In order to prove Bush lied about uranium (or at least took us to war under false pretenses), we need to prove he saw countervailing evidence to the claim before the war. Did Bush see any such information before we invaded Iraq?
It's hard to imagine Bush lives in such a bubble that he never saw countervailing information to the uranium claim.
He and Cheney have both insisted they didn't hear of Wilson's debunking until after we invaded Iraq. Do you believe that?
On January 18, 2006 the New York Times reported 2002 Memo Doubted Uranium Sale Claim
ASHINGTON, Jan. 17 - A high-level intelligence assessment by the Bush administration concluded in early 2002 that the sale of uranium from Niger to Iraq was "unlikely" because of a host of economic, diplomatic and logistical obstacles, according to a secret memo that was recently declassified by the State Department.
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The Reach of War
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Among other problems that made such a sale improbable, the assessment by the State Department's intelligence analysts concluded, was that it would have required Niger to send "25 hard-to-conceal 10-ton tractor-trailers" filled with uranium across 1,000 miles and at least one international border.
The analysts' doubts were registered nearly a year before President Bush, in what became known as the infamous "16 words" in his 2003 State of the Union address, said that Saddam Hussein had sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa.
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A Bush administration official, who requested anonymity because the issue involved partly classified documents, would not say whether President Bush had seen the State Department's memo before his State of the Union address on Jan. 28, 2003.
This is pretty big; an assessment by the Bush administration debunked the claim, and Bush refuses to say whether or not he saw it?! There needs to be an all-out investigation into this.
On April 9, 2006, the Washington Post reported A 'Concerted Effort' to Discredit Bush Critic
the Pentagon asked for an authoritative judgment from the National Intelligence Council, the senior coordinating body for the 15 agencies that then constituted the U.S. intelligence community. Did Iraq and Niger discuss a uranium sale, or not?
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The council's reply, drafted in a January 2003 memo by the national intelligence officer for Africa, was unequivocal: The Niger story was baseless and should be laid to rest. Four U.S. officials with firsthand knowledge said in interviews that the memo, which has not been reported before, arrived at the White House as Bush and his highest-ranking advisers made the uranium story a centerpiece of their case for the rapidly approaching war against Iraq.
So here we have another memo sent to the White House had that debunked the uranium claim. Did Bush see it? It's hard to imagine Bush never saw or at least knew a memo of such importance existed. There needs to be an all-out investigation into this too.