CIA weapons expert to quit after uranium scandal

[DoYouEverWonder]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,3604,1039787,00.html

Thursday September 11, 2003

The chief expert on weapons of mass destruction at the CIA, which was caught up in the recent storm over the invasion of Iraq, is quitting the agency next month after 26 years.

Alan Foley, who heads the Weapons Intelligence, Non-proliferation and Arms Control Centre, became enmeshed in the row over inclusion of a bogus reference to Iraqi efforts to purchase uranium in Niger, in President George Bush's State of the Union address.

In a note to colleagues, reported in the Washington Post, he alluded to the "pressures" of recent months but denied he had been forced to leave.

US officials have said White House national security council weapons expert Bob Joseph discussed the uranium line with Mr Foley, but there were differing recollections about who said what. In one version, Joseph asked CIA's Mr Foley if it was OK to use the uranium line and cite the British as the source.

As usual, nothing about this story in the US press.