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American Morning
Political Fallout
Aired July 14, 2003 - 08:33 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice says it was just 16 words, but those 16 words are at the center of a controversy regarding claims of Iraqi nuclear ambitions. Now CIA Director George Tenet is taking the blame.
Bob Franken looks back at how it all got started.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BOB FRANKEN, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Almost a year before the State of the Union speech in February of 2002, former U.S. Ambassador Joe Wilson returns from a CIA mission to Niger, reporting the claim Iraq was trying to buy uranium was probably bogus.
JOE WILSON, U.S. ENVOY: It seemed that this information was inaccurate. That view was shared by the ambassador out there, largely shared in Washington, even before I went out there.
FRANKEN: Half a year later, ignoring CIA advice, the British put out a so-called white paper, which they continue to insist is accurate.
TONY BLAIR, BRITISH PRIME MINISTER: Saddam has been trying to buy significant quantities of uranium from Africa, though we do not know whether he has been successful.
FRANKEN: But on October 7, after the CIA waived the president off the uranium Africa specifics, his Cincinnati speech was vague.
BUSH: The evidence indicates that Iraq is reconstituting its nuclear weapons program.
RICE: The Cincinnati speech was on October 7, originally had a reference to a very specific -- a very specific reference to uranium in a specific amount on a single source. That was taken out at Director Tenet's urging.
FRANKEN: As the usually agonizing fact checking went on leading up to January's State of the Union speech, the CIA once again expressed concern to the White House. This time, the uranium claim stayed in, citing the British government as the source.
BUSH: I gave a speech to the nation today cleared by the intelligence services.
COLIN POWELL, SECRETARY OF STATE: There was sufficient evidence floating around at that time that such a statement was not totally outrageous or not to be believed or not to be appropriately used.
FRANKEN: Totally outrageous? Apparently the secretary of state had second thoughts. Eight days after the State of the Union message, he did not include that in his United Nations presentation.
(on camera): Six months later, the questions remain, who knew the information was suspect and who should have known?
Bob Franken, CNN, Washington.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
O'BRIEN: Senior analyst Jeff Greenfield joins us this morning.
Condoleezza Rice says only 16 words. It was not the only words to make the case for war against Iraq. Is she right?
JEFF GREENFIELD, CNN SENIOR ANALYST: Well, she's right in that -- in that the real case for war, the most unarguable case is that he was a bloody tyrant, and so it didn't rest on that one assertion. But the problem is that the argument of going to war had to do with preemption. We, the United States, had to strike, alone, if necessary, because Saddam Hussein was a threat to the United States.
Back in the fall of 2002, the national security strategy statement that she supervised argued for preemption on that particular basis. So what you have is, you have, in the most serious speech a president can make, in a run-up to a war, the trump card, this guy might have nuclear weapons based on a suspect argument. And it raises the question again, as we've been hearing all morning, how come the CIA knocked that out of a speech in October, and because of the British attribution, let it stay in the most serious speech the president could make?
O'BRIEN: Is the problem, then, the assertion is not true or is it that the process is now suspect in that, as you say, it was knocked out of a previous speech, somehow wound its way back in, in the most important speech a president can make?
GREENFIELD: Yes, I think it's two problems. The first is the assertion itself that the British have learned that Saddam was trying to get nuclear weapons. The problem here is that the fact that Saddam is a bloody tyrant isn't enough to justify preemption. In fact, the worst things he did, using poison gas against his own people and against the Iranians, that was done back in 1987 when the Reagan-Bush administration, of which Dick Cheney was a part, backed Iraq against Iran. They had to go to a different level. So if that -- if that argument is suspect, it raises some doubts.
The other part is that there is -- the backing and filling that the White House has been doing in explaining this has been somewhat less than frank. In fact, I was struck by the fact that Condi Rice used the phrase "it's time to move on." That's exactly the phrase that the Clinton administration used every time they got into trouble. And it's one of the reasons why people who like President Bush say it's so nice to have a president who doesn't play games with words, and this raises a problem.
O'BRIEN: Speaking of Democrats, as you mentioned the Clinton administration, there are several men who are running, who would be president, as they say, who are trying to take the focus, even though George Tenet has stepped up and said I take the blame, try to put the focus back on the White House. Do you think that they're going to be successful in those efforts?
GREENFIELD: I think this depends on whether or not Republicans begin to raise questions about this process, because it's always possible to say this is a political debate. But so much in political events, Soledad, I always think it's the old schoolyard game, when you get into a fight and somebody says your own man says so. Apart from Chuck Hagel and John McCain, who have been independent, Hagel has been questioning about the war. If other Republicans say, you know, I'm for the president, I was for the war, but we can't have intelligence used like this.
The biggest political fallout, I believe, is going to come, depending on what happens in Iraq. If reconstruction goes smoothly, if this new governing council works, if things begin to settle down, this is going to fade.
But you will remember, back in Vietnam, the whole issue of the credibility gap, the Gulf of Tonkin, didn't begin to rise until the United States got bogged down and body bags began to come home. So the more people suspect the conduct of the war in Iraq, the more people think it isn't going well, they're going to look back and say how did we get into this mess, so.
O'BRIEN: I just want to jump in with the last, quick, final question. The biggest press conference expected from the White House this afternoon, what do they have to say to move on and get everyone else to move on with them?
GREENFIELD: Well it's going to be very interesting. Some of the rap that's coming to Bush is, I mean I don't necessarily think e-mails are the most scientific thing, but they do reflect something, the idea that is this president, who has this reputation among his supporters of being a straight-up guy, just going to say, you know what, whoever vetted what, I'm the president and the buck stops here, as Jack was saying. I think that is what the White House needs to say to quiet the notion that they're trying to blame somebody else for what was their mistake.
O'BRIEN: All right. Jeff Greenfield, thanks, as always.
GREENFIELD: Thank you.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
Aired July 14, 2003 - 08:33 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice says it was just 16 words, but those 16 words are at the center of a controversy regarding claims of Iraqi nuclear ambitions. Now CIA Director George Tenet is taking the blame.
Bob Franken looks back at how it all got started.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BOB FRANKEN, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Almost a year before the State of the Union speech in February of 2002, former U.S. Ambassador Joe Wilson returns from a CIA mission to Niger, reporting the claim Iraq was trying to buy uranium was probably bogus.
JOE WILSON, U.S. ENVOY: It seemed that this information was inaccurate. That view was shared by the ambassador out there, largely shared in Washington, even before I went out there.
FRANKEN: Half a year later, ignoring CIA advice, the British put out a so-called white paper, which they continue to insist is accurate.
TONY BLAIR, BRITISH PRIME MINISTER: Saddam has been trying to buy significant quantities of uranium from Africa, though we do not know whether he has been successful.
FRANKEN: But on October 7, after the CIA waived the president off the uranium Africa specifics, his Cincinnati speech was vague.
BUSH: The evidence indicates that Iraq is reconstituting its nuclear weapons program.
RICE: The Cincinnati speech was on October 7, originally had a reference to a very specific -- a very specific reference to uranium in a specific amount on a single source. That was taken out at Director Tenet's urging.
FRANKEN: As the usually agonizing fact checking went on leading up to January's State of the Union speech, the CIA once again expressed concern to the White House. This time, the uranium claim stayed in, citing the British government as the source.
BUSH: I gave a speech to the nation today cleared by the intelligence services.
COLIN POWELL, SECRETARY OF STATE: There was sufficient evidence floating around at that time that such a statement was not totally outrageous or not to be believed or not to be appropriately used.
FRANKEN: Totally outrageous? Apparently the secretary of state had second thoughts. Eight days after the State of the Union message, he did not include that in his United Nations presentation.
(on camera): Six months later, the questions remain, who knew the information was suspect and who should have known?
Bob Franken, CNN, Washington.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
O'BRIEN: Senior analyst Jeff Greenfield joins us this morning.
Condoleezza Rice says only 16 words. It was not the only words to make the case for war against Iraq. Is she right?
JEFF GREENFIELD, CNN SENIOR ANALYST: Well, she's right in that -- in that the real case for war, the most unarguable case is that he was a bloody tyrant, and so it didn't rest on that one assertion. But the problem is that the argument of going to war had to do with preemption. We, the United States, had to strike, alone, if necessary, because Saddam Hussein was a threat to the United States.
Back in the fall of 2002, the national security strategy statement that she supervised argued for preemption on that particular basis. So what you have is, you have, in the most serious speech a president can make, in a run-up to a war, the trump card, this guy might have nuclear weapons based on a suspect argument. And it raises the question again, as we've been hearing all morning, how come the CIA knocked that out of a speech in October, and because of the British attribution, let it stay in the most serious speech the president could make?
O'BRIEN: Is the problem, then, the assertion is not true or is it that the process is now suspect in that, as you say, it was knocked out of a previous speech, somehow wound its way back in, in the most important speech a president can make?
GREENFIELD: Yes, I think it's two problems. The first is the assertion itself that the British have learned that Saddam was trying to get nuclear weapons. The problem here is that the fact that Saddam is a bloody tyrant isn't enough to justify preemption. In fact, the worst things he did, using poison gas against his own people and against the Iranians, that was done back in 1987 when the Reagan-Bush administration, of which Dick Cheney was a part, backed Iraq against Iran. They had to go to a different level. So if that -- if that argument is suspect, it raises some doubts.
The other part is that there is -- the backing and filling that the White House has been doing in explaining this has been somewhat less than frank. In fact, I was struck by the fact that Condi Rice used the phrase "it's time to move on." That's exactly the phrase that the Clinton administration used every time they got into trouble. And it's one of the reasons why people who like President Bush say it's so nice to have a president who doesn't play games with words, and this raises a problem.
O'BRIEN: Speaking of Democrats, as you mentioned the Clinton administration, there are several men who are running, who would be president, as they say, who are trying to take the focus, even though George Tenet has stepped up and said I take the blame, try to put the focus back on the White House. Do you think that they're going to be successful in those efforts?
GREENFIELD: I think this depends on whether or not Republicans begin to raise questions about this process, because it's always possible to say this is a political debate. But so much in political events, Soledad, I always think it's the old schoolyard game, when you get into a fight and somebody says your own man says so. Apart from Chuck Hagel and John McCain, who have been independent, Hagel has been questioning about the war. If other Republicans say, you know, I'm for the president, I was for the war, but we can't have intelligence used like this.
The biggest political fallout, I believe, is going to come, depending on what happens in Iraq. If reconstruction goes smoothly, if this new governing council works, if things begin to settle down, this is going to fade.
But you will remember, back in Vietnam, the whole issue of the credibility gap, the Gulf of Tonkin, didn't begin to rise until the United States got bogged down and body bags began to come home. So the more people suspect the conduct of the war in Iraq, the more people think it isn't going well, they're going to look back and say how did we get into this mess, so.
O'BRIEN: I just want to jump in with the last, quick, final question. The biggest press conference expected from the White House this afternoon, what do they have to say to move on and get everyone else to move on with them?
GREENFIELD: Well it's going to be very interesting. Some of the rap that's coming to Bush is, I mean I don't necessarily think e-mails are the most scientific thing, but they do reflect something, the idea that is this president, who has this reputation among his supporters of being a straight-up guy, just going to say, you know what, whoever vetted what, I'm the president and the buck stops here, as Jack was saying. I think that is what the White House needs to say to quiet the notion that they're trying to blame somebody else for what was their mistake.
O'BRIEN: All right. Jeff Greenfield, thanks, as always.
GREENFIELD: Thank you.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
