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WASHINGTON
- July 17 - MEL GOODMAN, goodmanm@erols.com, www.ciponline.org/nationalsecurity/index.htm
Goodman, a former CIA analyst, is a professor of international security at the National War College in Washington and a senior fellow for intelligence reform at the Center for International Policy. He said today: "The administration is now asserting that statements about Iraq's alleged attempts to obtain unenriched uranium from Africa may well be factually correct -- based on Mr. Blair's claims that the British have other sources besides the forged Niger documents to back this assertion which, somehow, they cannot share with the Americans or the International Atomic Energy Agency. During my 24 years with the CIA, I often worked with the Joint Intelligence Committee, which is Britain's senior intelligence institution. I have never once heard a British official say that we have this important document but we can't show it to you. The rule is that truly sensitive stuff which cannot be shared is not talked about at all -- if it can come up, it can be shared. Otherwise, the CIA would not -- should not -- take an unsourced, unseen claim seriously. This is especially true for this particular claim because the uranium market is a heavily monitored international market. It's nearly impossible for anyone to obtain a sizeable quantity without some information being gleaned.... The Niger documents should not distract us from all the other bogus claims that were floating around -- regarding aluminum tubes that the U.S. Department of Energy and the IAEA decided could not be used for uranium enrichment, the never-proven Iraq - Al Qaeda links, the massive stockpiles of WMD and the biological and chemical weapons attack that could be launched within 45 minutes, which President Bush also repeated on September 26, 2002, again citing the British as the source. The main question was: Is Iraq an imminent threat? Based on the intelligence, the answer seems to have been no."
DAVID MILLER, david.miller@stir.ac.uk
Miller is a member of the Stirling Media Research Institute based in Scotland and editor of the forthcoming book'Tell Me Lies: The Media and Propaganda in the Attack on Iraq'. He said today: "The Blair government took the UK to war against the wishes of the overwhelming majority of the British public on the basis of evidence which at the time was dubious. As it becomes evident many of the crucial claims made by Mr. Blair -- and repeated by President Bush -- were unsupported by evidence, Mr. Blair looks to be in danger of being replaced."
MARJORIE COHN, marjorie@tjsl.edu
Cohn is a professor of law at Thomas Jefferson School of Law in San Diego. She said today: "Bush and Blair joined forces for an end run around the U.N., which violated the fundamental tenets of international law."
GREG PALAST, media@gregpalast.com, www.gregpalast.com
Palast is author of 'The Best Democracy Money Can Buy' and has been reporting for the BBC and Britain's Guardian. He had been an advisor to Blair's "shadow cabinet" prior to the Prime Minister's election in 1997. Palast said today: "Blair is in the doghouse with his own Labor Party for having been caught in a fib."
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