"These 16 words should never have been included in the text written for the president," Tenet

WASHINGTON, July 12 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) – Central Intelligence Agency Director George Tenet admitted Friday, July 11, in a surprise move that he was to blame for the key error that President George W. Bush had included in his January 28 State of the Union Address to Congress, that Iraq was trying to procure nuclear material from Africa, and of course for allowing Bush to mislead the American people.

The critical statement in the speech that eventually raised the furor was: "The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa."

In his first public statement on the intelligence, Tenet confirmed what the White House had been saying for the past week, that Bush made the claim in good faith after the information had been cleared by intelligence agencies, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported.

"Let me be clear about several things right up front," said his statement. "First, the CIA approved the President's State of the Union address before it was delivered.

"Second, I am responsible for the approval process of my agency. And, third, the president had every reason to believe that the text presented to him was sound," Tenet said in the statement, although he never said outright that he had personally read the president's speech before it was delivered.

'16 Words'

Tenet said in his statement that Bush's speech had been vetted by the CIA and the 16 words referring to the alleged nuclear procurement should have been excised.

"These 16 words should never have been included in the text written for the President," said Tenet.

The CIA released Tenet's statement shortly after Bush and his national security advisor, Condoleezza Rice, on a tour of Africa, blamed the error squarely on the CIA.

Questions over the drama dogged Bush on his Africa. As aides struggled to contain the growing political storm, Bush insisted the CIA had cleared the speech delivered to Congress in January as the administration laid down the rationale for war to disarm ousted Iraqi president Saddam Hussein.

"I gave a speech to the nation that was cleared by intelligence services. It was a speech that detailed to the American people the dangers posed by the Saddam Hussein regime," Bush said after talks with Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni.

 "My government took the appropriate response to the dangers, and as a result the world is more secure and more peaceful."

For her part, Rice told reporters that the address was sent to Tenet for approval.

"Now I can tell you, if the CIA, the Director of Central Intelligence, had said, 'Take this out of the speech,' it would have been gone, without question," she told reporters on Air Force One.

Senior administration officials said that before Rice spoke with the press, she phoned Tenet in Washington but gave no details of the call.

Bush made the allegation in his State of the Union address to Congress on January 28 as one justification for a war on Iraq.

The U.S. charge against Iraq stemmed from forged documents alleging that the former Baghdad regime had sought uranium yellowcake from Niger, and from separate information that Saddam also sought the radioactive material from other African nations.

CNN television quoted CIA sources as saying Tenet had no intention of resigning over the matter.

Tenet's statement came as U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld further admitted on Thursday, July 10, that the United States went to war against Iraq because it considers existing information on its arms programs in a "dramatic new light" after the September 11 hijack attacks, not because of any evidence of banned weapons.

'Full-Scale Investigation' 

Meanwhile, Democrats turned up the heat on President George W. Bush's administration Friday, calling for an independent investigation into whether the White House misled the U.S. public over the Iraqi threat before the war, and insisting that heads should roll over the growing scandal.

In an interview on U.S. television earlier Friday, former Vermont Governor Howard Dean said current congressional investigations into whether the US government ignored CIA warnings about faulty intelligence on Iraq's weapons programs have become too politicized to be effective.

"We need a full-scale ... bipartisan investigation, outside the Congress," Dean, a leading candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination, told ABC television.

Dean said investigations currently underway in Congress are not moving forward quickly enough.

"The Republican majority is stonewalling," he said.

"We need to find out what the president knew and when he knew it," Dean added, resurrecting language used during the investigation into the Watergate political scandal, which led to the resignation of president Richard Nixon in August 1974.

"This government either is inept or simply has not told us the truth. We need to know what the answers are here," he said.

Senator Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut, another Democratic presidential hopeful, also demanded a full-scale inquiry, saying in a statement that the controversy "breaks the basic bond of trust we must have with our leaders in times of war and terrorism."

The White House formally admitted on July 7 that Bush overstated Saddam's alleged efforts to obtain uranium for nuclear arms.