WASHINGTON — The CIA wrongly allowed President Bush to tell the American people that Iraq tried to buy uranium from Africa, despite analysts' doubts about the information, the agency's director, George J. Tenet, acknowledged Friday.
"These 16 words should never have been included in the text written for the president," Tenet said, referring to a section of January's State of the Union address in which Bush said: "The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa."
The agency vetted the speech and raised some concerns about earlier versions of the text, but it ultimately let the statement stand, Tenet said. "This was a mistake."
Tenet's contrite statement capped a day in which mounting criticism of the administration's prewar claims erupted into an extraordinary round of high-level finger-pointing.
Earlier in the day, President Bush and national security advisor Condoleezza Rice put the blame squarely on the CIA for a controversy that has called the president's credibility into question and threatens to follow Bush into next year's presidential election.
Pressed by reporters traveling with the president in Uganda to explain why that statement was included, Bush replied: "I gave a speech to the nation that was cleared by the intelligence services."
Rice spoke more bluntly, taking direct aim at Tenet. She said the uranium language in the speech had been specifically vetted by the CIA, and if Tenet had objections to the inclusion of the uranium claim, "he did not make them known."
Forcefully defending Bush, Rice said: "The president did not knowingly, before the American people, say something that we thought to be false."
Their remarks represented rare, direct, on-the-record criticism of the CIA by the White House. And Tenet's highly unusual three-page statement was clearly aimed at defusing a conflict that had built during the week through a series of damaging disclosures and leaks to the media.
Indeed, some officials in the intelligence community had said earlier Friday that a statement from Tenet taking the heat off Bush might be the only way for the CIA director to save his job.
Tenet is the only high-level holdover from the Clinton administration working for Bush, and the two are said to have forged a collegial bond.
