Why the pass for Condi? This from Hadley’s White House Q & A …
Hadley: The memorandum describes some weakness in the evidence, the fact that the effort was not particularly significant to Iraq’s nuclear ambitions because the Iraqis already had a large stock of uranium oxide in their inventory. The memorandum also stated that the CIA had been telling Congress that the Africa story was one of two issues where we differed with the British intelligence. This memorandum was received by the Situation Room here in the White House, and it was sent to both Dr. Rice and myself.
…
Question: So within the White House, the first time that the CIA concerns about the quality of the British intelligence went up to the level above your level, up to Dr. Rice, would have been with memo number two?
Hadley: I’m hesitating because, again, given you don’t know what you don’t, given what we put together at this point in time, that’s the evidence we
had. That’s old —Question: But as of memo number two, certainly Dr. Rice was aware of the concerns, the CIA —
Hadley: What we know is, again, a copy of the memo comes to the Situation Room, it’s sent to Dr. Rice, it’s sent — and that’s it. You know, I
can’t tell you she read it. I can’t even tell you she received it. But in some sense, it doesn’t matter. Memo sent, we’re on notice.
Steve Hadley
White House Q&A
July 22nd, 2003
We did not know at the time–no one knew at the time, in our circles–maybe someone knew down in the bowels of the Agency, but no one in our circles knew that there were doubts and suspicions that this might be a forgery.
Condi Rice
Meet the Press
June 8th, 2003
Speaks for itself doesn’t it?
