The push to war continues with massive public relations. Behind the scenes, the Secretary of Defense continues his mild probe to find out about a purported Iraq deal for Niger uranium.
March 10-16, 2003:

 

March 10, 2003 – CIA headquarters receives copies of the Iraq Nuclear Verification Office (INVO’s) March 3 assessment of the Niger uranium documents. (Libby trial document DX64.9, before)

 
The assessment, of course, is that the documents are unreliable.

 

March 11, 2003 – CIA faxes a report and memo to Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, in a prompt response to his March 8 request for information on that Niger uranium, see earlier.

 
The memo begins, “We do not dispute the IAEA Director General’s conclusion – last Friday before the Security Council – that documents on Iraq’s agreement to buy uranium from Niger are not authentic.

 

Going on, “[deleted] documents suggesting that Niger as of early 2001 had planned to send Iraq several tons of “pure uranium.” The IAEA compared these documents with official correspondence from the Government of Niger, concluding that the documents we provided were not authentic.”

 
The CIA report sent to Rumsfeld goes on, once again as in a series of similar responses over the previous year, to express fundamental doubts about the uranium story:

 

“CIA on several occasions has cautioned [deleted] that available information on this issue was fragmentary and unconfirmed and early last month told them, “We could not confirm these reports and have questions regarding some specific claims. Nonetheless, we are concerned that these reports may indicate Baghdad has attempted to secure an unreported source of uranium yellowcake for a nuclear weapons program.

 

-- A centerpiece of the British white paper last fall was UK concern over Iraqi interest in foreign uranium. Given the fragmentary nature of the reporting, CIA had recommended that the UK not use this information in their paper.”

http://wid.ap.org/documents/libbytrial/jan24/DX63.pdf
(also, Libby trial document DX433, earlier)

 

And with this dubious and equivocating piece of slim intelligence, SecDef is willing to proceed to war within days.

 

March 14, 2003 – Sen. John D. Rockefeller (D-WV), ranking member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, asks the FBI to investigate the forged documents supporting the alleged Iraq-Niger uranium deal.

 

March 15, 2003 – Washington Post reporters Walter Pincus and Bob Woodward have a worried conversation expressing shared doubts about whether the alleged Iraq WMD exist.

(“Lies and Consequences,” Vanity Fair, April 2006)

 

March 16, 2003 – In a press availability with Prime Minister Tony Blair, Spanish President Aznar, and Portuguese Prime Minister Barroso, Bush discusses Iraq:

“We've had a really good discussion. We've been doing a lot of phone talking and it was good to get together and to visit and to talk. And we concluded that tomorrow is a moment of truth for the world. Many nations have voiced a commitment to peace and security. And now they must demonstrate that commitment to peace and security in the only effective way, by supporting the immediate and unconditional disarmament of Saddam Hussein.

The dictator of Iraq and his weapons of mass destruction are a threat to the security of free nations. He is a danger to his neighbors. He's a sponsor of terrorism. He's an obstacle to progress in the Middle East. For decades he has been the cruel, cruel oppressor of the Iraq people . . . Saddam Hussein has a history of mass murder. He possesses the weapons of mass murder. He agrees -- he agreed to disarm Iraq of these weapons as a condition for ending the Gulf War over a decade ago. The United Nations Security Council, in Resolution 1441, has declared Iraq in material breach of its longstanding obligations, demanding once again Iraq's full and immediate disarmament, and promised serious consequences if the regime refused to comply. That resolution was passed unanimously and its logic is inescapable; the Iraqi regime will disarm itself, or the Iraqi regime will be disarmed by force. And the regime has not disarmed itself.”

 

March, 2003 – Engineered Support Systems, Inc., the St. Louis-based company where Bush’s uncle William H. T. Bush sits on the board of directors, announces a U.S. Army order for its “Chemical Biological Protected Shelter” (CBPS) systems, bringing Army orders for this product to a total of 204 units.