Everyone knows that the cover-up is always worse than the crime. So why does the White House keep changing its story on Saddam Hussein’s phantom uranium cake?
First the White House admitted the statement was wrong.
Then it blamed the CIA.
Now it says that the uranium claim was technically correct when Bush announced it to the nation, even though the CIA had discredited the information several months before and CIA Director George Tenet said last Friday that the 16-word statement should have never been written into the speech. Here’s what Bush had to say yesterday (via Reuters):
"When I gave the speech, the line was relevant ... Subsequent to the speech, the CIA had some doubts," he said.
Condoleezza Rice and Donald Rumsfeld went a step further. Suddenly, not only was the line relevant, it was accurate - and it remains accurate today (via the New York Times):
Senior Bush administration officials today adjusted their defense of President Bush's claim in his State of the Union Address that Iraq tried to buy uranium from Africa, insisting that the phrasing was accurate even if some of the underlying evidence was unsubstantiated.
Condoleezza Rice, the national security adviser, and Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said in separate appearances on Sunday television talk programs that the disputed sentence in Mr. Bush's January speech was carefully hedged, enough that it could still be considered accurate today.
Sounds like we’re arguing over the meaning of “is” again.
