"Why the fakeroo?"
Well, I've read everything including that it was purposeful disinfo in plan to blemish good intelligence.
The Senate Intel report is interesting. Though these documents are fakes, it's unclear if they were all, or at all, the documents the early 2002 reports were based on.
Then there's the French thing they they knew about them "initially" implying they had other intel about Niger, including taps on their own citizens running Niger mines.
Then there's the whole Joe Wilson campaign...seemed almost coordinated.
The story just won't die...and it keeps coming back in a different configuration. Just like it did during most of 2003. The story kept circulating, until it found a permutation that got traction (specifically, the Plame Name Blame Game).
I think we can surmise who is keeping it alive. But let's address another question: who created the forgeries in the first place, and to what end?
Start with the foreknowledge that whoever did it evidently wanted these "forgeries" to be found out and discredited. Otherwise, why mistake the names and dates? I can think of three potential sources who would benefit:
1. Saddam Hussein's Iraq -- as disinfo, in order to discredit any charge that they were purchasing yellowcake (as they indeed were, from smugglers working some "played out" Niger mines).
2. The French -- as disinfo, to cover any French involvement in the smuggling operation (from mines which were owned and operated by French companies).
3. A CIA faction -- as disinfo, in a political trap designed to ensnare the sitting POTUS. Whether to force a war with Iraq...or to pull the legs out from under said war...is unclear.
One thing's for sure: there was nothing in it for the Italians. Either in originating or distributing the material.
I'm disinclined to include the smuggling operation itself as a suspect. It would seem that their sole interest would be in operating under the radar -- there would be no purpose served by calling attention to their activities.
One thing about the smuggling operation, though. They were extracting ore from mines that were closed and no longer commercially feasible. But one doesn't mine "yellowcake", which is a refined concentrate of uranium oxide. In order to produce "yellowcake"...
The uranium ore processing is lixiviation in piles (static). After being crushed, the ore is placed in piles and irrigated with a sulfuric acid solution for the removal of uranium contained therein.This technique spares the grinding, mechanical agitation and filtration phases enabling, besides a significant reducion in investments, a lower cost operation, in view of the reduced number of equipment and operational units involved. The uranium concentration is made through the extraction process by organic solvents followed by precipitation separation, drying and packing in drums.
This doesn't sound like something one would be able to do in one's kitchen or bathtub. Especially, if one had to do it in a Nigerien kitchen or bathtub. Thus, we can't exclude the involvement of a large French commercial entity (or the French government).