Dissent over uranium more than a 'footnote'

WASHINGTON -- An objection raised about a uranium charge in a secret high-level report on Iraq's alleged weapons of mass destruction was more than a "footnote," as described by the White House, officials say.

In a National Intelligence Estimate published last October, the intelligence arm of the State Department called "highly dubious" allegations that Iraq was shopping for uranium in Africa. The dissenting view was presented in the main body of the report, not buried in a footnote, sources say.

President Bush repeated the apparently unfounded uranium allegations in his State of the Union speech in January.

The doubts lodged by State's Bureau of Intelligence and Research, known as INR, have since been validated. It turns out the intelligence was based at least in part on forged documents.

The White House now concedes it was a mistake to include the charge in the president's speech, though it argues it also relied on other intelligence from undisclosed foreign sources.

Democrats argue the administration engaged in a pattern of "hyping" evidence to support starting a war in Iraq. They cite examples of intelligence used in other prewar speeches that also have proved half-baked.

But National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice said the president's use of the uranium allegation was ultimately cleared by the CIA after some changes in wording. And she described State's objection to the allegation as only a "footnote" in the back of the 90-page report.

CIA Director George Tenet did not call it a footnote, however, in a carefully worded statement he released Friday as the scandal heated up.

"We stand fully behind DCI's [director of central intelligence] statement," CIA spokeswoman Michele Neff told WorldNetDaily. "If he doesn't refer to it as a footnote, then it's not a footnote."

State declined comment. "We don't have anything beyond what's already been said by White House officials," said State spokeswoman Nancy Beck.

According to Tenet, INR's objection in the still-classified report states: "Finally, the claims of Iraqi pursuit of natural uranium in Africa are, in INR's assessment, highly dubious."

A former intelligence official who helped prepare numerous NIE reports last decade says the statement does not resemble a footnote.

"That sounds like it was in the body of the report," said FBI counterintelligence veteran I.C. Smith, who sat on the National Foreign Intelligence Board, or NFIB.

"Footnotes are short and concise," he said. "If it were a footnote, it would have said something like, 'State does not concur with this finding.'"

Smith points out that though dissension is not rare at NFIB meetings, held at CIA headquarters, it's unusual for that dissension to get in NIE reports, which usually reflect the consensus of the intelligence community. The meetings are also attended by the heads of the Defense Intelligence Agency, National Security Agency and National Reconnaissance Office.

"The fact that the objection got in there is rare," Smith said. "State must have had a real strong reason. And they would have had to all vote to put it in there."

The multi-agency National Intelligence Council, which is located at Langley, writes the reports, which are typically sent by courier to the West Wing.

The White House reportedly faults the CIA for including the sketchy uranium intelligence in the Iraq weapons dossier at all, even as it stands by it.

Tenet argues it never made it in the "Key Judgments" section of the NEI report, and appeared only in the "Discussion" section that follows.

It's not clear what part, if any, Rice read. She maintains that both she and Bush were "unaware" of concerns raised by the CIA when it vetted the uranium line in the State of the Union drafts sent to Langley.

However, Tenet says some of his analysts "raised several concerns about the fragmentary nature of the intelligence" with Rice's office, warning her staff against using it in the speech. What's more, Tenet just three months earlier reportedly called Rice's deputy to yank the line from the president's speech in Cincinnati.

It's still unclear why the unfounded charge was included in the more key State of the Union speech.

The Republican leadership in Congress refuses to hold public hearings on the matter.

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