WASHINGTON -- The White House stepped back from a high-profile
assertion by President Bush, in his January 2002 State of the Union
Address, that U.S. forces had uncovered evidence of a potential
attack against an American nuclear facility.
In the speech, Mr. Bush warned of a terrorist threat to the
nation, saying that the U.S. had found "diagrams of American
nuclear power plants" in Afghanistan. Coming just months after the
Sept. 11 terrorist attacks -- and as U.S. forces were on the hunt
for al Qaeda in Afghanistan -- the statement was offered as
evidence of the depth of antipathy among Islamic extremists, and of
"the madness of the destruction they design."
"Our discoveries in Afghanistan confirmed our worst fears," Mr.
Bush told Congress and the nation in the televised speech. He said
"we have found" diagrams of public water facilities, instructions
on how to make chemical arms, maps of U.S. cities and descriptions
of U.S. landmarks, in addition to the nuclear-plant plans.
Monday night, the White House defended the warnings about
Islamic extremist intentions, but said the concerns highlighted by
Mr. Bush were based on intelligence developed before and after the
Sept. 11 attacks, and that no plant diagrams were actually found in
Afghanistan. "There's no additional basis for the language in the
speech that we have found," a senior administration official
said.
The disclosure came amid increasing questions about the Bush
administration's use of prewar intelligence on Iraq's weapons
capability to justify the U.S.-led invasion that toppled Saddam
Hussein. Mr. Bush has been forced to concede that the U.S. has
found none of the weapons of mass destruction that he warned of
before the war. It is also the second time that the Bush White
House has been forced to back away from an assertion in a State of
the Union address. In the 2003 speech, Mr. Bush warned Iraq was
seeking raw uranium in Africa, a claim the White House later
conceded was mistakenly included in the speech.
The suggestion that plant blueprints might have been in the
hands of terrorists sparked concern among environmental activists
and local communities near the country's 103 nuclear stations,
according to Greenpeace, the liberal advocacy group. The White
House was forced to comb back over Mr. Bush's 2002 speech Monday
after Greenpeace released a letter from a senior official at the
Nuclear Regulatory Commission that cast doubt on Mr. Bush's
claim.
In a letter responding to a request by Greenpeace to clarify Mr.
Bush's assertion about the nuclear-plant plans, NRC Commissioner
Edward McGaffigan wrote Feb. 4 to say that he had testified two
years ago in "one or more" closed-door Congressional hearings and
told lawmakers that he "was aware of no evidence" that plant
diagrams had been found in Afghanistan. The NRC is responsible for
maintaining security at the nation's nuclear power plants.
An NRC spokeswoman confirmed the authenticity of the letter, but
said that Mr. McGaffigan wouldn't have any comment. In the letter,
Mr. McGaffigan does say that al Qaeda poses a danger. "I believe
that based on the evidence available there is a general credible
threat by al Qaeda toward American nuclear power plants," he wrote.
While some evidence is public, he said, "The vast majority is
appropriately classified."
Sean McCormack, a spokesman for the White House's National
Security Council, said Monday night that rather than being based on
actual diagrams that were actually found in Afghanistan, the
president's warning about nuclear plants grew from information
collected by the U.S. intelligence community.
Among other things, U.S.
intelligence had received information from a suspected bin Laden
operative in the fall of 2001 and early 2002 suggesting that
potential U.S. targets include nuclear power facilities, dams and
water reservoirs. At the same time, the Federal Bureau of
Investigation reported a series of suspicious incidents, including
the surveillance of U.S. nuclear plants. In January 2002, the White
House said, U.S. intelligence warned that members of al Qaeda might
be tapping into the U.S.-based Internet sites that included
information about nuclear facilities.