William Safire on the “16 words”:
The subsequent firestorm caused the White House to retreat prematurely with: “the sixteen words did not rise to the level of inclusion in the State of the Union address.”
That apology was a mistake; Bush had spoken the plain truth. Did Saddam seek uranium from Africa, evidence of his continuing illegal interest in a nuclear weapon? Here is Lord Butler’s nonpartisan panel, which closely examined the basis of the British intelligence:
“. . . we conclude that the statement in President Bush’s State of the Union Address of 28 January 2003 that `The British Government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa’ was well-founded.”