Bush Expresses Confidence in CIA Director
VOA News
12 Jul 2003, 13:53 UTC
President Bush says he has confidence in CIA Director George Tenet, who has taken the blame for an incorrect statement about Iraq's nuclear weapons program.
Mr. Tenet said his agency failed to tell the White House to remove a sentence from the State of the Union address that asserted Iraq had tried to buy "significant quantities" of uranium from Africa. The White House retracted the statement after the claim was found to be based on forged documents.
Mr. Tenet said President Bush had every reason to believe that the information, which came from British intelligence sources, was true. British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw Saturday defended the information, saying the claim was based on, "reliable intelligence" not shared with the United States.
President Bush said Saturday that he considers the issue closed. But many democratic presidential hopefuls and other critics of the war in Iraq are calling for a full investigation.
They say the incident adds to concerns the Bush administration may have overstated the threat posed by Iraq to justify launching the war. British Prime Minister Tony Blair is facing similar accusations.
Some information for this report provided by AP, AFP and Reuters.
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