Bush stands by CIA chief over false allegations

President George W Bush said today he had confidence in CIA Director George Tenet despite his agency’s failure to warn Bush against making allegations about Iraq’s nuclear weapons programme which were later found to be false.

“Yes I do, absolutely,” Bush said. “I’ve got confidence in George Tenet. I’ve got confidence in the men and women who work at the CIA and I look forward to working with them as we win this war on terror.”

The President was speaking in Abuja, Nigeria, at the end of a five-country trip through Africa.

Bush asserted in his State of the Union address in January that Iraq had sought nuclear materials from Africa. Nearly six months later, the White House acknowledged the charge was false, and the storm that followed has shadowed Bush on his five-country trip through Africa.

Bush considers the matter closed, said White House spokesman Ari Fleischer.

“The President has moved on, and I think, frankly, much of the country has moved on, as well,” he said.

In a carefully scripted mea culpa, the White House on Friday blamed the CIA for its January mistake and Tenet finished the job hours later with a dramatic statement accepting responsibility. Bush had said that the CIA had reviewed his address and did not raise any alarms.

The statement on Iraq seeking nuclear material “did not rise to the level of certainty which should be required for presidential speeches, and CIA should have ensured that it was removed”, Tenet said.

“It was a mistake,” he said.

The one-two punch was designed to quell a growing political storm, fuelled in part by members of Congress and Democratic presidential hopefuls that challenged the credibility of the administration’s arguments that Iraq was trying to reconstitute its nuclear weapons program before the US invasion in March.

Administration officials said they did not expect Tenet to resign. He is the lone holdover from the Clinton administration and, while distrusted by some conservatives, has enjoyed Bush’s confidence.

“I’ve heard no discussion along those lines,” CIA spokesman Mark Mansfield said last night when asked whether Tenet might consider resigning.

The current controversy revolves around Bush’s assertion in his State of the Union address that Iraq had tried to buy uranium from the African country of Niger. A month later, the administration retracted the allegation after learning that the British intelligence it was based upon had been forged.

Tenet acknowledged yesterday that the CIA had tried unsuccessfully for months to substantiate the British allegation and that State Department intelligence analysts believed the claim was “highly dubious,” yet neither stopped Bush from making the claim in a single sentence of his annual address to the nation.

“These 16 words should never have been included in the text written for the president,” Tenet conceded in a statement.