About the possibility that the forgeries initially were intended to stop Clinton invading Iraq, this was mentioned by Michael Ledeen in this article:
SNIP
JJA: No, and it wasn't originally designed to stop Bush. It was designed to stop Clinton.
JJA: True, and I'll get to that in a second. But the documents were forged earlier, almost certainly by 2000.
ML: Why didn't they surface earlier?
JJA: Because they weren't needed. Clinton looked like he might have been on the verge of going to war, but he didn't, so the documents got filed away. They were used later, as part of an effort to deny Bush that U.N. vote.
ML: But you think the French were trying to convince us to bite on a Saddam-wanted-uranium-from-Niger scam?
JJA: Look at page 76 of the Silberman-Robb Report. CIA had received three reports from "a liaison intelligence service" in late '01 and early 2002. "One of these reports explained that...during meetings on July 5-6, 2000, Niger and Iraq had signed an agreement for the sale of 500 tons of uranium." And the "liaison service" provided a "verbatim text" of the agreement. Got that? Not the document, but a text. They were keeping the documents to themselves, and they wouldn't tell us the source, because, they said, they were afraid of leaks.
SNIP
However, I distinctly remember seeing this mentioned by someone else before Ledeen published this article. Unfortunately to find out who came up with this suggestion first (and when) will require a much longer search.
Note also that the time of the burglary in the Niger embassy does not fit with the earlier date for the forgery. On the other hand one may wonder if the French (if it was they who produced the documents) really needed to "purloin" the stamps from the Niger embassy in Rome. If this event was at all connected with the documents, maybe it was just a ruse to try and divert attention towards the Italians.
According to some reports, Jeff Castelli, the Station Chief in Rome, also saw the documents, supposedly courtesty of SISME, but did not recieve a copy. He wrote a synopsis in memo form and passed it to Greg Thielmann in the NSA. Incidentally, Thielmann has toured on the anti-war circuit with none other than Joseph Wilson after he lost a "pissing contest" with John Bolton over way information was passed up the chain of command.
Thielmann ignored the info because, in his opinion, the info in the memo is "somewhat limited" and is "lacking in necessary detail" and is "highly suspect." The actual forgeries turned up much later. Still, that begs the question about how the CIA had the actual text of the forged documents during the 2000-2001 time frame as they testified to the Intelligence Committee when Castelli only provided a syopsis based on his recollections of what the documents contained and then that was not sent to the CIA in the US, but to Thielmann, who apparently sat on the info. It is also interesting that Jeff Castelli was recalled by Tenet to Washington right when this story broke, reportedly for "misconduct". Then, all of a sudden Tenet and James Pavitt resign for "personal reasons" (like I believe that nonsense). Wayne Madsen has also said the Pavitt/Tenet resignations were directly connected to the CIA leak investigation, per the usual "anonymous intelligence officials".
From my post #7 (with a link to the report) on the FR version of the Ledeen article is the relevant excerpt from the Silberman-Robb Report report:
To illustrate the failures involved in vetting this information, some details about its collection require elaboration. The October 2002 NIE included the statement that Iraq was “trying to procure uranium ore and yellowcake” and that “a foreign government service” had reported that “Niger planned to send several tons” of yellowcake to Iraq.191 The statement about Niger was based primarily on three reports provided by a liaison intelligence service to CIA in late 2001 and early 2002.192 One of these reports explained that, as of early 1999, the Iraqi Ambassador to the Vatican planned to visit Niger on an official mission. The report noted that subsequently, during meetings on July 5-6, 2000, Niger and Iraq had signed an agreement for the sale of 500 tons of uranium.193 This report stated that it was providing the “verbatim text” of the agreement.194 The information was consistent with reporting from 1999 showing that a visit to Niger was being arranged for the Iraqi Ambassador to the Vatican.195
Note: the page numbering is off in the .pdf version, this section is on page 92 of the .pdf document.
This verbatim text of this report was the actual verbatim text of the forgery. How could that be possible? {***wink***}...
Thanks much for tracking down that article! I think I did skim that article once but didn't pick up on that aspect of it.