July 12, 2003 - Well, the Bush party line is to point the finger at George Tenet and the CIA. The Director has dutifully taken responsibility for allowing the President to include the specious information in his speech. Thus the Republicans are hoping that the flap over the use of the forged intelligence will die down and be drowned out in a chorus of it is not the President’s fault. Let us take a close look at what the Director actually said.

"Officials who were reviewing the draft remarks on uranium raised several concerns about the fragmentary nature of the intelligence with National Security Council colleagues," Tenet said. "Agency officials in the end concurred that the text in the speech was factually correct that the British government report said that Iraq sought uranium from Africa."

Unfortunately we have come to the point in American political life when we must carefully parse each sentence to derive an approximation of the truth, so here goes.

Agency officials in the end concurred… With whom did they concur? …that the text in the speech was factually correct… Factually correct about what? …that the British government report said that Iraq sought uranium from Africa.

It has not been that long ago when another American President was brought to book when he tried to walk a tightrope between perjury and misdirecting the listener. Mr. Tenet’s statement does not absolve the President and his speech writers of responsibility for donning the same costume and essaying the same circus act while using the CIA as a balancing pole. What Mr. Tenet is taking responsibility for is not preventing this President from stepping out on the wire. It was an impossible task. Ever since an anonymous speech writer coined the “smoking gun is a mushroom cloud” line for the October 7th speech the President was intent on walking that wire to justify his resort for war. Short of binding and gagging the would-be Texas Ranger nothing that Tenet of the CIA could have done would have prevented the act.

As the Director went on to say, the bar should be higher than that for a Presidential speech, especially one that has been institutionalized with such authority as the State of the Union. It is clear that the President’s speech writers were intent on giving the illusion of foundation to the Bush nuclear scare. It is clear from the Director’s remarks that the Agency could not provide it and would not invent it. It is not the CIA that failed in this instance, it is the writers who wrote it and the man who gave the line voice that are responsible. He willingly climbed out on that tightrope and there is no one there to help him keep his balance.