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Niger guards get nuclear trainingCountry at center of CIA leak caseNIAMEY, Niger (Reuters) -- Customs and border guards in Niger, the African country named in a U.S. intelligence scandal over alleged Iraqi uranium purchases, are being trained to fight the smuggling of nuclear materials, the government said. International Atomic Energy Agency specialists, along with local experts, were giving a three-day course this week in the African uranium producer on the risks of handling radioactive material and how to detect trafficking of nuclear substances. Citing intelligence reports that have since been widely discredited, U.S. President George W. Bush referred in a 2003 State of the Union address to alleged Iraqi attempts to buy uranium from Niger. This speech, which Bush's critics say was deliberately misleading, made the case for war against Iraq. The so-called Niger dossier is at the center of a high-profile investigation in the United States over the leak of a covert CIA agent's identity to the media. Niger's Public Health Minister Ary Ibrahim said at the opening of the nuclear security course in Niamey on Wednesday that one of its aims was to improve cooperation to control illegal trafficking of nuclear materials like uranium. "Their importance in the socio-economic development of our country should not make us lose sight of the risks which can derive from handling them," he said. Niger exports around 3,000 tons of uranium a year, mostly to France, Japan and Spain. Bush's 2003 speech mentioning Niger led to public criticism by a former U.S. career diplomat, Joseph Wilson, who accused the administration of twisting intelligence to bolster the case for war on Iraq. Wilson based his criticism in part on a CIA-sponsored mission he made to Africa in 2002 to check reports that Iraq sought uranium from Niger. Wilson said the reports were unsubstantiated and later accused the White House of leaking the identity of his covert CIA agent wife in retaliation. The IAEA has said the documents the United States cited to back its allegations that Iraq tried to buy uranium from Niger were false. |
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