CIA Was Tricked By Spam Email, Says Government
by Josh Righter
As questions swirled over the weekend as to whether or not President Bush knowingly presented false information in his State of the Union address when he stated that Iraq attempted to purchase uranium from Africa, the matter was seemingly put to rest on Saturday when CIA Director George Tenet announced that he and his organization, not Bush, were to blame for the erroneous reports.
In a press conference, Tenet explained that they acted on a "compelling, but ultimately false" email sent to them concerning Iraq.
"I regret to say that we took information emailed to us from an unknown, unverified source to be absolutely true, and without checking on it at all, we told the President to go ahead and relate it to the public," Tenet said. "We realize now that this was probably a fairly large mistake."
In his and the CIA's defense, Tenet said, the email was "very convincing".
"It told us that Iraq was trying to get weapons to '**** up America' from all kinds of countries, including Africa," he explained, growing visibly excited despite the fact that the email has been proven false. "The sender included an attachment which was allegedly a map to the uranium mining sites, but it turned out to be a virus which made our computers spit out messages telling us to 'smoke the chronic'."
Although they attempted to follow the instructions, inhaling several ounces of the powerful marijuana mixture known as "the chronic" per operative, the CIA could not find any such map.
"One guy said he saw a dancing shark with a top hat," recalled Tenet. "We all laughed at that for a while, but it wasn't really a map to anything."
In addition to the Iraq email, the CIA also received mail instructing them on how to lose weight, extend their penis size, view pornography involving minors and farm animals, and meet sexy singles online.
"None of these emails turned out to be even remotely valid, no matter how many billions of dollars' worth of the taxpayers' money we poured into investigated them," Tenet said, frustrated. "It was a tough time for us, and we finally just told the President to go ahead and use the Iraq email anyway."
Thus, Tenet said, the blame for the false information should fall squarely on himself and the CIA, not the unwitting Bush.
"He had no idea it was wrong," Tenet said. "In fact, when he made that statement, he had little idea where he even was, with his natural state of confusion being amplified by that morning's alcohol intake."
But alcohol intake or not, some Democrats are taking the chance to jump at the false evidence, claiming it demonstrates a war under false pretenses.
"This kind of behaviour is simply unacceptable," said Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry. "It's the kind of thing that I can use to finally show a little bit of backbone after cowering from the Republicans like the rest of my party has been for years."
"What evidence? What war with Iraq? Jesus Christ, am I out of the loop," commented presidential candidate Reverend Al Sharpton.
But national security adviser Condoleezza Rice claimed that "too big of a deal" is being made out of the false email.
"Listen, we didn't go to war with Iraq because of this uranium thing," she said matter-of-factly. "We went because of weapons of mass destruction, and, uh, we haven't found those yet, either."
Rice then grew pale and ran off to ask Tenet if the WMD intelligence was also based on email as well.
:nono:
by Josh Righter
As questions swirled over the weekend as to whether or not President Bush knowingly presented false information in his State of the Union address when he stated that Iraq attempted to purchase uranium from Africa, the matter was seemingly put to rest on Saturday when CIA Director George Tenet announced that he and his organization, not Bush, were to blame for the erroneous reports.
In a press conference, Tenet explained that they acted on a "compelling, but ultimately false" email sent to them concerning Iraq.
"I regret to say that we took information emailed to us from an unknown, unverified source to be absolutely true, and without checking on it at all, we told the President to go ahead and relate it to the public," Tenet said. "We realize now that this was probably a fairly large mistake."
In his and the CIA's defense, Tenet said, the email was "very convincing".
"It told us that Iraq was trying to get weapons to '**** up America' from all kinds of countries, including Africa," he explained, growing visibly excited despite the fact that the email has been proven false. "The sender included an attachment which was allegedly a map to the uranium mining sites, but it turned out to be a virus which made our computers spit out messages telling us to 'smoke the chronic'."
Although they attempted to follow the instructions, inhaling several ounces of the powerful marijuana mixture known as "the chronic" per operative, the CIA could not find any such map.
"One guy said he saw a dancing shark with a top hat," recalled Tenet. "We all laughed at that for a while, but it wasn't really a map to anything."
In addition to the Iraq email, the CIA also received mail instructing them on how to lose weight, extend their penis size, view pornography involving minors and farm animals, and meet sexy singles online.
"None of these emails turned out to be even remotely valid, no matter how many billions of dollars' worth of the taxpayers' money we poured into investigated them," Tenet said, frustrated. "It was a tough time for us, and we finally just told the President to go ahead and use the Iraq email anyway."
Thus, Tenet said, the blame for the false information should fall squarely on himself and the CIA, not the unwitting Bush.
"He had no idea it was wrong," Tenet said. "In fact, when he made that statement, he had little idea where he even was, with his natural state of confusion being amplified by that morning's alcohol intake."
But alcohol intake or not, some Democrats are taking the chance to jump at the false evidence, claiming it demonstrates a war under false pretenses.
"This kind of behaviour is simply unacceptable," said Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry. "It's the kind of thing that I can use to finally show a little bit of backbone after cowering from the Republicans like the rest of my party has been for years."
"What evidence? What war with Iraq? Jesus Christ, am I out of the loop," commented presidential candidate Reverend Al Sharpton.
But national security adviser Condoleezza Rice claimed that "too big of a deal" is being made out of the false email.
"Listen, we didn't go to war with Iraq because of this uranium thing," she said matter-of-factly. "We went because of weapons of mass destruction, and, uh, we haven't found those yet, either."
Rice then grew pale and ran off to ask Tenet if the WMD intelligence was also based on email as well.
:nono:
