Well, The Smoking Sentence -- the scandal of a false statement in the case for war President Bush made in the State of the Union address -- just dropped off the top spot on Google. A bang at 6:00PM on Friday, a whimper on Monday morning. I hope your weekend was better!
For those who tuned in late: The White House admitted that this sentence -- "The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa" -- should never have appeared in Bush's State of the Union speech (SOTU), in which he made the case for war in Iraq. (We'll call this sentence The Smoking Sentence.)
After a lot of fingerpointing, George Tenet took responsibility for letting The Smoking Sentence get into the SOTU. Everyone breathed a sigh of relief, and President Bush pronounced that he "considered the matter closed."
Here is today's Official Version as purveyed by the mighty AP; I just heard an equally fuzzy version of this on AP radio news, though not attributedto Rumsfeld and Rice.
(numbers and underlining mine)
Rumsfeld and Rice took identical messages to Sunday's television talk shows: The statement was and remains [1]accurate; it was [2]cleared for delivery by all necessary agencies; it was a [3]minor part of Bush's State of the Union; it is supported by [4]more evidence than [5]documents revealed earlier that were proved to have been forged.
The CW -- that is, the administration's attempt to construct a plausible story -- has some problems. We'll look at them in countdown order ([5],[4],[3],[2],[1]) since these guys bury the bad stuff at the back, in the hope that you'll stop reading or listening before you get to it.
[5] To begin with, revealed earlier that were proved to have been forged means "earlier than the State of the Union Speech." The forgeries are those "crude forgeries" -- the ones with the childlike signature and wrong names and dates -- that purported to show that Saddam was attempting to purchase yellow cake uranium from Niger.
Now, who in the White House knew that The Smoking Sentence was false? Who knew that the Niger uranium intelligence was either forged or at best very dubious, when the SOTU was being drafted? The major players are CIA Director Tenet, National Security Advisor Condaleeza Rice, Defense Department Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, and President Bush. (A minor player is Bush's speechwriter, Michael J. Gerson. A mysterious player is Karen Hughes, not mentioned in any news story, but present, as the pictures found by The House in [2] prove.)
Tenet knew, of course, since he successfully got a similar statement removed from a Bush speech in the previous October. When Tenet did this, he spoke to Stephen Hadley, whose boss is Condi. Therefore, Condi knew as well. Cheney knew as well, since (through the CIA) he commissioned Ambassador Joseph Wilson to travel to Niger and find out, and Ambassador Wilson reported back. [UPDATE: See also here.] Ambassador Wilson also reported through the normal national security channels, which provides additional reason to believe that Rummy and Condi also knew. Finally, President Bush had to know. First, he speaks with Tenet every day, and it's absurd to believe that Tenet didn't bring such an important matter up with him -- especially since Tenet got a reference to the Niger uranium intelligence removed from a speech Bush himself was to give. Second, it's absurd to believe that Condi and Rummy, his loyal subordinates, didn't tell him. Plausible deniability has to be plausible.
So, at the time the SOTU was drafted, all of the President's top advisors and the President himself knew that the The Smoking Sentence was based, at least in part, on crude forgeries and dubious evidence.
[4](a)But -- we hear -- the fact that some evidence was forged doesn't matter. The administration has more evidence. First, no such evidence has been revealed. Second, when the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) asked the administration for evidence that Saddam was reconstituting his nuclear programs, they didn't give them any of this "more evidence" -- they gave him the Niger uranium documents. The IEAE determined in about thirty seconds that these documents were forgeries; the childlike signature could have helped. Perhaps it wouldn't make sense to give the IEAE our best evidence (sources and methods and all that), but had we no other evidence to give? Again, plausible deniability has to be plausible.
[4](b)But -- we hear -- more evidence for the The Smoking Sentence is available from the United Kingdom. We don't have it; but they have it. However, the UK doesn't think much of their own intelligence services right now. The nuclear part of Prime Minister Blair's case for war has collapsed. (He too based the public part of his case on the Niger crude forgeries, with the additional complication that a claim Iraq could have weapons ready in 45 minutes was shown to be ludicrous.) Further, this more evidence that the Administration says the UK has -- It turns out that the UK can't reveal it either. In fact, in the UK they've been asking where this evidence is for eight months, and the Parliamentary Commission from Blair's own party finds this "very odd indeed". So if there is more evidence, only the British intelligence services have seen it -- both at the time the SOTU was written, and today. [UPDATE: As Leah points out, the British are now blaming the French. On Bastille Day, yet. Is it really plausible that the UK intelligence service values its relationship with France more than it values its relationship with the US?] [UPDATE: However, the IAEA believes that the as-yet-unseen British evidence is the same as the American evidence -- ie, the crude forgeries. (Jesse at Pandagon)] [UPDATE: ABC says the forgeries were produced by a Niger diplomat, who sold them to the Italian intelligence service.]
[3] But -- we hear -- the claim that Saddam was seeking significant quantities of uranium -- for his mineral collection? -- was a minor part of the case for war. Oh, puh-leeze.....
[2] Still, the appropriate agencies cleared The Smoking Sentence. Here is where Tenet steps up and takes responsibility. That's absurd. Tenet isn't the boss -- Bush is. See the picture Atrios posted. Who's behind the desk? Not Tenet. How can the buck stop with Tenet? Bush is the "appropriate agency."
In any case, a plausible denial has to be plausible. Condi, Cheney, and Bush all knew that The Smoking Sentence was false or dubious, as we saw above in [5]. And Tenet got The Smoking Sentence removed back in October. What changed between then and writing the SOTU January? Surely nothing, or the Administration would already have released information to that effect.
So the question becomes not "Who didn't take The Smoking Sentence out?" That we know: Tenet. The question is: "Who put The Smoking Sentence in?" Not Tenet. Condi? Cheny? Bush? They all knew (see [5]) that The Smoking Sentence was false -- yet they left it in the SOTU.
The speechwriter, Gerson, says he can't remember who put the sentence in How convenient! [UPDATE: The Horse has unearthed numerous photos of President Bush sketching notes in the margin of the 2003 SOTU, and even rewriting it. Bush knew.]
[1] The Smoking Sentence -- we hear -- was accurate. ("Technically accurate", Rummy hastens to add.) I'm not the only one to remark on carefully parsed, lawyer-like -- and, dare I say, Clintonian -- nature of this defense. I'd like to have been a fly on the wall when The Smoking Sentence was crafted (by Gerson?) and inserted into the SOTU (by Condi? Cheney? Bush?). One example of such lawyerly language is the replacement of the specific "Niger" with the broad "Africa." This is Condi's "broader claim", which "may still be[come -- sic] true" (secondary veracity).
But how -- we ask -- is it accurate? The administration explains that the statement is accurate not because Saddam was actually seeking uranium. Rather, it was accurate because the British "learned" that he was. No! The administration can't say the British "learned" any such thing (see [4](b)) because the British never shared the actual intelligence or the sources for it with the administration. At most, an "accurate" SOTU would have said that the British "said" or "reported" -- not "learned." (The careful Tenet, in the statement he issued when he fell on his sword, misquotes The Smoking Sentence to exactly this effect.) Even if we accept everything every other defense the administration throws out, The Smoking Sentence is as false today as it was on the day it was delivered -- even "technically." Using the word "Africa" also implies that there is "more evidence" than Niger; but see above at [4].)
Summing up: The Smoking Sentence was the central part of the Bush administration's case for war. It seemed to prove the greatest danger: That Saddam could one day threaten us with nuclear weapons. Tenet, Condi, Rummy, Cheney, and Bush all knew the The Smoking Sentence -- in its implication -- was false. They crafted lawyerly language so they could later claim that The Smoking Sentence was, technically, true. This language had the additional advantage of shifting responsibility from themselves to the British. When the story broke, they tried to shift the blame -- to Tenet.
And on such a basis, the administration sent hundreds of our soldiers and thousands of Iraqis to their deaths.
UPDATE: Thanks penalcolony, Thumper, kevinNYC, Bill Brock.
UPDATE: Good analysis from The Likely Story on the entire spin cycle.