Bush told reporters today that he was told of "new information" about Iran in August during a briefing by Adm. Mike McConnell, the director of national intelligence.
"He didn't tell me what the information was. He did tell me it was going to take a while to analyze," the president said. He said he wasn't briefed about the new information until the new intelligence report was prepared last week.
The Democratic presidential candidates were incredulous that Bush did not know about the assessment's new finding.
Biden, the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, called that explanation "unbelievable."
"Are you telling me a president that's briefed every single morning, who's fixated on Iran, is not told back in August that the tentative conclusion of 16 intelligence agencies in the U.S. government said they had abandoned their effort for a nuclear weapon in '03?" Biden asked in a conference call with reporters.
"I refuse to believe that," he added. "If that's true, he has the most incompetent staff in modern American history, and he's one of the most incompetent presidents in modern American history."
The Bush administration has spent years warning that Iran's development of nuclear power plants and enriched uranium masked an effort to produce an atomic bomb. Top officials have called the prospect of a nuclear-armed Iran "unacceptable."
But in a report released Monday, U.S. intelligence agencies concluded that Iran had suspended nuclear weapons work in 2003 and was unlikely to produce enough weapons-grade uranium for a bomb until at least 2010.
The assessment reverses a 2005 National Intelligence Estimate that found the Islamic republic was "determined to develop nuclear weapons despite its international obligations and international pressure."Again, our Commander in Chief shows what a disaster he is as a leader and what a nincompoop he truly is as a person.
Check out his Bushit during the press conference where he tries to convince everyone he was out of the loop.
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