Saddam's Man in Niger (Christopher Hitchens)

LET US CREDIT the Senate Intelligence Committee with almost getting the name right. On pages 25-26 of its latest report appears the following:

Since the report does not trouble to supply any reasoning from the evidence to its conclusions, we are left to infer that there is nothing odd about Saddam Hussein's envoy (to the Vatican) paying a visit to Niger, and nothing unusual about Niger's desire to buy ("for cash") crude oil from a country under international sanctions that is much less close and convenient a source of oil than, say, its neighbors Nigeria and Algeria.

It takes only a very little work to find that neither of these assumptions is a safe one. To begin with, we do not owe the information about Wissam al-Zahawie's visit to Ja'far Diya' Ja'far, and we have no good reason to think that "the head of Iraq's pre-1991 nuclear weapons program" would in any case have special knowledge about Saddam Hussein's diplomacy in 1999. (Unless of course that diplomacy had something to do with nuclear matters.) The name of Zahawie was the original red flag that alerted British intelligence to the possibility of untoward Iraqi activity in West Africa, and thus precipitated the tip-off to Washington that ignited the dispute over evidence that still preoccupies us. At no stage does the committee's report give even a hint of what the nature of this concern might have been, so I shall begin by filling in that huge blank.

Ambassador Rolf Ekeus is quite possibly the world's most distinguished international civil servant when it comes to questions of disarmament and nonproliferation. A founder of the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, and a former ambassador of Sweden to the United Nations and to the United States, he has made the subject a lifelong specialty. Appointed by the U.N. to head the UNSCOM inspection team after the end of the first Gulf war, he is credited with uncovering, identifying, and destroying more covert Iraqi weaponry than had been taken out by the war itself.

So widely recognized was the quality of his performance that, when inspections were proposed again in 2000, even Kofi Annan proposed renominating him for the task. (The appointment of Ekeus was overruled by France and Russia, who insisted on Hans Blix.) I might add that the experience also introduced Ekeus to what might be called the underside of Iraqi tactics on WMD: He was once offered a straight bribe of $2.5 million, to his face, by Saddam's deputy Tariq Aziz, and he took part in the debriefing of the Kamel brothers--Saddam's in-laws--when they defected from Iraq in 1995 with conclusive evidence of a state-run concealment program for WMD facilities. Ekeus remembers being met by Zahawie when he first arrived in Baghdad to begin Iraq's post-1991 disarmament, and being told by him that, having met in the past as diplomats, they were now enemies.

"When I first heard that it was Zahawie who had been to Niger," he told me, "I thought well, then, that's it. Conclusive." I asked him if he would put his reasons in writing, and here they are:

It may have occurred to you to ask--as the committee resolutely does not ask itself--why it was that such a man was posted to the Holy See, and why Saddam Hussein's ambassador to the Vatican was sent to a small West African country in February 1999. Well, in that year every other Iraqi embassy in Western Europe was closed, or downgraded to "interest section" level, and the Holy See was the only exception. As Ekeus added to me in his letter: "A resident ambassador in Rome was ideally placed to undertake discreet and sensitive missions, especially as he was fully plugged into the intricacies of nuclear weapons diplomacy."

How does Wissam al-Zahawie himself answer the question: What is a diplomat so senior--with or without nuclear experience--doing on a mission to a country to which he is not accredited? He has given two answers. On the nuclear issue, he stated to Hassan Fattah, then of Time magazine and now of the New York Times, that he did not know that Niger produced for export the only thing that it does produce for export, namely uranium "yellowcake." This claim I think we can safely describe as risibly untrue. Trying another tack, he now says that the purpose of his trip was to persuade Niger's president to break the U.N. embargo on official flights to Baghdad, and to pay a personal visit there. This only raises the same question in a different form. Why send Iraq's only fully accredited European ambassador such a long way on such a mission? And what were Saddam Hussein and the Nigerien president supposed to discuss if such a visit were to come off? The price of goats? Finally, it's worth noting that even the announced purpose of the visit was to circumvent U.N. sanctions, if only on a small matter.

Then there is the question of timing. In February 1999, when Zahawie's visit took place, Saddam Hussein had only just expelled the U.N. weapons inspectors from Iraqi soil, and had in consequence suffered a December 1998 bombing from the Clinton administration. Iraq has yellowcake of its own but had bought extra supplies from Niger as early as 1981: It might have seemed a propitious moment to resume contact with West Africa. And this in turn raises the question: Was Niger willing to entertain offers from Iraq, or from anyone else, for what was and is its only valuable commodity?

According to Mark Huband, the national security correspondent of the Financial Times, in an important front-page article he wrote on June 28, 2004, the consensus among European intelligence services was that Niger was attempting to deal in yellowcake with anyone it could find, from North Korea to Iran. According to documents recovered from Saddam Hussein's office, the president of Niger proposed himself for a visit to Iraq in June 1997 (thus incidentally proving that plans for such trips can be made without sending a Vatican-based ambassador several thousand miles from his base). And according to a new book entitled Shopping For Bombs, by the BBC's security correspondent Gordon Corera, another visitor to Niger in that very month of February 1999 was A.Q. Khan, whose black market in nuclear materials was then unknown outside a very small circle in his home country of Pakistan. According to a diary of the journey kept by Khan's associate Abu Bakr Siddiqui and obtained by Corera, "Niger has big uranium deposits." The next year, A.Q. Khan was back in Niger's capital. So we can say with some assurance that Niger's authorities (so briefly and so leniently investigated by Joseph Wilson) seem to have given at least the impression of being open for business. The notion that Niger was eager to pay "cash" for Iraqi oil is thus made even more dubious. Iraq had plenty of cash, as well as plenty of oil. Niger is cash-poor to say the very least. What currency, or medium of exchange, did it really have to offer in return?

Since the war in Iraq began, two independent British inquiries have firmly reiterated that the original intelligence concerning Niger was sound, and has withstood careful scrutiny. (The Senate Intelligence Committee does not even refer in a footnote to the findings of these inquiries.) The waters here have been slightly muddied by the production of a crudely forged document dated July 6, 2000, purporting to show Zahawie's seal on an actual agreement for the transfer of uranium. This easily discredited fabrication has allowed many people to dismiss the whole case. But such argument is purely anachronistic: The story of Zahawie's visit was known, and had been passed on by London to Washington, well before the bogus document was circulated. And it was never alleged in George W. Bush's famous 2003 State of the Union address that Iraq had actually inked a deal, only that it had "sought" to do so. If the forgery was intended as disinformation, it is one of the more successful such efforts on record. If it was done chiefly for money, as the London Sunday Times has reported of two employees of the Niger embassy in Rome, it has had much the same effect.

To summarize: The Senate report gives two versions of Zahawie's name without ever once mentioning his significant background. It takes at face value his absurd claim about the supposedly innocent motive for his out-of-the-way trip. It accepts similarly bland assurances made by the government of Niger. It is unaware of the appearance of A.Q. Khan in the narrative. It does not canvass the views of our allies, or of tried-and-tested experts like Ambassador Ekeus. It offers little evidence and no argument in support of its conclusions. It is a minor disgrace, but a disgrace nevertheless.

Covering up Iraq's quest for uranium in Africa
American Thinker ^ | 10-26-05 | Douglas Hanson - Commentary and Analysis

Posted on 10/26/2005 10:32:11 AM PDT by smoothsailing

Covering up Iraq's quest for uranium in Africa

October 26th, 2005

The left accepts as gospel the Joseph Wilson-inspired allegation that President Bush lied in his State of the Union address reference to Iraq seeking uranium in Africa. The media and much of the public parrots this line. The allegation is itself a lie. All evidence points to the Plame leak investigation as another battle in the ongoing internal war between US intelligence agencies and the Bush administration. Of course, the mainstream media is only too happy to support a leftist CIA, which is out to keep its power intact at all costs.

But this operation is just as tactically clumsy as the intelligence agencies' ill-prepared efforts to find Saddam's WMD. Available information shows that the Iraq-Niger connection is, at best, another goof-up of the Iraq Survey Group (ISG), or at worst, a red herring constructed by disgruntled intelligence functionaries to discredit the President.

First of all, President Bush never said Saddam tried to buy uranium from Niger. His exact words were:

The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa.

As it turns out, the President's statement was accurate concerning African uranium production and distribution, since Niger isn't the only country on the continent that has sizable uranium deposits. The Congo, Namibia, South Africa and Gabon also have large uranium mines.

Therefore, how Plame and her co-conspirators at the CIA were able to finagle a trip for Wilson to Africa to refute the President's statement by producing "forged" documents with a singular focus on Niger is puzzling.

Iraq does indeed have a history of buying uranium from Niger, but that was decades ago, and it wasn't the only foreign source for nuclear raw materials. Two organizations provide us with a reasonably accurate inventory of Saddam's uranium and other related compounds: the IAEA and the Iraq Survey Group (ISG). Iraq has imported hundreds of tons of yellowcake, highly enriched uranium (HEU), and Low-enriched uranium (LEU) from Europe, Russia and other Western countries.

According to the IAEA, Saddam bought about 151 tons of yellowcake from Niger in 1981, and then made an additional purchase of 153 tons in 1982. [For some reason, Duelfer's ISG report does not mention the second procurement from Niger in 1982. There are several other discrepancies in the ISG final report that will be discussed in a later article.]

The Congo connection

The British intelligence report that GW cited in his State of the Union address didn't even concern Niger, but rather focused on the Congo. According to the U.K. Telegraph, the Congo was a far more promising source of uranium since the country had been in throes of a civil war, and since it also had a reasonable level of proven uranium reserves. The country's history of uranium production goes back to 1939, when a Congo mine supplied the material for the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima. The Congo also has one of the few nuclear power reactors on the continent.

Ironically, the backing for the British intelligence report targeting the Congo is none other than our own ISG, which was largely composed of elements of the CIA and the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA). In his final report, Duelfer notes that the ISG had found a document that told of a post-Gulf War I contact between Baghdad and Africa concerning an offer of uranium; and the source of the uranium was not Niger, but – surprise – from the Congo. As the ISG report notes:

In mid-May 2003, an ISG team found an Iraqi Embassy document in the Iraqi Intelligence Service (IIS) headquarters related to an offer to sell yellowcake to Iraq. The document reveals that a Ugandan businessman approached the Iraqis with an offer to sell uranium, reportedly from the Congo. The Iraqi Embassy in Nairobi—in reporting this matter back to Baghdad on 20 May 2001—indicated it told the Ugandan that Iraq does not deal with these materials, explained the circumstances of sanctions, and said that Baghdad was not concerned about these matters right now.

Duelfer accepts the Iraqi ambassador's refusal of the Congo uranium offer as fact, while his analysis soft pedals the extreme Islamic undertones of the May 2001 letter. The Ugandan "friend" who wanted to arrange the uranium transfer, also said that

...he will do his best to help Iraq and Iraq's regime for Jihad together against our enemy, and he considers supporting the power of Iraq to be his participation which is power for all Muslims, and he feels that his duties are to support and strengthen that power.

There was apparently no urgency on the part of the ISG to pursue the Congo connection, despite the evidence provided by the letter and the views of British intelligence. Yet, Duelfer felt compelled to investigate the "specific allegations of uranium pursuits from Niger," even though there was no paperwork or recent intelligence that logically pointed to a recent Niger-Iraq uranium deal. Nevertheless, the ISG pursued this line of investigation by obtaining information from none other than Ja'far Diya' Ja'far, who was the head of Iraq's pre-1991 nuclear weapons program! In other words, the ISG investigated a potential Niger-Iraq uranium link by using the same dubious methods I noted last year.

True to form, they relied on questioning former regime scientists without corroborating documentation that could potentially validate their stories and reduce the possibility of deception and obfuscation.

According to the ISG, Ja'far claimed Iraq did not purchase uranium from abroad after it bought its first shipment of yellowcake from Niger in 1981. Duelfer duly notes, however, that Saddam purchased uranium dioxide from Brazil in 1982 and that Iraq did not declare this to the IAEA. This indicated that the Iraqi government was willing to pursue uranium illicitly. [The ISG report states that Iraq also did not declare a second shipment of yellowcake from Niger. Presumably, this is the 1982 shipment that is noted in the IAEA inventory, but not in the ISG list of Iraqi nuclear materials.] Talking about Niger, Ja'far claimed:

…that after 1998 Iraq had only two contacts with Niamey [capital of Niger] – neither of which involved uranium. Ja'far acknowledged that Iraq's Ambassador to the Holy See traveled to Niamey to invite the President of Niger to visit Iraq. He indicated that Baghdad hoped that the Nigerian President would agree to the visit as he had visited Libya despite sanctions being levied on Tripoli. Former Iraqi Ambassador to the Holy See Wissam Zahawie has publicly provided a similar account.

Ja'far claims a second contact between Iraq and Niger occurred when a Nigerian minister visited Baghdad around 2001 to request assistance in obtaining petroleum products to alleviate Niger's economic problems. During the negotiations for this contract, the Nigerians did not offer any kind of payment or other quid pro quo, including offering to provide Iraq with uranium ore, other than cash in exchange for petroleum.

ISG recovered a copy of a crude oil contract dated 26 June 2001 that, although unsigned, appears to support this arrangement.

So, despite Ja'far's penchant for lying to the ISG about uranium acquisitions, Duelfer's report used one scientist's testimony and an unsigned crude oil contract to conclude that Iraq had not purchased any uranium from Niger for over 20 years. Even if Ja'far, however unlikely, is telling the truth about the Niger-Iraq connection as no more than innocent diplomatic contacts, the ISG apparently lends no greater credence to the Congo connection, which was based on sound analysis by British intelligence and documentation that the ISG itself had uncovered.

It is clear that a greater geo-political game has been afoot for some time. The fact that France had paid to have the Niger documents forged to embarrass the Bush administration is only part of the deception. The other aspect of this operation is that the CIA and ISG deliberately ignored or downplayed information provided by British intelligence and documents found in Iraq indicating that an Iraq-Africa uranium connection was a logical and reasonable conclusion, and that connection most likely involved the Congo.

On would think that by now, the rogue agents would have realized that their attempt to slam the President on pre-war intelligence has been undone by their own post-war audit trail. The media will, naturally, wait for historians to correct the record.

Douglas Hanson is our national security affairs correspondent.

Note: Reference material in support of his analysis can be found by going to the American Thinker link at the top of this article.

http://72.14.203.104/search?q=cache:ICfMmlTIcQgJ:www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1509628/posts+Ja%27far+Diya%27+Ja%27far&hl=en&gl=us&ct=clnk&cd=1

Speaking of the Congo:

JULY 18, 2006 : (UN REPORT SAYS THERE IS "NO DOUBT" A SHIPMENT OF SMUGGLED URANIUM 238 DISCOVERED BY CUSTOMS OFFICIALS IN TANZANIA WAS FROM THE LUBUMBASHI MINES IN CONGO - SHIPMENT WAS DESTINED FOR IRAN'S PORT OF BANDAR ABBAS) IRAN is seeking to import large consignments of bomb-making uranium from the African mining area that produced the Hiroshima bomb, an investigation has revealed.
A United Nations report, dated July 18, said there was “no doubt” that a huge shipment of smuggled uranium 238, uncovered by customs officials in Tanzania, was transported from the Lubumbashi mines in the Congo.
Tanzanian customs officials told The Sunday Times it was destined for the Iranian port of Bandar Abbas, and was stopped on October 22 last year during a routine check. The disclosure will heighten western fears about the extent of Iran’s presumed nuclear weapons programme and the strategic implications of Iran’s continuing support for Hezbollah during the war with Israel. ....
....The report by the UN investigation team was submitted to the chairman of the UN sanctions committee, Oswaldo de Rivero, at the end of July and will be considered soon by the security council. It states that Tanzania provided “limited data” on three other shipments of radioactive materials seized in Dar es Salaam over the past 10 years.
....The experts said: “In reference to the last shipment from October 2005, the Tanzanian government left no doubt that the uranium was transported from Lubumbashi by road through Zambia to the united republic of Tanzania.” Lubumbashi is the capital of mineral-rich Katanga province, home of the Shinkolobwe uranium mine that produced material for the two atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945.
The mine has officially been closed since 1961, before the country’s independence from Belgium, but the UN investigators have told the security council that they found evidence of illegal mining still going on at the site.
----------- "Iran's plot to mine uranium in Africa," Jon Swain, David Leppard and Brian Johnson-Thomas, The Sunday Times (U.K.), 08/06/06, Posted on 08/05/2006 4:42:49 PM PDT by Pokey78

1999 : (CONGOLESE AUTHORITIES ARE TRYING TO REOPEN MINE WITH THE HELP OF NORTH KOREA) In 1999 there were reports that the Congolese authorities had tried to re-open the mine with the help of North Korea. In recent years miners are said to have broken open the lids and extracted ore from the shafts, while police and local authorities turned a blind eye. ---------- "Iran's plot to mine uranium in Africa," Jon Swain, David Leppard and Brian Johnson-Thomas, The Sunday Times (U.K.), 08/06/06,

MARCH 3, 2000 : (HAMBURG, GERMANY : MEETING BETWEEN SOME CONGOLESE MEN AND AN EGYPTIAN BY THE NAME OF 'IBRAHIM ABD' ON PURCHASE OF ENRICHED URANIUM--- HAMBURG CELL) An al-Qaida representative bought enriched uranium capable of being used in a so-called dirty bomb from the Congolese opposition in 2000, according to a French newspaper report.
In sworn testimony an unnamed former soldier from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) has told investigators looking into the murders of two Congolese opposition figures in France in December 2000 that he attended a meeting earlier that year at which the uranium was sold, the Lyon-based Le Progres reported.
The man "described a meeting which took place on 3 March in (the German city of) Hamburg between some Congolese men and an Egyptian by the name of Ibrahim Abd," the newspaper said.
It quoted the man as saying, "I realised it was al-Qaida." According to Le Progres, the Egyptian was able to acquire two bars of enriched uranium 138. ------ "Al-Qaida 'bought uranium' in Congo; Bin Ladin's network alleged to have 'dirty bomb' capability ,"AFP via Aljazeera, Friday 14 November 2003, 19:18 Makka Time, 16:18 GMT

2000 : (A MIDDLEMAN IN KENYA OFFERS TO SUPPLY IRAQ WITH URANIUM FROM CONGO) Saddam Hussein's intelligence archives show a middleman in Nairobi, Kenya, offered to supply Iraq with Congo uranium in 2000, Newsweek reported in its May 17 issue. A note in the intelligence service's file suggested Iraq was then under too much international scrutiny to pursue the deal but recommended Iraq "maintain contact" with the middleman. -- "AP: Miners Drawn to Illegal Congo Uranium," from our sister station WJLA-TV, Monday May 31, 2004 2:29pm, http://www.wjla.com/headlines/0504/150347.html.

DECEMBER 2000 : (FRANCE : TWO CONGOLESE OPPOSITION FIGURES ARE MURDERED--- See HAMBURG CELL ) An al-Qaida representative bought enriched uranium capable of being used in a so-called dirty bomb from the Congolese opposition in 2000, according to a French newspaper report.
In sworn testimony an unnamed former soldier from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) has told investigators looking into the murders of two Congolese opposition figures in France in December 2000 that he attended a meeting earlier that year at which the uranium was sold, the Lyon-based Le Progres reported.
The man "described a meeting which took place on 3 March [2000] in (the German city of) Hamburg between some Congolese men and an Egyptian by the name of Ibrahim Abd," the newspaper said.
It quoted the man as saying, "I realised it was al-Qaida." According to Le Progres, the Egyptian was able to acquire two bars of enriched uranium 138. ------ "Al-Qaida 'bought uranium' in Congo; Bin Ladin's network alleged to have 'dirty bomb' capability ," AFP via Aljazeera, Friday 14 November 2003, 19:18 Makka Time, 16:18 GMT

DECEMBER 2000 : (SOMEWHERE NEAR LYON, FRANCE : THE BODIES OF TWO CONGOLESE OPPOSITION FIGURES, NALUHWINDZA & ATENBINA, ARE FOUND - See KABILA, HAMBURG CELL) The burned bodies of Philemon Naluhwindza and Aime Atenbina were found not far from Lyon in December 2000. An official close to the investigation confirmed to AFP that they had been seeking funds for a coup attempt against Kabila. ------ "Al-Qaida 'bought uranium' in Congo; Bin Ladin's network alleged to have 'dirty bomb' capability ," AFP via Aljazeera, Friday 14 November 2003, 19:18 Makka Time, 16:18 GMT

And ...

...here's an odd one from the "Cinnamon Stillwell" blog that brings to mind the PlameNameGame - this MET Alpha business of finding mock ups of the Israeli Knesset in Iraq is derived from an article by none other than the NY Times' Judith Miller - and the leftwingers tore her a new arsehole for writing it, too:

MAY 20, 2001 : (THIS IS THE DATE A MEMO FROM THE IRAQI INTELLIGENCE STATION CHIEF IN AN AFRICAN COUNTRY WAS WRITTEN CONCERNING AN OFFER BY A JIHADI TO SELL URANIUM & OTHER MATERIAL) [In early 2003] American soldiers from MET Alpha, the '''mobile exploitation team''' that has been searching for nuclear, biological and chemical weapons in Iraq for the past three months, found maps featuring terrorist strikes against Israel dating to 1991. Team members found a perfect mock-up of the Knesset, the Israeli Parliament, as well as mock-ups of downtown Jerusalem and official Israeli buildings in very fine detail. They also collected a satellite picture of Dimona, Israel's nuclear complex, and a female mannequin dressed in an Israeli Air Force uniform, standing in front of a list of Israeli officers' ranks and insignia. Of even greater interest to MET Alpha was a ''top secret'' intelligence memo found in a room on another floor. Written in Arabic and dated May 20, 2001, the memo from the Iraqi intelligence station chief in an African country described an offer by a ''holy warrior'' to sell uranium and other nuclear material. The bid was rejected, the memo states, because of the United Nations ''sanctions situation.'' But the station chief wrote that the source was eager to provide similar help at a more convenient time. - "Report From the War on Terrorism," Posted by Cinnamon Stillwell, Sunday, May 11, 2003

JUNE 13 - 17, 2001 : (FLIGHT RK731 : SOUTH AFRICANS SANDI MAJALI, MOTLANTHE & MENDI MSIMANG TRAVEL TO KINSHASA, CONGO - Se ANC, IRAQ) The Sunday Times can confirm today that the trio travelled to: ...Kinshasa in the Democratic Republic of Congo on flight RK731 on June 13 2001. They spent four days there. -- "Shady Iraq oil deals: The ANC connection: Top brass flew to Baghdad with publicity-shy empowerment businessman, " by Mzilikazi Wa Afrika, Jessica Bezuidenhout and Andre Jurgens, SA Sunday Times

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