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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???

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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.

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.

Disagree. Wilson did not come up with any conclusive answer. In fact, according to the Senate Intelligence Report, Wilson brought back denials of any Niger-Iraq uranium sale, and argued that such a sale wasn't likely to happen. But the Intelligence Committee report also reveals that Wilson brought back something else as well -- evidence that Iraq may well have wanted to buy uranium. Wilson reported that he had met with Niger's former Prime Minister Ibrahim Mayaki, who said that in June 1999 he was asked to meet with a delegation from Iraq to discuss "expanding commercial relations" between the two countries.

Based on what Wilson told them, CIA analysts wrote an intelligence report saying former Prime Minister Mayki "interpreted 'expanding commercial relations' to mean that the (Iraqi) delegation wanted to discuss uranium yellowcake sales." In fact, the Intelligence Committee report said that "for most analysts" Wilson's trip to Niger "lent more credibility to the original Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) reports on the uranium deal."

Senate Intelligence Report

I still say that Wilson's second trip to Niger at CIA expense was the same as the first one, i.e., a contrived boondoggle by Wilson and his wife to have the USG pay for his trip to conduct personal business. It was only after the fact that Wilson saw an opportunity to use the trip to further his own ambitions, which included helping Kerry defeat Bush. There is also no doubt that the CIA felt that they were being used as the scapegoat for 9/11 and the subsequent invasion of Iraq based on the "slam dunk" conclusion that Iraq had WMD. The Wilson trip could thus be used by the mid-level CIA types against Bush.