A new look at Bush's '16 words'


Here is another take on Bush's State of the Union address and the Niger - Uranium - Saddam connection.

What is interesting, like the UN oil-for-food scandal, mainstream media are not interested in the truth or what is good for the country, just give'em a good ole scandal anytime. The Wilson affair is worse because so many of the mainstream media were duped by him. Now they are stuck and can't (won't) admit their star source was lying. And so it is with Clarke.

Late last month, the Financial Times, a respected international newspaper, reported that according to European intelligence agencies, Iraq was one of five countries that had negotiated with smugglers in Niger for the illegal purchase of uranium yellowcake. "These claims support the assertion made in the British government dossier . . . that Iraq sought to buy uranium from an African country," the paper reported in a front-page story on June 27. For some reason, though, the US media showed virtually no interest in following up that revelation. (One exception: columnist William Safire in the New York Times.)

A few days ago, the Financial Times was back with more news: An independent British commission investigating the government's use of intelligence during the runup to the war in Iraq, the paper reported on Wednesday, "is expected to conclude that Britain's spies were correct to say that Saddam Hussein's regime sought to buy uranium from Niger."

But this, too, has been largely ignored by the American press. Curious, no? Journalists couldn't get enough of this topic when the story line was that Bush and the British had lied. Shouldn't they find it just as riveting when facts point in the other direction?

Here's another fact, this one from a recent book by a one-time US ambassador: In 1999, Saddam's information minister, Mohammed Saeed al-Sahhaf approached an official of Niger to talk about expanding trade, an approach the official interpreted as a possible attempt to buy uranium. The author of the book? None other than Joseph Wilson -- the man who accused the Bush administration last year of making up an Iraqi interest in uranium from Africa. Now, it seems, he comes close to confirming that interest. Yet except for a single story in the Washington Post, the media have had virtually nothing to say about Wilson's new account.

It would appear mainstream media are in a "Watergate" themselves.
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