all that we know now, the reference to Iraq's attempt to acquire uranium from Africa should not have been included in the State of the Union speech," a senior Bush administration official said last night in a statement authorized by the White House.

Of course, we have subsequently learned that

1) Nearly a year earlier, the CIA dispatched former diplomat Joseph Wilson to investigate the claims. Wilson reported that the claims were bunk.

2) A Parliamentary inquiry in the UK conclusively determined that the Niger intelligence was faulty.

With no legs left to stand on, the administration had to do what it never does -- admit it was wrong.

Of course, the administration is spinning that Bush and his enablers didn't know any better (though what does that say about their competence -- unable to determine that a blatant forgery is a just that -- a blatant forgery?). They spin victimhood -- hoodwinked by those incompetent intelligence agencies!

However, that explanation doesn't hold water, especially considering that Wilson had debunked the claims nearly a year prior. Heck, the IAEA maintained the docs were fakes before the war began, though the truth was irrelevant to an administration hell-bent on war.

And now that Bush and his people are trying to point the blame at the CIA, let's see if those prolific leakers get back to work.

A congressional investigation is clearly warranted, but won't happen so long as the Republicans hold sway in both chambers. Still, the obvious answer to their obstinacy is: if Bush has nothing to hide, and didn't use faulty intelligence to get his war, why fight a congressional inquiry?

Funny how lying to start a war is justified in their bizarre little minds. (Just as it's funny how afraid they are to find out the truth about 9-11.)

Posted July 08, 2003 09:16 AM