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Press Briefing 04/17/06
— Tuesday, April 18, 2006 —
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Q Scott, I want to ask you about the National Intelligence Council report that came to the White House in January of 2003, that essentially said the Niger uranium claims were baseless. In view of that report, how did the uranium claim make its way to the State of the Union Address, subsequently?

MR. McCLELLAN: I don't know how many times we've been over that. I think we went over that back in July of 2003 and we talked about that. So I would encourage you to look back at the briefing that was provided to you all in this room.

In terms of the intelligence, we have said multiple times that the intelligence was wrong. That's why the President asked the Robb-Silberman Commission, an independent bipartisan commission, to take a look at all the intelligence in the lead up to the decision to go into Iraq. It was intelligence that was shared with members of Congress, it was intelligence that was very similar to what nations across the world believed, and it's intelligence that the United Nations --

Q Well, who got the intelligence here?

MR. McCLELLAN: What's important now is that we make sure we move forward in implementing the reforms that were recommended by the Robb-Silberman Commission. We have done that.

Q But can I ask how you got the intelligence here?

MR. McCLELLAN: Hang on. We put in place a Director of National Intelligence. We have restructured the intelligence community under his leadership -- Ambassador Negroponte. And so there are a number of steps we continue to move forward on to make sure that the President has the best possible intelligence, and to make sure that Congress has the best possible intelligence, because there are many threats we face in this day and age and we need to make sure that those threats are being met in the best possible way.

Q I just want, for the record, who received the intelligence report here?

MR. McCLELLAN: Who received which intelligence report?

Q The January, 2003 National Intelligence Council report.

MR. McCLELLAN: I'll have to go back and look and get you that information. I assume it went to the National Security Council.

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