2:45PM Today: Reporters Should Ask Hadley About His Involvement In Leak Scandal

National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley is holding a press conference today at 2:45PM. Purportedly, it’s about the President’s trip to Latin America. Responsible journalists, however, should ask Hadley about his role in the CIA leak scandal. Specifically, we learned in Hadley’s 7/22/03 press briefing, that he was warned three times by the CIA – before the 2003 State of the Union Address — not to include the claim that Iraq was seeking uranium from Africa.

OCTOBER 5 – CIA SENDS MEMO WARNING HADLEY AND SPEECH WRITER MICHAEL GERSON: As described by Hadley, the memo noted “that CIA had told the Congress about concerns about the British claim” on uranium sales from Africa.

OCTOBER 6 – CIA SENDS MEMO WARNING CONDOLEEZZA RICE AND HADLEY: The memo informed the White House that the Africa uranium story “was one of two issues where we differed with the British intelligence.”

OCTOBER 5, 6, 7 – TENET CALLS HADLEY AND SAYS “HE DID NOT WANT THE PRESIDENT TO BE A FACT WITNESS FOR THAT STATEMENT”: “As we’ve already disclosed publicly, George Tenet had a brief telephone conversation with me during the clearance process for the October 7 Cincinnati speech. This was the one — he asked that any reference to Iraq’s attempt to purchase uranium from sources from Africa to be deleted from the speech…Based on DCI Tenet’s request, the sentence was deleted from the Cincinnati speech, when he said he did not want the President to be a fact witness for that statement.”

Hadley’s excuse as to why the information ended up the State of the Union anyway? I forgot:

But the fact is that given the October 5 and 6 CIA memorandum, and my telephone with the DCI Tenet at roughly the same time, I should have recalled at the time of the State of the Union speech that there was controversy associated with the uranium issue.

More information on Hadley’s role in the leak scandal here.