The scandal over Bush's lying about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction has become so obvious that even the disgusting American media can no longer continue to cover up for him. CBS News is now reporting that the claim that Saddam was attempting to buy uranium from Niger, which formed a prominent part of Bush's State of the Union address, had been vetted by the CIA before the speech was delivered, and the CIA had warned members of the Bush’s National Security Council staff that the intelligence was not good enough to state that Saddam had tried to buy uranium from Niger. So Bush lied. We now have two independent sources, Joseph Wilson and Gregory Thielmann, making it clear that the whole Bush Administration argument for the attack on Iraq was based on information which had been disputed by American intelligence, and which the Bush Administration knew was in dispute. What is interesting is that the defense of the Bush Administration for the Niger uranium lie is that the statement was technically true. Bush actually said:

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

Although the Bush Administration knew that American intelligence wouldn't support the allegation, they rely on the extreme technicality that the statement was true as the British government did have a report which suggested that Saddam had sought to buy uranium from Niger. This is an extremely offensive argument for the Bushites to make, as it means that they are claiming that they could say things that they knew to be untrue as long as the way the statement was worded was deceptive enough to allow for the fallback position that they were only passing along information from Britain. But it is even more offensive than that. Blair's own 'dodgy dossier' was made up from a number of sources, including old material posted on the internet, and we are not entirely sure where it all originated. We do know, however, that the main source for all this information was the Bush Administration's Office of Special Plans led by Abram Shulsky, which brewed a concoction of nose-stretchers made up of material obtained from Chalabi's Iraqi National Congress and material custom-made for the purpose out of Ariel Sharon's office (and by the way, isn't it just about time for someone to figure out exactly where these clumsily forged Niger documents originated?). Therefore, it is quite possible that the original source for the lie was out of the Bush Administration's own office. If Bush wants to lie to the American people, all he has to do is feed the lies to his poodle Tony, who has it typed up into a 'dodgy dossier', and then carefully make the lie expressly referring to the Blair dossier, thus effectively laundering the lie through poodle Tony. We are starting to see Bush and Blair defend themselves by making statements that tend to pin the blame on the other (we try co-accused together so they can't get off by each one blaming the other). I wonder if Tony's defense for his lying will be that he was only relying on information that Dick Cheney gave to him.