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For those who don't know it, Niger's uranium is trucked to Benin's capital city and port; from there it goes to France for further processing.

See :

The raw uranium is exported to France for processing via Cotonou, Benin's capital. -- http://64.233.161.104/search?q=cache:UTvIb0XFTzkJ:news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/3065165.stm+benin+uranium&hl=en

This would explain the Navy intel mentioned earlier in the thread about an informant saying the uranium destined for Iraq being held in a warehouse in Benin.

Yes it would.
Interesting Piasa.
Really interesting.

JANUARY 2003 mid : (IRAQ, UN, ONE SCIENTIST SEARCHED HAS NUCLEAR WEAPONS PAPERS, ANOTHER WAS CAUGHT BY IRAQ TRYING TO ESCAPE, WAS PROBABLY EXECUTED) UNITED NATIONS weapons inspectors in Iraq revealed last night that they had discovered 3,000 documents linked to nuclear arms technology while searching a scientist's house. The documents were recovered from the home of Faleh Hassan, an Iraqi physicist and director of a military installation west of Baghdad. Mohamed El Baradei, the director-general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), said Hassan's papers related to a laser technique for enriching uranium, a component of nuclear weapons. ...* This weekend American intelligence officers were investigating a report that a senior official in Iraq's ministry of industry and military industrialisation, which oversees weapons production, had been killed. He had been trying to flee the country for Jordan with his wife and two children a week ago, but had been stopped. "He was trying to leave with information, but the Mukhabarat [intelligence service] are watching him and all people like him," said an Iraqi source opposed to the regime. "They brought him back to Baghdad. We think he [was] executed." There has been no confirmation of the claim.

(* My note : With all the talk of forged docs the press has managed to sweep this under the rug.)

also

FEBRUARY 2003 : (FATHER JEAN-MARIE BENJAMIN HELPS ORGANIZE THE VISIT OF IRAQI DEPUTY PRIME MINISTER TARIQ AZIZ TO THE VATICAN FOR TALKS WITH POPE JOHN PAUL II & SENIOR VATICAN OFFFICIALS) Meanwhile, the Iraqi Foreign Minister Tareq Aziz, a Catholic, was in Rome to meet with the Pope, and he went to Assisi, where he prayed at the tomb of St Francis, and left a message in the visitors’ book in the form of a prayer for peace. His visit to Italy was organised by Father Jean-Marie Benjamin who, as well as being a songwriter, has had a long involvement with the Iraqi people. Over the past ten years he’s been a frequent visitor to Baghdad, in fact he was among the first to break the UN embargo by smuggling medicine into the country. And he’s written several books on the impact of the UN sanctions. - "A priest for peace," Wednesday 19/2/2003 , The Religion Report, Radio National, http://www.abc.net.au/rn/talks/8.30/relrpt/stories/s787908.htm.

(I REALLY want to know what was in the French and Russian planes headed for Iraq in the summer of 2000 in violation of the UN sanctions? )

Was it "medicine" like this?

MAY 25, 2003 : (SUNDAY TIMES REPORTS THAT WEAPONS COMPONENTS WERE SHIPPED INTO IRAQ VIA JORDAN UNDER CHINESE DIPLOMATIC COVER AS "MEDICINE" BACK IN MAY 1995) Components for Saddam Husayn's biological weapons programme were slipped into Iraq under Chinese diplomatic cover, according to documents seen by The Sunday Times in Baghdad. The documents refer to 137 kilograms of laboratory chemicals being channelled to Iraq from China in the guise of medical supplies. The cargo, flown to Jordan on May 31, 1995, was listed as "medicine" in a Jordanian customs report and the recipient was described as "Chinese embassy", Amman. Correspondence found in Baghdad shows that the 16 boxes contained chemicals - including some described by the supplier as "hazardous products" that should be stowed with extreme caution. A former Iraqi intelligence agent familiar with the deal said that from Amman the cargo was collected by Chinese diplomats based at the embassy in Baghdad. They escorted it in embassy vehicles across the border from Jordan to the Iraqi capital. From the Chinese embassy in Baghdad the goods were delivered in several batches to the car boot of an Iraqi intelligence operative who hid them in his home to prevent their discovery by United Nations weapons inspectors. From time to time he delivered small quantities to a research commission overseeing the biological weapons programme. The Iraqi source said that Baghdad went to great lengths to try to influence the Chinese whose power of veto on the UN security council made them one of the leading players in Iraq's conflict with America. To this end, Iraqi intelligence never missed an opportunity to gather potential blackmail material. The transfer of chemicals from the Chinese embassy vehicle to the Iraqi's car was secretly filmed by Iraqi agents from a department charged with monitoring the foreign diplomatic community.- "China Linked To Iraq Bio-Weapons, " Report by Matthew Campbell in Baghdad, London The Sunday Times 25 May 03

Don't forget Clinton's wheelchair-bound late counsel. He was an African scholar -- another long marcher?