Pul-lease.
Chain of events:
1. British making claim that Iraq was trying to buy nuclear material from Niger. May or may not be accurate. Our CIA is on the fence.
2. In speech Bush claims "British Intelligence reports that Iraq is trying to buy..." Notice he did not say "Iraq is trying to buy..." but "British Intelligence SAYS Iraq is trying to buy..." It is not Clinton-esque, it is a fact.
3. The veracity of the allegation comes into question. It is still not perfectly clear whether or not Iraq did or did not attempt to purchase the materials from Nigeria, just that some of the supporting documents have been declared fraudulent. One should also note that the people making the fraud accusation benefit from those papers being discounted.
In other words, as is often the case with Intelligence - the source is questionable, the accusation is questionable (but probable), the person/people countering the accusation are questionable, and the press, who don't understand Intelligence, have got it mostly wrong.
I agree with your analysis, except for that phrase. Rice said yesterday that the CIA made minor changes (deleting references to Niger and the amount of uranium), but did not advise the deletion of the statement. That's hardly "on the fence."
And speaking of the CIA, can someone explain why they chose someone with Wilson's background, Saudi connections and blatant political bias to investigate the Niger claim? They might as well have sent Terry McAuliffe.
What bothers me most about this story is no one is questioning the bad judgment -- and obvious lack of independent intelligence -- by the CIA, and why Tenent didn't jump out in front, like the head of the Australian intelligence did to protect Howard? What is Tenent's game?