Your link does not support that claim.
http://www.globalpolicy.org/security/issues/iraq/justify/2004/0802niger.htm
Quoting:
"According to senior European officials, in 1999 he provided French officials with genuine documents which revealed Iraq may have been planning to expand "trade" with Niger…"
Hence my point that the French had real documents that pointed to Iraqi "plans" to trade with Niger. This is 1999, several years before Bush is in office, years before war is imagined.
When later the bogus docs are exposed, the French remained silent concerning their earlier, genuine, docs.
In this article, the agent claims that the fake ones were given to him by Italian intel, but passed to him directly by Niger officials. Italy, obviously, denied that.
Quoting:
"He was then asked by French officials to provide more information, which led to a flourishing "market" in documents…"
Saying that they "commissioned" the fake docs is my term. They asked him for more docs, he got them fake ones, which were passed to the US. When they were exposed, the real ones were withheld. But my term "commissioned" implies intent, which may not be fair.
And, anyway, so far we've blamed the Italians. But lets continue.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2004/09/05/wuran05.xml&sSheet=/news/2004/09/05/ixworld.html
Quoting:
… "The Sunday Telegraph has been told that the man draws a monthly salary of €4,000 (£2,715) from the DGSE - the French equivalent of MI6 - for which he is said to have worked for the past five years.
He had an expense account and received bonuses in return for carrying out orders allegedly given him by the head of the French services' operations in Belgium.
… "Giacomo" was allegedly first engaged by the French secret service to investigate genuine fears of illicit trafficking in uranium from Niger. He collected a dossier of documents - some real, some forged by a diplomat - by offering large sums of money to Niger officials."....
This article drops all mention of Italian intel, and asserts that he is on salary to French intel, and that the docs came directly from Niger officials.
So we have a controversy. Did Italian intel trick "Giacomo"? Or is the second account correct, and he paid the Nigeriens for them?
According to me, if you look at what happened next, you know all you need to know.
Both articles agree that he works for the French, he provided some genuine docs, and then some fake ones, which came into his hands by Niger officials.
And both articles agree that the fake ones were handed to the Americans, and the genuine ones were not.
So my term "commissioned" may be unfair since it implies intent. But passing on the fake ones, and withholding the real ones, implies intent. Who precisely produced the real ones, and the fake ones, is less important that what was done with the real ones, and the fake ones. That tells the story.