On July 7, 2003, Press Secretary Ari Fleischer “called reporters for The New York Times and The Washington Post and engaged in a rare act: he admitted a White House mistake. ‘White House Backs Off Claim on Iraqi Buy,’ read the headline…in the Post the next morning. ‘Knowing all that we know now,’ a senior Bush administration official was quoted as saying, ‘the reference to Iraq’s attempt to acquire uranium from Africa should not have been included in the State of the Union speech.’ ”
– Michael Isikoff and David Corn, Hubris, Pages 259-260