OOH, OOH, OOH, PICK ME, PICK ME

Rice Takes Responsibility for Bush Speech (WILL LESTER, 07/30/2003, AP)

National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice said Wednesday that she feels responsible for the questionable statement in President Bush's State of the Union address about Iraqi plans to buy uranium in Africa.

"I certainly feel personal responsibility for this entire episode," she said in an interview on PBS' "NewsHour With Jim Lehrer." "What I feel most responsible for is that this is detracting from the very strong case the president has been making."

Rice was the latest administration official, including CIA Director George Tenet and the president himself, to take responsibility for the
now-discredited claim. Rice has come under mounting criticism in connection with the speech, and has also been accused of making misleading remarks about what the White House knew before the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

Forgive us our cynicism, but bureaucrats fight over credit, not blame. It seems increasingly likely that they think they're going to be vindicated.

MORE:
U.S. May Already Have Iraq?s WMDs (Joel Mowbray, July 31, 2003, Town Hall)

As WMD hysteria reaches a frenzied pitch, comments by the head of the U.S. team searching Iraq for WMD evidence should give pause to the "Bush lied" crowd.

Dr. David Kay--the 63-year-old former U.N. weapons inspector now heading up the American WMD team--recently remarked that the United States will be "starting to reveal" WMD evidence in six months.

Though he was circumspect at best, Dr. Kay?s comments could indicate that U.S. investigators know quite a bit more than they have revealed thus far.

Buzz inside the beltway has been intensifying in recent days that the administration may have significantly more evidence than it has publicly
released, and Dr. Kay's comments have triggered even more chatter. Some of it may be wishful thinking, but considering that some of the people doing the talking are administration officials, declarations that there are no WMDs may be premature.

Why would the Bush folks keep such politically high-value information secret?

The bigger question is how do they so consistently manage to exercise the internal discipline required to keep things secret until they choose to announce them. Think, most recently, of the Africa AIDs initiative. Posted by Orrin Judd at July 31, 2003 7:38 AM