Senator says White House Pressured CIA on Uranium Allegation
VOA News
17 Jul 2003, 15:43 UTC
A U.S. Senator quotes CIA Director George Tenet as saying a White House official insisted on putting questionable information about Iraq's nuclear ambitions into a key presidential address.
Senator Dick Durbin said Mr. Tenet revealed the name of the White House official during testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee Wednesday.
But Senator Durbin, a Democrat who opposed the war, told the ABC news program Good Morning America that committee rules prevent him from revealing the official's name. He said that information should come from the White House.
Mr. Tenet has accepted responsibility for not keeping the since discredited information about Iraq seeking to buy uranium from Niger out of the State of the Union address. But Senator Durbin says the real question is why the White House official was so intent on using the suspect information, and why that official is still working in the White House.
A White House spokesman called the senator's assertion "nonsense" and said it is not surprising that it comes from someone who opposed the war. Spokesman Scott McClellan also said it is ridiculous to think the Bush administration put pressure on the CIA.
Wednesday, Intelligence Committee Democrat Jay Rockefeller said everyone needs to known whether the uranium reference was an isolated incident, or part of a pattern of deception by the Bush Administration to gain support for the war.
Some information for this report provided by AP.
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