BAGHDAD (AFP) - Iraq oil returned to the world market, bringing hopes for economic recovery, as US-led forces went on the offensive against resistance elements and cashiered former Iraqi soldiers battled with police.
Spain meanwhile agreed to take a leading role in a multinational peacekeeping force, in a sector under Polish command.
Four European companies, a Turkish firm and the US company ChevronTexaco were awarded contracts Thursday to buy 9.5 million barrels of Iraqi oil, marking the return of Iraqi oil to the international market after a three-month suspension, industry sources said.
A spokesman for the US-led coalition running Iraq said the contracts still would have to be reviewed by acting ministry chief Thamir Ghadhban and his US adviser, Philip Carroll.
The sale of Iraq oil on international markets was halted following the suspension of the UN oil-for-food program at the beginning of March shortly before the war.
By JOHN J. LUMPKIN, Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON - The CIA expressed doubts as it passed along prewar claims that Iraq sought uranium from the African country of Niger, a senior intelligence official said Thursday. The allegations made it into President Bush's State of the Union address anyway.
About a month after Bush's speech, the United Nations determined the uranium reports were based primarily on forged documents initially obtained by European intelligence agencies.
A Bush administration official said the information was vetted by relevant agencies, and it was included in the president's speech because at the time it was believed to be reliable. It is no longer regarded as such.
The Washington Post, quoting unidentified U.S. officials, said the CIA did not pass on the detailed results of its investigation to the White or other government agencies.
The U.S. intelligence official, however, said the CIA's doubts were made known to other federal agencies through various internal communications, starting more than a year before the war began.
The reports first surfaced around the end of 2001, when the British and Italian governments told the United States they had intelligence that Iraq was seeking uranium from Niger. That uranium, once fully processed, could be used in a nuclear weapon.
At the time, the allies did not describe their sources, which turned out to be a series of letters purportedly between officials in Niger and Iraq, the intelligence official said. In 2003, U.N. experts determined the letters were forgeries.
The CIA distributed the Europeans' information to the rest of the government in early 2002 and noted that the allegations lacked "specifics and details and we're unable to corroborate them," the senior intelligence official said.
The CIA asked a retired diplomat to investigate the reports. The diplomat went to Niger in February 2002 and spoke with officials who denied having any uranium dealings with Iraq. That information was shared with British officials, and also was reported widely within the U.S. government, the senior intelligence official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
The British included their information in a public statement on Sept. 24, 2002, citing intelligence sources, that said Iraq "sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa." That same day, a U.S. intelligence official expressed doubts to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in a closed session about the truth of the uranium reports.
The reports made it into the October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate that was distributed throughout the U.S. government. But it also said they were uncorroborated and not necessarily believed, the intelligence official said.
Other, fragmentary U.S. intelligence also pointed to an Iraqi effort to acquire uranium in Africa. But the forged letters remained the key source, although it is unclear how much the CIA knew at this point about the original letters acquired by the Europeans.
A public report, gleaned from the classified intelligence estimate and published by the CIA in early October, made no mention of the specific uranium allegation. The CIA did not think the report was reliable enough to be included, the intelligence official said.
A former intelligence official at the State Department, Greg Thielmann, said the Niger uranium claim was long regarded with skepticism. Thielmann retired in September 2002.
However, the uranium report was published in a State Department fact sheet that was put out last Dec. 19 to poke holes in Iraqis' massive declaration to the United Nations in which they said they had no prohibited weapons. The CIA tried unsuccessfully to have it edited out of the fact sheet before it was published, the official said.
It was omitted from future statements by State Department officials, including Secretary of State Colin Powell's Feb. 5 address to the United Nations.