[backhoe]

Some things to keep an eye on: The Padilla case. The El Shukrijumah Case Global relief Very large transfers of money between Iraq and the UAE and Al Qaeda and UAE. The presence of an unnamed Iraqi official who made the rounds in Africa in February of 1999 South Africa as well as Niger, etc, better yet, all African nations with uranium reserves.

I will try to remind myself to research these subjects you mentioned and get back here later if I find anything.

[piasa]

Here's another reason why I say to look to South Africa while the lefties in the UK and here are in hysterics on Niger and a 16 word sentence that didn't even include Niger. I really think some folks in the international community are desperate to cover up some relationship between Iraq, South Africa, and the IAEA's so called "international oversight." The US and UK, knowing this, cannot exaclty spread out all of our intel on the affair in front of the very people who may be compromised or should be charged...

As some of you noted, is it a coincidence that the IAEA man who fingered the Niger docs as fake, is a Frenchman?

Here's another bit of kibble. After the UK and US toppled the government of Iraq the UN and the usual suspects howled about us not letting them come back and run the show on the WMD hunt in Iraq. The UN had high hopes of the Coalition letting UNMOVIC back in. That we didn't has them in a royal snit, with the new pressure from both the UN and the DNC on the US to try to include more nations into peacekeeping in Iraq. They are probably pressuring other nations not to help us independently in order to try to pressure us to let in the UN. With our luck, if we allowed it, the new inclusions would probably be French peacekeepers or their allies with fingers so sticky that any documents not burned to a crisp in Iraq would disappear right into their pockets. Anyway, that's my speculation.

Guess who Kofi Annan appointed to be the next interim UNMOVIC Chief?

JUNE 10, 2003 : (INTERIM UNMOVIC CHIEF NAMED, WAS THE LEADER OF THE IAEA TEAM WHICH CERTIFIED SOUTH AFRICA'S NUCLEAR WEAPONS PROGRAM DISSOLUTION) U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan has appointed UNMOVIC Deputy Executive Chairman Demetrius Perricos to take over as acting head of the commission July 1, when Blix retires.  Perricos was the commission's director of planning and operations for three years prior to his appointment in January to the body's number two post. The Greek native joined the International Atomic Energy Agency in 1972 as a safeguards inspector and led the team that certified the dissolution of South Africa's nuclear weapons program.  He also worked in Iraq after the 1991 Gulf War -"Interim UNMOVIC Chief Named," U.N. release, June 10

The much touted IAEA "international oversight" of South Africa's nuke program pops up again. I bet Kofi would just love to have this guy running the team to find WMD in Iraq and to track down that elusive effort to try to buy "Niger's uranium."