Posted on 07/22/2003 11:48:32 PM PDT by kattracks
In their zeal to retroactively rebut the argument for the Iraq war, critics of President Bush have tried to discredit a British intelligence report -- cited by the president in his State of the Union address -- that concluded Iraq sought to buy uranium in Africa.
The most important evidence against the British report is the undisputed conclusion by Dr. Mohamed ElBaradei, director general of the United Nations' International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), that documents purporting to show an Iraq-Niger uranium deal were forgeries.
What Bush's critics have ignored is that ElBaradei and the IAEA also presented evidence that tends to support the British report -- and that the IAEA may not have adequately investigated.
On March 7, ElBaradei appeared at the U.N. Security Council to report on the IAEA's investigation of Iraq's nuclear-related activities. It was here he revealed that the Iraq-Niger documents were "not authentic." But at the same time he also revealed -- in vague terms -- that Iraq had sent an official to Niger in 1999.
"For its part," said ElBaradei, "Iraq has provided the IAEA with a comprehensive explanation of its relations with Niger, and has described a visit by an Iraqi official to a number of African countries, including Niger, in February 1999, which Iraq thought might have given rise to the reports (of a uranium deal)."
ElBaradei did not name the official Saddam sent to Niger. He did not reveal who in Saddam's regime explained the trip, or whether Saddam had handed over "authentic" documents to back up the explanation. Nor did he reveal whether the IAEA had interviewed Saddam's emissary to Niger, or under what conditions such an interview had taken place.
These are important questions for at least two reasons. First, according to the U.S. International Trade Commission, Niger exported only $260 million in goods in 2000 and $251 million in 2001. Its only export likely to interest Saddam is uranium (its other top exports, according to the CIA, are livestock, cowpeas and onions). Secondly, as ElBaradei himself pointed out, IAEA interviews with Iraqis were conducted within Iraq, and were often done in the presence of an Iraqi government monitor or were tape-recorded by the subject in lieu of a monitor.
If Iraq's emissary to Niger sought trade, the implication is obvious: Did Saddam want Niger uranium, or did he want Niger cows or cowpeas?
I contacted IAEA Senior Information Officer Melissa Fleming. On July 22, in response to my written questions, she provided written answers that she said were "to the best of my knowledge and to the degree I am authorized to provide internal information." Here they are:
Q: "Who was the Iraqi official who went to Niger in 1999?"
A: "He was Ambassador to Rome, Ambassador Al Zahawie. He retired in August 2000."
Q: "Was he the only Iraqi official who went to Niger in the 1999 to 2001 time frame?"
A: "I don't know. But he was the one named in the forged documents as having visited Niger and carried out the transaction, so he was most interesting to our inspectors."
Q: "Why did the Iraqi government send him to Niger?"
A: "They said his visit was a part of a trade mission and also he was accredited to Niger as Ambassador (some country's (sic) Ambassadors cover a number of countries in a region)."
Q: "Who in the Iraqi government provided the IAEA with the explanation for this Iraqi's trip to Niger?"
A: "IAEA inspectors worked with counterparts at the liaison body in Baghdad, The National Monitoring Directorate."
Q: "Did the Iraqi government back up their explanation with documentation?"
A: "They provided information on its relations with Niger as well as information on a 1980 purchase of uranium (known to the IAEA) from Niger."
Q: "Did the IAEA request an interview with the Iraqi official who went to Niger?"
A: "Yes, he was interviewed in Baghdad by IAEA inspectors."
Q: "Did the IAEA get to interview the Iraqi official who went to Niger?"
A: "See above."
Q: "If so, did they get to do an interview with him in private, without a monitor from the Iraqi government, and without a tape recording being made by the interviewee? Was the interview inside or outside the territory of Iraq?"
A: "The interview was monitored."
Q: "Has the IAEA previously publicly documented the information sought by these questions? If so, where and when?"
A: "Much of this information is in the public domain. Not sure in which media."
Bottom line: Saddam sent a trade mission to a nation that exports uranium. The IAEA interviewed Saddam's emissary -- who also had been accredited as Saddam's ambassador to Niger -- in Iraq in the presence of an Iraqi monitor. ElBaradei went to the Security Council and revealed that the Iraq-Niger documents were forgeries, and that an Iraqi official had gone to Niger in 1999, but he did not say that the Iraqi went to this uranium-exporting nation as (in Ms. Fleming's words) "part of a trade mission."
CIA Director George Tenet in a July 11 statement said an outside investigator the CIA sent to Niger (whom former U.S. Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson identified as himself in a New York Times op-ed) talked to a former Niger official who "said that in June 1999 a businessman approached him and insisted that the former official meet with an Iraqi delegation to discuss 'expanding commercial relations' between Iraq and Niger. The former official interpreted the overture as an attempt to discuss uranium sales."
British Prime Minister Tony Blair said at the White House last week: "(L)et me just say this on the issue to do with Africa and uranium. The British intelligence that we have we believe is genuine."
Who struck closer to the truth here, the Brits or the IAEA? The jury's still out, but don't bet against the Brits.
©2003 Creators Syndicate
IRAQI AMBASSADOR TO HOLY SEE OBJECTS TO NEWS COVERAGE
Says U.S. News Agencies Providing Biased and False Information
VATICAN CITY, DEC 29 (ZENIT).- Iraq's Ambassador to the Holy See has written to the "International Herald Tribune" to point out errors and misconceptions in reporting about Iraq. In his December 28 letter, Wissam Al Zahawie suggests that the U.N. is deliberately trying to give the United States and Great Britain an excuse to continue bombing attacks.
A December 17 article had already met with the Ambassador's critical eye. That article stated that Iraq had expelled U.N. inspectors a year ago, thus prompting the bombing campaign that still goes on today. The continued strikes are what brought about the fears for the Pope's security that caused the postponement of his planned pilgrimage to Ur of the Chaldeans.
Ambassador Al Zahawie says that this reading of the facts is incorrect: "The truth, of course, was exactly the opposite; Richard Butler, the chairman of the Special Commission, suddenly decided -- on his own initiative and without recourse to the Security Council -- to withdraw the inspectors to allow the Americans and the British to launch their blatant aggression."
The Iraqi diplomat has more to say about a December 27 article by Timothy McCarthy, former member of the UNSCOM inspection teams. The article stated that it is "disturbing" that the new inspection commission being sent to Iraq will be unable to employ the members of the previous commission, who have "on-the-ground experience, as well as detailed knowledge of Iraq's weapons programs."
Al Zahawie, however, says that these experts were excluded because many of them were engaged in espionage activities while in Iraq under U.N. mandate. Inspection team leader Scott Ritter himself acknowledged that nine operatives were carrying out covert CIA operations during the inspections.
(* My note : Isn't revealing this illegal?)
For the Iraqi diplomat, this is a question of justice. The government of Iraq is expected to pay for the salaries of the inspectors (via the "Oil-for-Food program") and to pay for the reinstallment of the U.N. monitoring system, which was destroyed by the bombing raids over the last year.
U.S. insistence that the resolution demand that Iraq should allow inspection teams "immediate, unconditional and unrestricted access to any and all areas, facilities, equipment, records, and means of transport as well as all officials and other persons under the authority of the Iraqi government whom the UNMOVIC wishes to interview," seems to Al Zahawie to be deliberately stated in such a way that no government could possibly agree to the terms.
The Ambassador to the Holy See concludes that this inevitable refusal by the Iraqi government "would then provide the pretext for the continuation of the sanctions, and the bombing in the hope that they would accomplish the complete subjugation of Iraq and its people."
While the Vatican has acknowledged the need for reform in many countries lacking democracy, the Holy Father has vehemently opposed the applications of sanctions, such as those applied in Iraq and Cuba, that only cause an already afflicted people to suffer further. ZE99122921
VATICAN (CWNews.com) -- The Vatican's envoy in Baghdad has once again lashed out against the international embargo on Iraq.
In a video message, played at the screening of a new documentary on the effects of that embargo, Archbishop Giuseppe Lazzarotto called upon Christian to show their solidarity with the people of Iraq.
(* My note : Where have we heard of this sort of documentary before? Scott Ritter?)
The documentary film, "Iraq Solidarity Action," was produced by Father Jean-Marie Benjamin, a French-born priest serving the diocese of Rome. It was screened today in the presence of the Iraqi ambassador to the Holy See, Wissam Chawket al-Zahawie.
(* My note: Did this French-born priest get a $400,000 stipend from a friendly Iraqi too?)
In his video message to the film audience, Archbishop Lazzarotto urged all Christians to "multiple their gestures of solidarity," in order to break through "the isolation created by the embargo." Those who travel to Iraq, he said, would find their a rich culture which deserves understanding and preservation.
The practical effects of the embargo, the papal nuncio continued, have not been changes in government policy, but rather the death of the society's most vulnerable people. As a result, he reported, people are losing their confidence in the future. The best hope for the Iraqi people, he said, would lie in a return to the normal life they enjoyed before the Persian Gulf War.
(* My note: yep, it was such a fine, peaceful life back then... dumping Kurds into mass graves, invading Iran and gassing people, torture, kidnapping schoolgirls, children's prisons, rape, electric shock, feeding people into plastic shredders ...</sarcasm>)
OCTOBER 8, 2002 : (IRAQI DEFECTORS ACCUSE SOUTH AFRICA OF BEING INVOLVED IN IRAQ'S NUCLEAR PROGRAM; IRAQI AGENT JABOURI HAD BEEN SENT TO SOUTH AFRICA TO ARRANGE PURCHASES OF SPECIALIZED ALUMINUM TUBES) Renewed suspicion has been cast over SA's possible involvement in the Iraqi nuclear weapons programme, with allegations by a former Baghdad intelligence officer surfacing in a US magazine. The Democratic Alliance has written to three government ministers to ask about the claim that SA had been supplying Iraq with special aluminum tubes used to enrich uranium to a weapons grade in centrifuges. The allegations came in a recent article published in Insight magazine an insert in the Washington Times and were repeated by Mark Steyn, a columnist writing in last week's Spectator a weekly magazine based in London. Sales of such tubes to Iraq would violate United Nations security council resolution 687 of 1991, which prohibits the transfer of technology that has a civilian as well as military use. Following a recent statement in a British government report on Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, that Baghdad had attempted to acquire "significant quantities of uranium in Africa", the SA government denied that it had tried to do so in SA. Comment on the latest allegations was not available from government last night.
The article in Insight by journalist Kenneth Timmerman quotes a former Iraqi intelligence officer as saying that Baghdad had bought specialised magnets from Germany and aluminum tubes from SA. According to Insight, the Iraqi intelligence officer is associated with a broad-based group opposed to Saddam Hussein, the Iraqi National Congress (INC).
Insight quoted the INC as saying that Iraq "is turning increasingly to SA to procure nuclear materials and forbidden equipment needed for its weapons programmes".
The article saida top Iraqi intelligence official, Nadhim Jabouri, had been sent to the Iraqi embassy in SA, which Insight said mistakenly was in Johannesburg.
According to the Iraqi embassy in Pretoria, no one by that names works there.
Insight said that to arrange travel documents, Iraqi agents in Amman, Jordan, went through a senior diplomat based at the SA embassy.
Most nuclear weapons programmes, including the one dismantled by SA in the early 1990s, would use aluminum tubes in the process of uranium enrichment. Manufactured to high tolerances, the tubes are used because of the highly reactive and toxic nature of uranium hexafluoride gas, which is separated into lighter and heavier isotopes by a centrifuge. - "IRAQ ALLEGEDLY SOUGHT SA NUCLEAR MATERIAL," Business Day (South Africa), 8th October , http://www.bday.co.za/bday/content/direct/1,3523,1194892-6094-0,00.html
Not to mention that he made a Ritter-like documentary on Iraq.
One article says he has the Pope's ear. Apparently so...and has a long-term relationship with Tariq Azia as well as the Iraqi Ambassador to the Vatican mentioned in the Niger docs.
But more interesting, I wonder if this guy was the one who handed off the docs to the Italian journalist, thus planting the story deliberately on behalf of French interests and the Iraqi socialist regime?
SEPTEMBER 22 +/- , 2000 Friday : (FRENCH & RUSSIAN SANCTION-BUSTING : FRENCH FLIGHT TO IRAQ & FRENCH ACTION AGAINST COMPENSATION FOR KUWAITI VICTIMS OF THE IRAQI INVASION & OCCUPATION) Paris: A plane carrying doctors, sportsmen and writers left Paris on Friday for Baghdad, the first such flight from France since the United Nations imposed sanctions on Iraq a decade ago for invading Kuwait.
France-Info radio said the chartered plane left Charles de Gaulle airport at 8:35 a.m. for Baghdad, with about 60 passengers aboard. France informed the U.N. sanctions committee on Iraq on Thursday night that the humanitarian flight would be taking off. France refused a request to delay the flight for 12 hours so the issue could be studied.
Russia sent a similar flight to Iraq last Sunday and received committee approval although its passenger list also included oil executives interested in making deals with Baghdad.
The French flight included doctors, some sportsmen and writers, France-Info said. The increased flights, with their questionable passenger lists and last-minute notifications, are an indication of the growing challenge to sanctions.
France was among a handful of U.N. Security Council members that stepped up a campaign against the sanctions on Thursday, with proposals to cut the compensation fund for victims of Iraq's invasion of Kuwait and delay a $16 billion payout to Kuwait's oil company.
Beginning Sept. 26, a committee of Security Council members is to decide whether to award $16 billion to Kuwait Petroleum Corp. from an account funded by proceeds from the U.N. oil-for-food program. The program allows Iraq to sell unlimited amounts of oil provided that it uses the profits to buy humanitarian goods for its people suffering under sanctions. Thirty percent of every dollar from oil sales, however, is diverted to an account to compensate victims of Iraq's 1990 invasion of Kuwait.
French Ambassador Jean-David Levitte told the Security Council that such an enormous payout to the Kuwaiti company GÇö at a time when oil companies are benefitting from record high oil prices GÇö was unconscionable given the suffering caused by the sanctions. He proposed that the council consider reducing the amount of money diverted into the compensation account from 30 cents on the dollar to 20 cents and have the proceeds be used to buy more humanitarian goods a proposal backed by Russia and Tunisia, Western diplomats said.
France, traditionally, has had close ties to Iraq, but joined the multinational force fighting Iraq. - "Paris-Baghdad Flight Takes Off In Defiance Of Sanctions ," AP
Niger ==>Nigeriens, pronounced Niszheerie-ens, emphasis on the last syllable.
(Always pronounce the latter while looking down your nose at someone in the typical French manner. )
That's my best guess.
SEPTEMBER 2000 : (FRENCH PRIEST BENJAMIN LEADS SANCTION-BUSTING TRIP TO IRAQ) A diplomatic row has blown up at the United Nations over a direct flight between Paris and Baghdad. [The flight is to] to fight against an intolerable situation which condemns an innocent population to a slow agony. Flight organiser Father Jean-Marie Benjamin
About 80 French doctors, artists and sports personalities are planning to leave for Baghdad at 0800 (0600 GMT) on Friday to provide medical assistance and take part in a cultural festival.
Britain and the United States say that the French are violating UN sanctions against Iraq by not giving enough notice of the flight. However, France maintains that it is not trying to erode sanctions, but merely interpreting UN resolutions in a more liberal way than Washington and London.
The flight has been arranged by a private French group opposed to the international sanctions imposed after Iraq's invasion of Kuwait in 1990. A second French group has announced plans for another flight on 29 September. Its organiser, Father Jean-Marie Benjamin, said it was "to fight against an intolerable situation which condemns an innocent population to a slow agony".
Last week Russia flew a passenger flight to Iraq carrying humanitarian aid and a number of oil executives. But it gave the UN sanctions committee a few day's notice, enabling other countries to decide whether they wanted to raise any objections. Objections
However, this time, France gave the committee only a few hours' notice, arguing that it did not need the UN's approval as the flight is not commercial. Britain has formally objected to the flight, saying that it breaks the sanctions. "We objected. We don't think it is humanitarian," a British diplomat said.
US officials said they were still reviewing the situation, although they had raised similar concerns earlier in the day.
The Netherlands, which chairs the committee on the Iraqi sanctions, has asked France to delay the flight's departure.
Both France and Russia, close trading partners of Iraq before the invasion of Kuwait, want the sanctions eased and lifted.
The BBC's United Nations correspondent says the row over flights raises questions about the future of the sanctions now that such prominent countries appear increasingly willing to test the embargo's limits.
Iraq re-opened its international airport last month to enable it to receive international flights against, despite the sanctions.
In a separate development, Russia, France and Tunisia have proposed a reduction of the amount of compensation Iraq pays to Gulf war victims from 30% to 20% in order to allow more funds for humanitarian goods. The proposal comes as the UN Security Council discusses the latest UN report on the oil-for-food programme that allows Iraq to buy humanitarian goods to counter the effect of sanctions. - " French defiant on flight to Iraq," BBC, Friday, 22 September, 2000, 02:12 GMT 03:12 UK
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.