[oolatec]

I have always suspected that the whole British intelligence document was a setup... it wouldn't surprise me if Wilson himself took part in it... The rest of this article, while disturbing, is rather good news... I sure hope we hear more about this...

[mattdono]

Bump for reference.

Well, Wilson is a puke. And, Baghdad Bob was the potential buyer.

[Shermy]

"As Niger's other main export is goats, some intelligence officials have surmised uranium was what Mr Sahaf was referring to

[muawiyah]

This is older, recycled, misleading news.

Mot folks who have encountered the Niger documents assume they were deemed "forgeries" because everything was handwritten, even the LOGO.

Some reporters even said that the "forgeries" were "crude" because no one would ever believe the documents to be authentic which contained hand drawn letterheads!

Actually, the documents in question are not the originals ~ rather they are holographic copies ~ which is to say someone with access to the originals sat down and copied them by hand, including the logo.

The "forgery" part of the story would entail WHAT was written, not HOW it was transcribed. After all these folks, as with most folks in this world, live without photocopy machines at the ready.

Now, how do we educate our modern reporters to the realities of life in the rest of the world ~ how about this one ~ we strip them down buck naked except for a dhotti and drop them into a Lagos slum. They are to come back fully clothed, well fed, with new shoes and a great story about street crime.

Does that seem like a fair test for these guys? Bet they'd get over that nonsense about imagining Africa as being a modern electronic wonderland.

[Imal]

A thread with another related article by Mark Huband:

Intelligence backs claim Iraq tried to buy uranium

[cyncooper]

Don't want you to miss this.

Also, see link at #13 for link to another thread on article by same reporter.

[piasa]

Speaking of Italy:

JULY 2001 : (ITALY : IRAQI INTELLIGENCE AGENT AL-MAMOURI DISAPPEARS FROM HIS JOB, SHORTLY AFTER HE MET 9/11 HIJACKER MOHAMMAD ATTA; BOTH HAD BEEN SEEN TOGETHER IN HAMBURG GERMANY & PRAGUE, CZECHOSLAVAKIA BEFORE) One of Saddam’s intelligence agents, Habib Faris Abdullah al-Mamouri, was sent to be the new headmaster of a school for Iraqi diplomats in Italy. The bogus headmaster has not been seen in Rome since July, shortly after he also met Atta. The pair are also said to have been together in Hamburg and Prague. There is no proof the men were in direct contact, but as one intelligence source in Madrid said [later in the year] : “They chose a strange time and place to take a holiday.” The Rome daily Il Messaggero, quoting Western intelligence sources, said of Mr al-Mamouri that “he spent more time pursuing contacts helpful to the Iraqi regime among fundamentalist Islamic groups than he had on his supposed teaching duties”. Italian officials say that Mr al-Mamouri held the rank of general in the Iraqi secret service, and from 1982 to 1990 worked in the Special Operations Branch forging Baghdad’s links with Islamic fundamentalist groups in Pakistan, Afghanistan, the Gulf and Sudan. He was transferred to his “teaching duties” in 1998, although all the Iraqi Embassy will say of his sudden departure is that “he had money problems”. - "Hijacker 'given anthrax flask by Iraqi agent'," by DANIEL MCGRORY, The London Times, SATURDAY OCTOBER 27 2001

[Enchante]

Searching around on the web for anything new or overlooked, I came upon this important article (2 years old) and found it had already been posted on FR 3X...... everyone gets caught up in timelines and debates about the forged documents, but there is A LOT of juicy info about uranium smuggling from Niger, Libyan uranium supplies which cannot be fully accounted for by official records, Libya investing in Niger uranium, etc.

When will we finally learn the real facts about Niger, uranium, Libya, and Iraq???? If any one of the following is indeed true, it would prove beyond a shadow of doubt (what is obvious to those willing to think) that Joe Wilson's absurd 'mission' was a set-up, designed to come up with only one (wrong) answer. If even one of these 4 points is true then Wilson is discredited completely: (1) Libya did obtain undeclared (illegal) uranium supplies from Niger (or elsewhere); (2) Niger officials and/or smugglers DID hold talks about smuggling uranium outside of IAEA oversight; (3) Iraq did at least ask about starting surreptitious shipments of uranium from Niger; (4) Niger's uranium mines were NOT so completely secured from smuggling and off-the-books transactions (giving the lie to a good part of Joe Wilson's expressed confidence that there could not be such smuggling). If ANY of the 4 points above are true (and the article below asserts that ALL of them are true) then Joe Wilson is revealed decisively as the fraud artist that he is.

So why are both the US gov't and the MSM so completely incapable of resolving these issues for the public???

------------------------------------------------------

The FT has now learnt that three European intelligence services were aware of possible illicit trade in uranium from Niger between 1999 and 2001. Human intelligence gathered in Italy and Africa more than three years before the Iraq war had shown Niger officials referring to possible illicit uranium deals with at least five countries, including Iraq. This intelligence provided clues about plans by Libya and Iran to develop their undeclared nuclear programmes. Niger officials were also discussing sales to North Korea and China of uranium ore or the "yellow cake" refined from it: the raw materials that can be progressively enriched to make nuclear bombs. The raw intelligence on the negotiations included indications that Libya was investing in Niger's uranium industry to prop it up at a time when demand had fallen, and that sales to Iraq were just a part of the clandestine export plan. These secret exports would allow countries with undeclared nuclear programmes to build up uranium stockpiles. One nuclear counter-proliferation expert told the FT: "If I am going to make a bomb, I am not going to use the uranium that I have declared. I am going to use what I acquire clandestinely, if I am going to keep the programme hidden." This may have been the method being used by Libya before it agreed last December to abandon its secret nuclear programme. According to the IAEA, there are 2,600 tonnes of refined uranium ore - "yellow cake" - in Libya. However, less than 1,500 tonnes of it is accounted for in Niger records, even though Niger was Libya's main supplier. Information gathered in 1999-2001 suggested that the uranium sold illicitly would be extracted from mines in Niger that had been abandoned as uneconomic by the two French-owned mining companies - Cominak and Somair, both of which are owned by the mining giant Cogema - operating in Niger. "Mines can be abandoned by Cogema when they become unproductive. This doesn't mean that people near the mines can't keep on extracting," a senior European counter-proliferation official said.

[ladyinred]

Too bad people don't even want to know the truth isn't it?

[DocRock]

The I.A.E.A. Refused to Let U.S. Forces Remove 500 Tons of Uranium From Tawaitha, Iraq, May 22, 2004

San Diego Union Tribune