Posted on 07/13/2003 5:14:06 PM PDT by Pokey78
The French secret service is believed to have refused to allow MI6 to give the Americans "credible" intelligence showing that Iraq was trying to buy uranium ore from Niger, US intelligence sources said yesterday.
MI6 had more than one "different and credible" piece of intelligence to show that Iraq was attempting to buy the ore, known as yellowcake, British officials insisted. But it was given to them by at least one and possibly two intelligence services and, under the rules governing cooperation, it could not be shared with anyone else without the originator's permission.
US intelligence sources believe that the most likely source of the MI6 intelligence was the French secret service, the DGSE. Niger is a former French colony and its uranium mines are run by a French company that comes under the control of the French Atomic Energy Commission.
A further factor in the refusal to hand over the information might have been concern that the US administration's willingness to publicise intelligence might lead to sources being inadvertently disclosed.
US sources also point out that the French government was vehemently opposed to the war with Iraq and so suggest that it would have been instinctively against the idea of passing on the intelligence.
British sources yesterday dismissed suggestions of a row between MI6 and the CIA on the issue. However, they admitted being surprised that George Tenet, the CIA director, had apologised to President George W Bush for allowing him to cite the British government and its claim that Saddam had sought to acquire uranium from Africa in his State of the Union speech last October.
The apology follows the International Atomic Energy Authority's dismissal of documents given to it by the CIA, which purported to prove the link, as fakes.
Those documents have been widely identified with last September's British dossier on Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, which said Saddam Hussein was trying to buy uranium ore from an unnamed country in Africa.
British officials admitted that the country was Niger but insisted that the intelligence behind it was genuine and had nothing to do with the fake documents. It was convincing and they were sticking with it, the officials said.
They dismissed a report from a former US diplomat who was sent to Niger to investigate the claims and rejected them. "He seems to have asked a few people if it was true and when they said 'no' he accepted it all," one official said. "We see no reason at all to change our assessment."
The fake documents were not behind that assessment and were not seen by MI6 until after they were denounced by the IAEA. If MI6 had seen them earlier, it would have immediately advised the Americans that they were fakes.
There had been a number of reports in America in particular suggesting that the fake documents - which came from another intelligence source - were passed on via MI6, the officials said. But this was not true.
"What they can't accuse MI6 of doing is passing anything on this to the CIA because it didn't have the fake documents and it was not allowed to pass on the intelligence it did have to anyone else."
Boys, you're working mighty hard to avoid the topic of this thread.
As for the other, see this article for an interesting discussion on the topic.
Let's grant your point, for the sake of argument. Are you really saying that we need to blame the parties, and not the people who elect them?
But, before he said the above he said this:
"...There ought to be limits to freedom"
--George W. Bush, May 21, 1999
He said this after the FEC refused to take action against a web site that parodied Bush's 2000 presidential campaign web site.
In the complaint filed with the FEC, Bush's lawyers accused the webmaster of violating election laws because the web site was behaving like a political campaign committee without following the necessary regulations. They said that since the web site was urging voters not to vote for Bush, the site's owner should be required to file as a PAC and disclose his funding sources.
Bush's campaign also threatened the site's owner with a copyright violation lawsuit for lifting photographs from Bush's official campaign site and modifying them, then posting them on his own parody web site.
He said this after the FEC refused to take action against a web site that parodied Bush's 2000 presidential campaign web site.
And most here would agree with him.
Not because he's right.
But because he's got an R on his team-jersey.
The IAEA had been briefed about British intelligence on the Niger claim and concluded in March that everything said referred to the same transaction the agency believes was never attempted.
In a July 1 letter to U.S. Rep. Henry Waxman, a Democrat from California, the IAEA's director of external relations wrote that it was clear that Iraq would never have been able to buy uranium from Niger.
"The alleged contract could not have been honored, as the export of uranium from Niger is fully controlled by international companies," IAEA's Piet de Klerk wrote.
After determining it would have been impossible for Iraq to import uranium from the world's No. 3 uranium producer, the IAEA looked more closely at the six letters submitted as evidence that Iraq tried to buy two 500-ton shipments of uranium and concluded that all were fakes.
Then you ought to refrain from saying that some use the term "neocon," because "it's a polite way for them to say 'jew-boy communist.'"
You need a stronger case than that to demonstrate anti-Semitism. Have more care, because false charges of racism are generally least flattering for the accusers.
He accused others of being anti-Semitic; I see nothing he said that was anti-Semitic.
He accused others of being anti-Semitic; I see nothing he said that was anti-Semitic.
Perhaps y'all should drop it before it becomes even more obvious that you're being (at the least) disingenuous?
Correct. The ad-hominem was thrown out there as a means of controlling the discussion. It is a common tactic, and as I already said, it betrays a mind as corrupt, if not more so, than the very thing it accuses. It is reminiscient of JR Rider (former Portland Trailblazer) getting busted with stolen cell phones and trying blame it on the Portland area being very racist. Who was the racist? JR Rider was. He exposed it when he tried to hide behind the accusation.
Yes, and I think by my post and his at #266 and #267, you see an agreement that the accusation was too broad. I think others were taking issue with that broadness.
Well, yes. OTOH, I've noticed over the past few months that the term "neo-con," especially, has started popping up a lot, and that it's usually tossed out there by those with an isolationist and/or anti-Bush point of view.
Indeed, I've found it to be an excellent indicator for a whole set of common views expressed by what JimRob has neatly summarized as the paleocon/paleolibertarian/buchananite/rockwellian/anarchist/Democrat/French/German/Iraq axis.
What I noticed was that you hijacked the discussion away from the original topic and onto a new one - that of whether or not r9etb was anti-Semitic.
Pathetic.
You're right it was terribly pathetic of R9etb to launch that epithet. Eventually that kind of talk will come to the attention of the ADL and FR will suffer for it.
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