This morning, of course, the center of attention for all the talk shows was 16 words. Those words; "The British Government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa," found their way into President Bush's State of the Union Address in January, and have been a focus of fierce debate this week.

The talk show hosts questioned National Security Advisor Condoleeza Rice most strongly and exclusively about this. She emphasized a few points to Wolf Blitzer on Late Edition and Bob Schieffer on Face the Nation. One was that the British continue to stand by their report on Iraq and African uranium, citing multiple sources and possibly other countries besides Niger. So, she says, the president's wording wasn't even incorrect. She also iterated and then reiterated on both programs that this 16 word accusation was only one among "a lot of data points." She said that it was not the only or most important piece of information on, as she put it on Face the Nation, Iraq's "broad case of nuclear reconstitution," and certainly not the main focus of Bush's case for the war in Iraq. However, she told Face the Nation, if the Administration had known at the time that the intelligence was not up to the level of quality it should be to be in a Presidential speech, had there "even been a peep... it would have been gone."

After a question from Wolf Blitzer, Rice stated that she would like to "straighten out" the saga of Joe Wilson, the special envoy who was sent to Niger to investigate the yellowcake claims. She stated that "is simply not true" that Wilson was sent at the behest of Cheney's office. Ms. Rice further stated that Wilson's reporting stated that Niger denied that Iraq was attempting to buy uranium from it, but also that one person who had been meeting with Iraqis suspected that Iraq may have been "trying to use commercial activity to talk about yellow cake."

On Face the Nation, Rice also spoke about the larger issue of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. She said that we will learn the "full picture" of these programs and the concealment of them. She spoke of pre-war intelligence on these weapons, on multiple reports from multiple sources regarding certain red lines which, if passed, may have instigated chemical/biological attack from Saddam's forces, the dispersing of protective wear to the troops, and of orders to troops for formations that would serve well for chemical attack.

In addition to these two topics, Rice mentioned two other things which I find of import. She stated that "Charles Taylor...is the source of instability in Liberia", and also framed the current attacks in Iraq as attacks on the successes of the United States and post-Saddam Iraqis. This second point strikes me as important because Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld also mentioned these attacks in quite the same way, thus to me indicating a new piece of rhetoric, albeit in instances a factual one (a police academy has been attacked and a soldier was killed at the now reopened Baghdad University, for example - both of which Secretary Rumsfeld raised as evidence to this claim).

Rumsfeld was on both Meet the Press with Tim Russert and This Week with George Stephanopoulos this morning, where he was also questioned strongly about the yellowcake claims. Unlike Rice, Rumsfeld did not give much new information on this issue. After some flip-flopping, Rumsfeld told Stephanopoulos that he did not know the Niger-Iraq was shaky until March. He did, however, unlike Rice, also mention the doubts (suprisingly with nary a push from Stephanopoulos to mention these doubts) regarding administration statements which claimed Iraq’s attempt to import aluminum tubes indicated a working nuclear program.

Both Russert and Stephanopoulos questioned Rumsfeld on the larger issue of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction. On This Week, Rumsfeld partially retracted an earlier statement about intelligence on these weapons. Months ago, on the same show, Rumsfeld had said that "we know where they are," and gave a location near Baghdad. Today, Rumsfeld stated that intelligence said they were there and that they could have been moved on the eve of war. Rumsfeld was asked by Tim Russert on Meet the Press if this prospect is still on his mind, as the possibility of these weapons in terrorists' hands is one of the things which the administration fears most. Rumsfeld answered in the affirmative.

As questioning on weapons of mass destruction continued, Russert asked about weapons of mass destruction as a case for war. Rumsfeld defended weapons of mass destruction as a case for war, but did acknowledge that the lack of a "smoking gun" posed a significant problem before the war. That lack was overcome, Rumsfeld said, by the volume of other information the United States had about Saddam and his weapons of mass destruction.

Talking to Stephanopoulos on This Week, Rumsfeld said that the United States is now in an interrogation process rather than focusing on possible weapons sites which had been identified before the war in Iraq. He also stated that there have been finds of information, including dual use elements, which could be used for either harmless purposes or in the development of weapons.

Asked about the future in Iraq, Rumsfeld told Russert that the number of American forces in Iraq is not likely to go up. He told Stephanopoulos that figures which he has quoted on the price of war in Iraq were in fact not predictions, as a recent Washington Post report may have led readers to believe (it extrapolated figures to estimate that it was possible that the price of war and occupation of Iraq could approach $100 by next year). He stated that an earlier $1.9 billion per month figure was a snapshot of one month, just as the most recent $4 billion figure is. As for why he does not predict, Rumsfeld says that he could not predict "x billion dollars" or the number of troops which would be in Iraq because, when one looks at past predictions by others, all those predictions had been wrong. Rumsfeld asked if it would not be worse to have incorrect predictions than to have no prediction at all, and said that if anything, he would rather overstate predictions, specifically on dollar amounts, than understate them.

Just as Rice spoke briefly about other topics besides Iraq, Rumsfeld briefly mentioned North Korea. He stated that he "wouldn't say North Korea is more dangerous than Iraq."

In addition to these two, Senator Bob Graham appeared on Meet the Press and retired General Wesley Clark appeared on This Week (although Clark was opposite both Rice and Rumsfeld, so I was not able to watch his interview).

Bob Graham spoke on a variety of issues, from the war on terror to Iraq to his campaign for president of the United States. On Iraq, he stated that he thinks "there was a selective use of intelligence." On terrorism, he stated that the 9/11 report will state that al Qaeda has trained between 70,000 and 120,000 would-be terrorists and that some of these are in the United States today... a significant number, he says.

On his candidacy, Graham pushed for a balanced budget. When pressured on how he would acheive this, he stated that he feels that since the past few generations have not balanced the budget, they have been passing deficit on to their children and grandchildren. Graham feels this is unacceptable and as such says it is time for sacrifice, just as we have sacrificed in the past, for example, to finance World Wars I and II. These sacrifices will come in the elimination of most of the Bush tax cuts and possibly the elimination of off-shore tax breaks.

And that's this Sunday in talk shows.