Hey Shermy...check this out.
This is the THRID Joe Wilson/Niger article today.
Wonder what's up.
Because the media wasn't listening.
The Brits, even before the Jow Wilson op-ed, denied their intelligence was based on the forgeries. From my thread...
June 4, 2003
Daliy Telegraph
The facts behind the claims
[Note: The first British government clarification in the press - British intelligence not based on the fraudulent Niger documents:]
”....Iraq "sought the supply of significant quantities of uranium from Africa".
The quest for uranium appeared to support the claim that Saddam "is almost certainly seeking an indigenous ability to enrich uranium". However, the IAEA said the documents it was given to prove Iraq had bought uranium from Niger were "not authentic".
UK officials claim that the documents did not come from Britain and the assessment is based on "much more reliable sources". ...
June 6, 2003
The Financial Times
Evidence about Iraqi uranium 'not fake'
Allegations by UK intelligence officials that Iraq had tried to buy uranium supplies from Niger were not based on fake documents, it emerged yesterday. The claim that Iraq "sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa" was based on two wholly different sources of information.
...But the documents which turned out to be fake and which were given to the IAEA by US officials were not the evidence the UK government was using when it made its case against Iraq. While Saddam Hussein's efforts to develop nuclear arms were never regarded with the importance of his chemical and biological weapons programmes, the issue of the alleged uranium purchases has dominated debate over the reliability of the intelligence information used to justify the war.
George W. Bush, the US president, cited UK intelligence information as the source of claims that Iraq had been trying to buy unenriched uranium. But the forged documents, some of which are thought to have been the result of a criminal scam, have never been in the possession of UK officials. They never sought to correct the mistaken impression that the source of the claim was the fake documents, as it was thought it would have embarrassed Mr Bush.
IAEA officials have said that none of the documentation they received regarding Iraq and Niger came from the UK. ...