US State Department Admits Mistake on Iraqi Uranium Source

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Tuesday, July 15, 2003

US State Department Admits Mistake on Iraqi Uranium Source

The US State Department admitted Monday that it had made a mistake by listing Niger as the source for Iraq to seek uranium in a fact sheet released late last year.

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The US State Department admitted Monday that it had made a mistake by listing Niger as the source for Iraq to seek uranium in a fact sheet released late last year.

"In retrospect, I would have worded it differently," spokesman Richard Boucher told reporters.

"It was based on the information available at the time," the spokesman said. "I think that we probably would have put somethingin there about Iraq's attempts to acquire uranium."

"I probably would not have mentioned the Niger, or might have even worded it differently," he continued.

In a declaration issued on July 7, the White House also admitted that when President George W. Bush accused Iraq of seeking uranium from Niger in his State of the Union address last January, the accusation was based on "incomplete and incorrect" information.

But meeting UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan at the White House on Monday, President Bush defended US prewar intelligence, describing US intelligence on Iraq's alleged weapons of mass destruction programs as "darn good."

"The intelligence I get is darn good intelligence. And the speeches I have given were backed by good intelligence," he said.

The administration has recently been under increasing criticism for warping intelligence about Iraq's weapons programs to whip up public support for war.

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