CIA late in seeing Iraq forgeries (claim after SOTU)-Newsweek

[RamboLiberal]

http://msnbc.com/news/937524.asp?0cv=CA01

The CIA did not receive the now-discredited documents that were a key source of the Bush administration’s claim that Iraq sought uranium in Africa until after President Bush’s State of the Union address, U.S. officials told news organizations. Meanwhile, a Democratic senator said Thursday that CIA Director George Tenet reluctantly acknowledged at a closed-door hearing on the matter that a White House official had insisted the unverified allegation be included in the speech, an assertion vigorously denied by the president’s spokesman.


NEWSWEEK AND THE Associated Press both quoted unidentified U.S. officials as saying the CIA did not obtain the documents until February 2003, after Bush’s Jan. 28 address to the nation in which he cited the “evidence” that Iraq was seeking to build nuclear weapons.

Newsweek, quoting three administration sources, said the agency got its copies nearly four months after they had been delivered to the U.S. Embassy in Rome and had been passed along to the State Department.

The reason the CIA did not immediately obtain the documents purporting to show that Iraq was trying to purchase enriched uranium from Niger was not immediately clear.

[hang a left]

1. Lots of things

aren't "immediately clear" but I think that they will keep getting clearer.