Posted on 10/27/2005 7:25:10 AM PDT by AdmSmith
It was one of the biggest of the American pre-war blunders. Iraq, documents showed, had tried to buy uranium from Niger. The papers, though, soon proved to be false. But who forged them? Now, a new article in an Italian newspaper says that the Italian government was heavily involved.
Remember the Niger "yellow cake" scandal? Back in the days before the US invasion of Iraq, nobody except of course the UN weapons inspectors on the ground in Iraq, was really sure whether Saddam had the Bomb or not. US President George W. Bush was desperately looking for some shred of proof that might work as pretence for invasion. In 2002, he thought he had just what he was looking for. Iraq, or so it seemed based on some documents turned up by the CIA and British intelligence, had been attempting to buy so-called "yellow cake", a substance rich in uranium, from Niger. Indeed, the yellow cake deal became one of the main early foundations for the US justification of an Iraq invasion.
Problem is, as we all know, the documents were falsified. But where did they originate? A new, three-part series (Part one http://nuralcubicle.blogspot.com/2005/10/berlusconi-behind-fake-yellowcake.html , part two http://nuralcubicle.blogspot.com/2005/10/yellowcake-dossier-not-work-of-cia.html , and part three http://nuralcubicle.blogspot.com/2005/10/nigergate-great-nuclear-centrifuge.html ) by the Italian daily La Repubblica, and translated by blogger Nur al-Cubicle, digs deep into the secret-services netherworld and comes to a rather surprising answer. The article implicates none other than Silvio Berlusconi. (Read the original Italian http://www.repubblica.it/2005/j/sezioni/esteri/iraq69/sismicia/sismicia.html .)
'Read the original Italian'. . .bump. . .
plus, there's no love lost between Berlusconi and the German liberal elite.
Exactly! From the start, this has one of the biggest frauds perpetrated on the American people.
From Bush's "16 Words:"
"The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa."
Bush never evens mentions Niger...and, has previously been noted by even the Butler report, Saddam had sought uranium from other African countries including the Congo. Heck, even Wilson admitted that a Saddam rep tried to procure a deal from Niger in 1999...which obviously means Saddam was "seeking" uranium. The 16 Words was never a lie.
The original article is Italian, not German ;-)
That is the key to the truth. Bush knew that Saddam had compromised the UN Security Council. He forced the SC to admit that Saddam was in noncompliance. Failure to do so would have meant that France, Germany, Russia and the UN High Command would be exposed as corrupt traitors, a fate they are narrowly escaping to date.
The yellow cake story was documented quite apart from forged documents and was proven true when the materials were discovered in Iraq.
This criminal cabal, which includes Marxist CIA operatives, continues to act like a cat in a litter box.
and der spiegel's interest in promulgating it is?
Or Belusconi and the commie-socialists in Italy for that matter.
Another, pathetic, traitorous, MSM myth that every stinking leftie believes to be true.
this was a collaborative effort by the French and CIA coordinated by Wilson and his second wife. Fitzgerald went to Italy to investigate the Niger Embassy burglary...when the letterhead and seals for the forgeries were stolen. The Italians released a press report yesterday saying they had nothing to do with the forgeries:
Spiegel is merely reflecting the anti-war attitude - or bias - of the left-leaning chunk of German society. It has been shown that Saddam had hundreds of tons of uranium, both yellowcake and enriched. Where did that come from if not Africa? So are we to assume that Bush is a liar? And Joe Wilson evidently had his own axe to grind.
exactly. why do people continue to pursue 2 separte issues and try and connect them. like "there is not link between iraq and 9/11"
I thought Rupert Murdoch paid for the Hitler diaries, and published them in one of his brittish papers.
Iraq had lots of yellowcake that the UN inspectors found and tagged before the war. It's what they were trying to buy illegally and without the UN's watchdogs guarding it that is the problem.
Lots of dirty deals in this matter and some familiar names starting to crop up.
It is notable that last week, the phone number listed on Fitz's new web page was answered with the greeting "Counterintelligence" at DoJ. The reason given was that Fitz and his nomadic staff just coincidentally happened to be crammed into that particular office space at DoJ, and didn't have their own telephone.
Right, a two year investigation with no telephone. Sorry, not plausible. Why concoct such an absurd cover?
Because this is first and foremost a counterintelligence investigation, not a political one, and it's not about trivial political perjury or certainly about Plame's long-disproven status as a "covert agent".
So if there is any truth whatsoever to Rove and Libby being "targets", it is only at the end of a very long chain that begins with Wilson, Plame, and their pals at the CIA, and the injection of false documents and false statements into the intelligence process.
You don't maintain a counterintelligence investigation for two years over two or four or even ten acts of alleged "perjury".
This is pretty certainly the real story behind the Plame/Wilson affair: an attempt to embarrass and undermine President Bush jointly mounted by French intelligence and rogue CIA agents.
I alternate between hoping that Fitzgerald may actually be intent on ferreting out the truth and fearing that he may be coopted by the media into indicting Libby or Rove on some weak technicality. Wouldn't it be splendid if he turns out to be Eliot Ness and actually indicts the bad guys?
It most certainly would and any fair reading of the facts and the multiple anonymous leaks that appeared every time Bush, Cheney or Rumsfeld made a statement on Iraq make this a serious possibility.
We knew Saddam had yellowcake. That is why I always suspected the Niger stuff was bogus. The difference between yellowcake and a nuclear bomb is the difference between maple sap and maple syrup.
There is alot of processing going on. 99% of the yellowcake is discarded in the process. If I remember correctly, we allowed 500 tons of yellow cake to remain under seal at the end of Gulf War I. We checked the seals every year, until the inspectors were thrown out, and they were intact. Since that point, Saddam could have used the yellowcake he had. Why would he have needed to buy any from Niger?
Could be an interesting press conference on Halloween. Burlesconi is meeting with the President that day. I am sure he will get grilled.
Is there a link to this?
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