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Posted on 07/14/2003 8:55:26 AM PDT by huck von finn
VIENNA, July 14 (Reuters) - The United Nations nuclear watchdog believes Britain's evidence on Iraq trying to import uranium from Africa is all based on forged documents, a diplomat close to the agency said on Monday.
British Prime Minister Tony Blair said last year intelligence showed Iraq had banned weapons of mass destruction and was trying to import uranium from Niger to support its nuclear arms programme.
U.S. President George W. Bush included the allegation in his State of the Union address in January, citing the British findings. But the White House said last week the claim was based on forged documents and should have been left out of the speech. British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw on Monday said its evidence was not linked to the forged documents. It came from a third country and the Americans had not seen it.
"This information on which we relied, which was completely separate from the now notorious forged documents, came from foreign intelligence sources," Straw told BBC Radio.
A Western diplomat close the Vienna-based U.N. International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said the IAEA had the impression the so-called genuine evidence was ultimately referring to the same alleged transaction described in a series of fake documents.
"I understand that it concerned the same group of documents and the same transaction," the diplomat told Reuters on condition on anonymity. Another diplomat said he thought Britain's other evidence came from French intelligence services.
BRIEFINGS
Blair, who meets Bush in Washington on Thursday, is facing mounting accusations that he overplayed the intelligence findings, knowingly or unknowingly, to justify going to war with Iraq. Former U.N. weapons inspector Hans Blix, who once headed the IAEA, delivered a fresh blow on Sunday when he said Britain committed a "fundamental mistake" when it said Saddam Hussein could deploy weapons of mass destruction at 45-minutes notice.
The IAEA's impression arose from briefings on intelligence about Iraq gathered by national intelligence agencies.
Most of these briefings took place between November and March while the IAEA was hunting for signs Baghdad had secretly renewed its nuclear weapons programme.
While IAEA officials did not actually see Britain's so-called genuine evidence, the diplomat said the IAEA had been briefed about it and concluded it referred to the same transaction which the agency now believes was never attempted.
In a July 1 letter to U.S. Representative 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 honoured, 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 number-three 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.
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Why did the choose the title they did? I am SOOO_OOOO_OOOO tired of this story. There was no lie. This is a non-issue.
"The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa." (emphasis added)
He doesn't assert "our intelligence" uncovered this. He doesn't even mention Niger. The Brits are still standing by their statements. What's the problem?
There is NONE...of course, that is what the demoMORONs are left with: petty accussations about something of NO substance. The only substance is that of which the media is allowing their co-conspirators on the left to prevail with.
The Brits said they have "other information" to back the Iraq/uranium claim. It now turns out that ALL of it might be based on forged documents.
No it does not...Blair stated recently that the information WAS NOT from the forged documents and he stood by the intel. The UN is trying to stir up crap because Bush is snubbing them.
Just one of the many things that doesn't make sense is why should we should be going to war based on the Brit's intel anyway.
It's becomming more obvious that WMD, present or absent, had zilch to do with our war entry. Bad guys and WMD are all over the world. And we ain't about to start up the draft.
Lord I hope not. But at the rate we're going...
This is ARF ARF ARF FUL!!!!!
-PJ
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