How much impact did Niger uranium story have on support for the war ?

[kentuck]

When Bush* stood before this nation and said that Saddam Hussein had uranium from Africa with which to build nuclear weapons, how much did that one statement have in building support for his war? Was that the one major "lie" that pulled the people over to his side? And did he do it on purpose? As we all know, he doesn't read anything that is not on the teleprompter. Who wrote that part of his speech? We know who his speechwriters are - why not ask them? Surely he would not put it in there himself??

[AP]

1. I don't know. But, Greg Palast says Saudis gave Hussein

$7 billion for a nuclear weapons program. Why isn't that part of the debate? Is that not true?

[DrBB]

2. The trump card is what it was

...seems to be on Capitol Hill Blue--the story quoting a CIA consultant named Wilkinson who claims he was present at two meetings when the Nitwit was informed of the unreliability of the uranium allegation. Acc. to Wilkinson, the Dimmy said, "If the CIA can't substantiate this, find me someone who can" or words to that effect. If it pans out, then ShitHead ain't gonna get off the hook. So far I haven't seen any other sources pick it up.

T'other question--how much did this story matter? Obviously those of us on this side of the political fence have been pushing its significance, since it's the weak link. But there's no question that Condi's "Nuclear mushroom cloud" image got a LOT of play (well before the SOTUS) and that the nuclear fear was the kicker, the thing that put that ol' electric zing into the whole marketing effort. They had lots of other allegations, but this one I think was critical to THEM at least, in this sense. The killer app. It wasn't sufficient all by itself, but without it neither were the other allegations. The period at the end of the sentence. The card they could play to trump any disagreement. I dunno if you can gauge how much it mattered to the public at large, but I KNOW it mattered to them.

From a marketing standpoint--and that's how they were thinking of this--it was critical to the campaign.

edit: changed subject header. don't like to do that, but the other wasn't descriptive.

[kentuck]

3. See Will Pitt's article above.."Cut and Dried Criminals"...

He pinpoints the argument quite well. I had not read his post before I posted this...

[JHB]

4. Very important

Claiming definitive knowledge of a recent Iraqi uranium purchase reinforced several lines of argument/propaganda * & Co. were using to drum up support for the attack:

Bush & Co. were pushing the "mushroom cloud" (nukes) image as much as possible. To paraphrase the mayor in Jaws: "If you yell 'chemical warfare' or 'biological weapons', everybody says 'Huh? What?'. But if you yell 'nukes', you have a panic on your hands on the fourth of July." The credibility of a big attack on American soil went up big time if Saddam had bomb-making materials, and thus so did the malAdministration's claim of urgency.

He used it to make it seem as if it was no longer a question of "did Saddam have a program or didn't he?" If Saddam had acquired uranium, it'd be pretty obvious he'd have some kind of program in operation in direct violation of the 1991 UN cease-fire agreement.

Furthermore, since he could definitively state that Iraq DID actively seek and acquire nuclear materials, it reinfoced the WH line that the UN inspectors didn't have all the information and/or were incompetent.

If Bush had proof of a uranium purchase, it was a smoking gun that he was right, and he used that to push policies that he wanted. The mere fact that he was holding a moldy banana instead of a smoking gun didn't make it any less effective in mugging the decision-making processes of this nation.

[unfrigginreal]

5. I can't be certain but my guess is a WHOLE LOT!

My reasoning is that I was always opposed to the war but the SOTU gave me reason to pause. My better insticts kicked in and I remained opposed to this war, but that moment brought me perilously close to the Zombie state that I entered to support the war on Afghanistan.

There's no question in my mind that there are some good Democrats that got suckered into supporting this fiasco. I don't blame them a bit and will welcome their rage while we take this Junta down!

[huckleberry]

6. Chris Matthews said on Hardball last night

that the nuclear thing was what convinced a lot of his friends, who were originally against the war, to support it. That people were really afraid of Saddam getting the "big one". Transcripts not up yet so I'm just paraphrasing.