Today’s Washington Post has a genuine barn burner of an article that settles the case that George Bush deserves impeachment. He lied to the American people and the world during his 2003 State of the Union Address when he claimed that:
“The British Government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa .”
Up to this point the Bush apologists tried to argue he did not lie, but was simply reporting what the intelligence community was telling him. Now we know–HE LIED.
The Senate Intelligence Committee already has reported that the White House was warned not to use the Niger info. Now, according to the Washington Post, we learn that President Bush was warned specifically by the CIA in January, just a few weeks before the State of the Union, that the Niger story was not true.
Specifically, the story by Gellman and Linzer notes:
After that, the Pentagon asked for an authoritative judgment from the National Intelligence Council, the senior coordinating body for the 15 agencies that then constituted the U.S. intelligence community. Did Iraq and Niger discuss a uranium sale, or not? If they had, the Pentagon would need to reconsider its ties with Niger. The council’s reply, drafted in a January 2003 memo by the national intelligence officer for Africa, was unequivocal: The Niger story was baseless and should be laid to rest. Four U.S. officials with firsthand knowledge said in interviews that the memo, which has not been reported before, arrived at the White House as Bush and his highest-ranking advisers made the uranium story a centerpiece of their case for the rapidly approaching war against Iraq.
The White House and Republican National Committee spin has been exposed now as a bald face lie. The CIA did not tell the President it was okay to say this. The told him it was wrong. What is it, Mr. President, about “baseless” that you do not understand?
And yet, despite being told by the CIA that the story was false, George Bush used the info in his State of the Union to build support for war. There is now no reason for any person of integrity to accuse Joe Wilson of lying. Moreover, the latest revelations, obtained from Patrick Fitzgerald’s response to a filing by Scooter Libby’s lawyers, show that there was an organized effort that included George Bush and Dick Cheney to smear Joe Wilson. Making matters worse, their effort ultimately exposed Valerie Wilson as an undercover CIA officer. Mr. Bush, have you no shame?
Instead of admitting their error, George Bush and Dick Cheney defamed Joe Wilson, destroyed Valerie’s ability to serve as a clandestine CIA operative, and exposed a CIA front company. Why? Because Joe Wilson dared to tell the truth. God save us when our leaders decide to punish a citizen for telling the truth. And, at the end of the day, the President used these lies to take us to war. The survivors of the 2400 Americans who have died in Iraq deserve better from their President. I pray our members of Congress find the courage to punish the President and the Vice President for violating the trust the American people invested in them.
