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Brits believe the claim to be correct, I'll pose one question: What happened to the fact that the US and the UK are the most close-knit intelligence sharers in the world? [/QB]

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"We believe in the intelligence which was behind the claims made in the September 24 dossier, yes," he said on the Today current affairs program when asked if the intelligence on Niger was still valid in British eyes.


He added, however, that Britain was not at liberty to tell the United States where it got the information, because it had come from "foreign intelligence sources".


"It just happens to be the rules of liaison with foreign intelligence sources that they own the intelligence. The second intelligence service does not and therefore is not able to pass it on to the third party."


The Italian government on Sunday denied reports that its intelligence services handed the United States and Britain documents indicating that Iraq was seeking uranium from Niger for a nuclear weapons programme.


The Financial Times reported Monday that Britain received information that Iraq was seeking to acquire uranium from Niger from two sources, thought to be France and Italy, which explained why it was included in the September dossier despite being told the US Central Intelligence Agency (news - web sites) (CIA (news - web sites)) had "reservations" about its inclusion.

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Originally posted by Lee:
Hmm. Looks like Straw's pulling the old "I decline to answer on the grounds it might endanger our agents in the field" line.

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Defending the broader decision to go to war with Iraq, the president said the decision was made after he gave Saddam Hussein "a chance to allow the inspectors in, and he wouldn't let them in."

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The president's assertion that the war began because Iraq did not admit inspectors appeared to contradict the events leading up to war this spring: Hussein had, in fact, admitted the inspectors and Bush had opposed extending their work because he did not believe them effective.

In the face of persistent questioning about the use of intelligence before the Iraq war, administration officials have responded with evolving and sometimes contradictory statements. The matter has become increasingly charged, as Democrats demand hearings about Bush's broader use of intelligence to justify the Iraq war.


Dana Priest and Dana Milbank, Washington Post

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The Buck Stops There
Bush shifts the blame for his Iraq whopper.

When George W. Bush ran for president, one of his big selling points was responsibility. Americans were tired of Bill Clinton's fudges and legalisms. They were tired of hearing that the latest falsehood was part of a larger truth, or that it was OK because the president had attributed it to somebody else, or that the country should "move on." Bush promised to end all that. He promised an "era of responsibility" in which leaders and citizens would no longer "blame somebody else."

This month, Bush was given a chance to make good on those promises. In his State of the Union address earlier this year, he told Americans, "The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa." But in March, the International Atomic Energy Agency debunked the only public documentation for that claim. And on July 6, a U.S. emissary who had been sent to Niger to check out the principal basis of the claim disclosed in the New York Times that he had found�and had told the U.S. government more than a year ago�that "it was highly doubtful that any such transaction had ever taken place."

What do Bush and his aides have to say about this?


1. It's the CIA's fault.

2. It's the speechwriters' fault.

3. It's true that Britain said it.

4. It's part of a larger truth.

5. It's time to move on.

William Saletan, Slate

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