Waxman Still Wants Rice To Answer Question On Niger Uranium Claims

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After receiving what he deemed an insufficient response from the State Department, House Oversight and Government Reform Chairman Henry A. Waxman (D-Calif.) is reiterating his request for Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to appear before the panel on April 18 to answer questions about administration claims that Iraq tried to buy enriched uranium from Niger.

Waxman wants Rice to answer questions about what she knew about the assertion that Iraq tried to buy uranium before the U.S. invasion, according to a letter the chairman sent Rice on Monday.

The claims, which have since been proved false, were the basis for a now notorious line in President Bush’s State of the Union in 2003 address to justify the invasion of Iraq. That claim eventually led to the outing of Valerie Plame, a covert CIA agent, who has already testified before Waxman’s committee.

In his most recent letter to Rice, Waxman lays out the four questions he would like Rice to answer:

1) Whether she knew if Bush “cited forged evidence about Iraq’s efforts to procure uranium from Niger in the State of the Union Address”;

2) Whether she was aware of doubts raised by CIA and State Department officials questioning the veracity of those claims before Bush delivered his speech;

3) Whether there was any factual basis for Rice’s reference in a 2003 op-ed to “Iraq’s efforts to get uranium from abroad”;

4) Whether Rice “took appropriate steps to investigate how the Niger claim ended up in the State of the Union address after it was revealed to be fraudulent.”

Waxman also criticizes State Department legislative liaison Jeffrey Bergner for failing to address any of the above questions in a letter to the committee earlier this month.

“Rather than address any of these questions, Mr. Bergner forwarded copies of two old State Department letter that have no bearing whatsoever on your knowledge of, your role in, or your statements about the Niger claim,” Waxman wrote.

Waxman also criticized Bergner for failing to answer the committee’s questions about “the seemingly inconsistent way in which the White House has responded to leaks of classified information, such as the disclosure of the identity of cover CIA agent Valerie Plame.”

http://www.politico.com/blogs/thecrypt/040...ium_Claims.html