Then and now - Condi

[JPJones]

Condi on CNN

Sept 8, 2002
"High quality aluminum tubes, that are only really suited for nuclear weapons programs"

Oct 3, 2004
I knew there was some debate out there, but I tell you, I did not know the nature of the debate.


Condi on the Today show - Oct 3, 2004

Condi: "Later we learned that the Dept. of Energy believed that these tubes might be for something else. But in fact, the intelligence community assesment, the judgement of the intelligence community as a whole, as well as the very strong view of the Director of Central Intelligence was that these tubes were most likely for use in a nuclear weapons program.

Campbell Brown: Did you ever tell the President that there was real dispute among the experts over whether or not-

Condi: Of course...

Campbell Brown: - the argument you were making was true?

Condi: Of course. Well, no. The argument, which was that Saddam Hussein was trying to reconstitute his nuclear weapons program, that he had a procurement network that was trying to procure the pieces for that and that he had the expertise to do it. What was at dispute here between the Department of Energy and the other intelligence agencies, actually the Department of Energy and the Department of State agency, was whether or not these tubes were for rocket motors or for nuclear weapons programs. Some people apparently thought that they were for rocket motors, the intelligence community's assesment as a whole was that they were for nuclear weapons programs. But of course, we later on knew that there was a dispute within the intelligence community, it's in all the documents, but even the Department of Energy understood that they could be suitable for this, although the Department of Energy believed that that's not what they were for.

Campbell Brown: If a can read back a quote that you gave CNN at the time that the tubes were only really suited for nuclear weapons programs and that we didn't want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud. Given what you know now, is it fair to say that that was a gross overstatement of the threat?

Condi: Campbell, you know what you know at the time. The fact is what you know at the time can affect what you say. What you learn later can not.

[Union Thug]

1. I don't know, but I smells a flip flopper afoot!

[Roland99]

2. Plenty of liars to go around...

Colin Powell in Cairo February 24, 2001:
He (Saddam Hussein) has not developed any significant capability with respect to weapons of mass destruction. He is unable to project conventional power against his neighbours."

Condoleeza Rice, July 2001:
"We are able to keep his arms from him. His military forces have not been rebuilt."



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