Bush is briefed on the situation in Iraq by Tenet and CIA officials

WASHINGTON, July 16 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) - Democrats sharpened their attacks on the George W. Bush administration Tuesday, July 15, over prewar intelligence on Iraq's alleged pursuit of weapons of mass destruction (WMD), with one senior democrat in the Congress asserting that "the misleading statement about African uranium" was "negotiated and calculated" to make the case for waging war on Iraq.

Carl Levin, senior Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee, refuted White House claims that now-discredited reports that Iraq had tried to buy nuclear material from Africa was an isolated case of Washington using dodgy pre-war intelligence.

"The President's statement that Iraq was attempting to acquire African uranium was not a 'mistake.' It was not inadvertent. It was not a slip. It was negotiated between the CIA and the NSC," Levin said, referring to the Central Intelligence Agency and National Security Council.

"It was calculated. It was misleading," he added.

"The misleading statement about African uranium is not an isolated incident. There is a significant amount of troubling evidence that it was part of a pattern of exaggerations and misleading statements," he reiterated in comments delivered by Agence France-Presse (AFP) from the floor of the U.S. Senate.

CIA director George Tenet has taken the blame for Bush's January claim that Iraq had tried to buy nuclear material from Africa.

Tenet said the reference should not have been included in the president's January 28 State of the Union address because it had not been corroborated by U.S. intelligence.

But Levin said Tenet's "explanation of the CIA's acquiescence in allowing the use of a clearly misleading statement raises more questions than it answers, and statements by other administration officials -- particularly National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice -- compound the problem."

"The sole purpose of that (uranium) statement was to make the American people believe that the American government believed the statement to be true, and that it was strong evidence of Iraq's attempt to obtain nuclear weapons," he continued. 

"It is simply wrong to make a statement whose purpose is to make people believe something when you do not believe it yourself."

The White House has said that as far as they are concerned, the issue is over and done with, but Democrats refused to let the matter die, with the party's biggest guns taking to the floor of the Senate, holding news conferences and taking to the airwaves to keep the controversy alive.

However, Democrats, most of whom voted in favor of going to war, have seized on the White House's admission that Bush overstated the threat posed by the ousted Iraqi regime to demand an independent inquiry, and Levin renewed those calls Tuesday, saying that what is now needed is "a thorough and accurate and bipartisan investigation."

'Bankrupt Policy'

"The President's (uranium) statement was not a 'mistake.' It was not a slip," Levin

Massachusetts senator Ted Kennedy, one of the most senior Democrats in Congress, decried what he called a "bankrupt" U.S. policy toward Iraq, which revealed "flawed, distorted and failed intelligence."

"But there's a broader issue, and that is the failed policy toward Iraq. It's a bankrupt policy, it's a policy that adrift," Kennedy told NBC television.

Kennedy further said that the White House now wants to hold Tenet as a scapegoat.

"Some of those in the White House are trying to pin it on George Tenet. I think the buck stops in the White House," Kennedy said.

Ohio Representative Dennis Kucinich, one of nine Democrats vying for the party's presidential nomination, called on the Bush administration to provide information about what he said is a number of unsettled questions.

"What about the statements President Bush and others made about Iraq's "vast stockpiles" of chemical and biological weapons?" he said. "What about the evidence of the connection between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda?

"Could these claims, made repeatedly by the administration, also be false?" he asked.

Outside the Congress, former Vermont Governor Howard Dean kept up his almost daily drumbeat of accusations against the White House Tuesday.

"It only becomes more and more clear every day what a mistake this administration made in launching a pre-emptive war in Iraq," the Democratic presidential contender said.

"The evidence mounts that not only did the administration mislead the American people and the world in making its case for war but that it failed to plan adequately for the peace.

"Today, we are paying the price in lives lost, in a 100 billion dollar price tag that only rises daily, and in the toll on our reputation around the world."

Record Deficit

"Some of those in the White House are trying to pin it on George Tenet. I think the buck stops in the White House," Kennedy

Meanwhile, the White House forecast Tuesday the federal budget deficit would explode to a record $455 billion in 2003. 

The Bush's administration said the deficit -- 50 percent bigger than that projected just five months ago -- had been exacerbated by a weak economy, the Iraq war and tax cuts.

The shortfall, soaring from a deficit of $159 billion last year, would grow again to $475 billion in fiscal 2004, starting October 1, the White House's Office of Management and Budget (OMB) said.

Figures include money already requested to fight the war in Iraq, but not the extra finances required for ongoing operations.

Democrats, gearing up for the November 2004 presidential elections, pounced on the figures as evidence that Bush, who has passed a 350-billion-dollar tax cut package, was mismanaging the economy.

"This current administration has squandered record surpluses and plunged us into record deficits," said Senator Bob Graham, a senator from Florida running for the Democratic presidential nomination.

"These new deficit numbers prove that Bush has been totally irresponsible, and it's already cost us 2.5 million lost jobs," he said. The U.S. unemployment rate rose to a nine-year record of 6.4 percent in June.

Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan, who was pressed for his reaction by lawmakers as he testified to a House of Representatives panel, said the budget deficit was a worry.

"I have been most concerned that after having gained considerable control over spending a decade ago, we have allowed that to slip," the central bank boss said.

"I think that debt will be creating major problems for us in the future unless we turn around," he said.