91^st in continuing blog series on the administration push to war. As the public stories rapidly wear notably thin, behind the scenes the administration is becoming increasingly attentive to its production of the Niger uranium story. Meanwhile, in Iraq it is also becoming apparent that notwithstanding the easy U.S. military dominance over poor Iraqi military forces, the war is not going smoothly. Conquest is one thing. Control is another.
June 8-11, 2003:

June 8, 2003 – Judith Miller returns to the U.S. from Iraq. (Libby trial testimony)

Same day -- “Be Patient, Keep Looking” [for WMD] article appears in the Los Angeles Times, authored by Project for the New American Ccentury (PNAC) signatory and founder Gary J. Schmitt.

Same day -- Then-National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice appears on NBC’s Meet the Press, contradicts Kristof’s claim and maintains that administration allegations about Iraq WMD were not inflated or wrong. She also denies that warnings or qualification about purported Iraq efforts to acquire Niger uranium reached the top level of the administration:
 

“(Videotape, January 28):

PRES. BUSH: The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa.

(End videotape) . . .

DR. RICE: The president quoted a British paper. We did not know at the time--no one knew at the time, in our circles--maybe someone knew down in the bowels of the agency, but no one in our circles knew that there were doubts and suspicions that this might be a forgery. Of course, it was information that was mistaken. But the--it was a relatively small part of the case about nuclear weapons and nuclear reconstitution. It is also the case that the broad picture about Iraq's programs was a picture that went very far back in time. Let me take for a minute that DIA report that you just talked about because there's a lot of selective quotation going on here.”

June 9, 2003 – Joseph Wilson, who later says he is angered by Rice’s statements on Meet the Press, makes a toughly skeptical appearance on MSNBC’s Hardball regarding the story of Iraqi WMD.

June 9, 2003 – The CIA faxes more classified documents to the Office of the Vice President to Scooter Libby and John Hannah; the documents refer to the Wilson trip to Niger but not to Wilson by name.
http://wid.ap.org/documents/libbytrial/feb8/GX30301.PDF

Two of the documents are a “tasking” from Cheney dated Feb. 13, 2002, asking for information about Iraq attempts to purchase uranium from Niger, and the CIA response to that query, dated Feb. 14, 2002. The CIA also faxes two other classified documents to Cheney’s office; one is a copy of the Feb. 14, 2002, reply to Cheney; the other is a similar reply to a query from Rumsfeld dated March 11, 2003, see earlier.

Same day – Grossman has a conversation with Wilson about Rice’s appearance on Meet the Press; Wilson is upset (Grossman’s testimony, Libby trial). Wilson later writes that the conversation “elicited the suggestion that I might have to write the story myself” (The Politics of Truth, 332).

June 9, 2003 (about) -- Wilson gets in touch with David Shipley, editor of the New York Times op-ed page, who offers him “fifteen hundred words to tell my story.” (Wilson’s book, 332)

June 10, 2003 – A memorandum is sent from the Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR) in the State Department to Marc Grossman, clarifying Wilson’s role in the Niger-Iraq uranium story and characterizing his role as a “only a walk-on part.”

          The memorandum states clearly that Valerie Wilson is “a CIA WMD manager and the wife of Joe Wilson.”

http://noquarter.typepad.com/my_weblog/files/inr_memo.pdf

June 10, 2003 – Economics Professor Paul Krugman’s column in the New York Times blasts the administration for trying to silence critics and questions on Iraq WMD: “nobody is being held accountable for misleading the nation into war.” (“Who’s Accountable?” A29)

Same day -- Hans Blix gives a press conference at which he says that he was smeared in some echelons of the Pentagon for his queries regarding WMD reports. http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,974998,00.html

Same day -- An article in the Washington business publication GovExec, heavily defense oriented, also raises questions about the missing or nonexistent Iraq WMD.
http://www.govexec.com/dailyfed/0603/061003db.htm

June 11, 2003 – CIA manager Robert L. Grenier, at the time “Iraq mission manager” and “point person for Iraq” according to trial testimony, receives a phone call from Lewis Libby and has a conversation with Libby about Joe Wilson. Grenier is then summoned from a meeting with the CIA Director to respond to Libby’s questions about Wilson, and he tells Libby that Wilson’s wife works in CIA.
http://wid.ap.org/documents/libbytrial/jan24/GX70101.pdf

Grenier’s testimony makes clear that he spent much of his CIA service in 2002 and 2003 working on Iraq.

June 11, 2003 – General Shinseki retires from the Army. It is widely suspected that his retirement is linked to his earlier candor about the number of troops needed for a postwar Iraq. As of 2007, his estimates are vindicated.