Posted on 07/26/2003 7:07:12 PM PDT by Steve Schulin
Iraq's Trade Mission to Niger: If not uranium, was Saddam looking for cows, or cowpeas, or maybe onions? IAEA has been mum on the subject
It seems like the, well, almost the whole news and political world has made a leap of faith in interpreting the fake Niger documents. Tony Blair continues to say that the government of the United Kingdom stands behind its previously voiced assessment that Saddam Hussein was actively seeking uranium. Yet the newspapers and TV are filled with tisk-tiskers talking about debunked claims. So it was refreshing to read Terence Jeffrey's cover story in this week's Human Events.
He notes that the Iraqi official whose name appeared on the fake documents did indeed go to Niger in February 1999. That official was interviewed by the IAEA, in a venue monitored by Saddam's people, by the way. But the question of what he was after has not been publicly disclosed, nor does anybody but Mr. Jeffrey, God bless him, seem to care. He asked IAEA Senior Information Officer Melissa Fleming some interesting questions, and learned, in part, the name of the Iraqi official whom IAEA interviewed, that his trip was a 'trade mission', and that the IAEA interview was monitored by Saddam. All of these details are newsworthy, and have been made available on the Human Events web page since Thursday. Have you noticed them discussed anywhere else? I've seen one of the details elsewhere -- the name of the Iraqi official identified by Ms. Fleming of the IAEA. His name is Wissam Al Zahawie. Search the IAEA website and you won't find a single mention of Zahawie or Zahawi. But an article by Neil Mackay in a paper out of Scotland back on June 13 had Ambassador Zahawie's trip dated right, although he called it a diplomatic visit rather than a trade mission.
nuclear.com would like to stress that Niger is a world-class player in the uranium export business. Only Australia and Canada export more. I wouldn't be surprised if one could read the most recent hundred stories on news.Google.com which include the words Niger and uranium without becoming aware of this fun fact.
Anyway, here's how Mr. Jeffrey closes out the article:
Bottom line: Saddam sent a trade mission to a nation that exports uranium. The IAEA interviewed Saddam’s emissary -- who also had been accredited as Saddam’s ambassador to Niger -- in Iraq in the presence of an Iraqi monitor. ElBaradei went to the Security Council and revealed that the Iraq-Niger documents were forgeries, and that an Iraqi official had gone to Niger in 1999, but he did not say that the Iraqi went to this uranium-exporting nation as (in Ms. Fleming’s words) "part of a trade mission."
CIA Director George Tenet in a July 11 statement said an outside investigator the CIA sent to Niger (whom former U.S. Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson identified as himself in a New York Times op-ed) talked to a former Niger official who "said that in June 1999 a businessman approached him and insisted that the former official meet with an Iraqi delegation to discuss ‘expanding commercial relations’ between Iraq and Niger. The former official interpreted the overture as an attempt to discuss uranium sales."
British Prime Minister Tony Blair said at the White House last week: "[L]et me just say this on the issue to do with Africa and uranium. The British intelligence that we have we believe is genuine."
Who struck closer to the truth here, the Brits or the IAEA? The jury’s still out, but don’t bet against the Brits.
Ref: Terence P. Jeffrey (the editor of Human Events), "Saddam Sent Trade Mission to Niger", Human Events, The Week of July 28, 2003, p. 1 [Web Posted Jul 23, 2003]
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