Rice Watch Day 6

Remember, you first heard it here at Angry Bear. Now you can hear it in the mainstream media, U.S. News and Word Report:

As White House officials try to control the latest fallout over President Bush’s flawed suggestion in the State of the Union address that Iraq was buying nuclear bomb materials, there’s growing talk by insiders that National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice may take the blame and resign.

The same article mentions Brent Scowcroft, Paul Bremer, and some guy I don’t know anything about (Sean O’Keefe) as possible replacements. I view Scowcroft as a great replacement, and therefore the least likely (I don’t think he’s on board with the neocon agenda).

Also see today’s Washington Post for another damaging article, Iraq Flap Shakes Rice’s Image:

“If Condi didn’t know the exact state of intel on Saddam’s nuclear programs . . . she wasn’t doing her job,” said Brookings Institution foreign policy specialist Michael E. O’Hanlon. “This was foreign policy priority number one for the administration last summer, so the claim that someone else should have done her homework for her is unconvincing.

But was her true mistake intelligence-related, or political?

When the controversy intensified earlier this month with a White House admission of error, Rice was the first administration official to place responsibility on CIA Director Tenet for the inclusion in Bush’s State of the Union address of the Africa uranium charge. The White House now concedes that pinning responsibility on Tenet was a costly mistake. CIA officials have since made clear to the White House and to Congress that intelligence agencies had repeatedly tried to wave the White House off the allegation.

It’s a damning article that, in conjunction with the inexorable pressure from Angry Bear, should turn up the heat on the Rice-cooker. (I’ve knew the time would come for a rice, rice-cooker, watched pot never boils type of line–it took six days but there it is).

AB

UPDATE: For more, see The Likely Story and Josh Marshall.

AB