Rice: Still Lying About WMD's in Iraq

National security adviser Condoleezza Rice said yesterday it is still unclear whether Iraq attempted to procure tens of thousands of aluminum tubes for a nuclear weapons program or a conventional rocket program, despite conclusions by the Senate intelligence committee and U.N. investigators that the tubes could not be used in any nuclear program. "As I understand it, people are still debating this," Rice said on ABC's "This Week" program. "And I'm sure they will continue to debate it." As the Bush administration readied to attack Iraq, the tubes had formed a central part of its intelligence case that Iraqi President Saddam Hussein posed a grave threat to the United States. In 2002, Rice had said that the tubes were "only really suited for nuclear weapons programs," adding that "we don't want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud." But, as reported by The Washington Post more than a year ago, the internal debate among intelligence analysts was intense, with the experts at the Department of Energy who specialize in uranium enrichment adamant that the tubes were not suitable for a nuclear program. They argued that the tubes were intended for Iraqi rockets. [more ] Pictured above: Black Republican Rice say "click me"

• A New York Times story Sunday quoted four CIA officials and a senior administration official as saying that Rice and her staff had been told in 2001 that Energy Department experts believed the tubes were probably intended for small artillery rockets -- and not nuclear weapons. [more ] and more
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