President Must Not Shift Blame For His Misuse Of Intelligence
The following is a press release from July 12, 2003, by Kucinich's office in Congress.
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President Must Not Shift Blame For His Misuse Of Intelligence
Today, Congressman Dennis J. Kucinich (D-OH), Ranking Member of the Government Reform Subcommittee on National Security, Emerging Threats and International Relations, issued the following statement on the growing controversy over the Administration's misuse of intelligence in the lead-up to war against Iraq:
"It is clear, in the lead-up to war against Iraq, the Administration from the top on down orchestrated an organized campaign of false and misleading statements to persuade the Congress of the United States and American pubic to support a war against Iraq.
"We now know that multiple claims made by the President, Vice President, Secretary of Defense, and other Administration officials about Iraq's nuclear weapons programs were false and used solely to play on the fears of American's to conjure an excuse for war.
"The President of the United States is simply using the CIA as a scapegoat to shift blame from those truly responsible.
"The Administration's attempt to shift blame to the CIA is transparent and ridiculous in light of the active role that the Vice President played in the misuse of intelligence before the war. We know that the Office of the Vice President knew almost a year before the President's State of the Union Address that reports that Iraq was trying to purchase uranium from Niger were false. We also know that the Vice President, and his top staff, made multiple unprecedented trips to the CIA before the war, in order to pressure the CIA analyst to disseminate unreliable information.
"It is time for the President to step forward and take responsibility for the pattern of false and misleading statements that he, and other members of his Administration, made in the lead-up to war in Iraq. It is also time for Congress to step forward and hold full and public hearings on these matters. The American public deserves no less."
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