Rice Resists Testimony to House Panel on Niger Claim

April 17 (Bloomberg) -- Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is resisting a U.S. House panel's demand that she testify tomorrow on why President George W. Bush said in a 2003 speech that Iraq sought uranium from Africa.

Rice ``has spoken publicly and in detail on this issue on more than one occasion,'' Jeffrey Bergner, assistant secretary of state for legislative affairs, wrote today in a letter to Democratic Representative Henry Waxman (news, bio, voting record), the chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. ``We believe the important questions about this matter have been answered.''

Waxman, in a letter to the State Department released late today, wrote that he has ``postponed the scheduled vote for a subpoena for your appearance before the committee from tomorrow to April 25.''

``I hope we can use this time to schedule your voluntary appearance,'' he wrote.

Waxman said in a March 12 letter that the panel still did not understand how the claim on uranium made it into the State of the Union address or what Rice, then Bush's national security adviser, knew about it.

The uranium claim was made two months before the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq and helped bolster the administration's contention that Saddam Hussein should be overthrown because he was trying to build nuclear weapons.

Bergner's letter noted that the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence conducted an investigation into the issue and included transcripts of public comments about it by Rice since 2003.

`Explored'

The issue had been ``extensively explored in at least three separate and exhaustive investigations,'' the letter said. ``There would be little purpose in Secretary Rice testifying at a hearing on these issues.''

Waxman said today that ``reports cited by Mr. Bergner did not examine how White House officials like you used the intelligence on Iraq.''

Rice explained in a 2003 press conference that the Iraq/Africa uranium connection was based on an unclassified British assessment and ``underlying intelligence'' in an October 2002 U.S. National Intelligence Estimate.

The uranium claim was removed from a separate speech Bush delivered before the State of the Union after the CIA wrote to the National Security Council raising questions about its authenticity. Rice's then-deputy, Stephen Hadley, who is now Bush's national security adviser, acknowledged he should have recalled that warning as the State of the Union was being prepared and had it removed.

The panel's top Republican, Representative Tom Davis, said ``it seems clear to us that Secretary Rice has answered the questions Chairman Waxman posed.''

``We're left wondering what a subpoena would accomplish, other than more crass headline grabbing,'' said Davis.

To contact the reporter on this story: Janine Zacharia in Washington at jzacharia@bloomberg.net

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