Newsday: Niger Uranium Rumors Wouldn't Die

[sabra]

http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-niger17feb17,0,809759.story?page=1&coll=ny-leadnationalnews-headlines

Niger Uranium Rumors Wouldn't Die

WASHINGTON — In the spring of 2001, long before Sept. 11 and the American focus on Iraq, the CIA asked its Paris station about rumors that 200 tons of nuclear material had vanished from two French-owned mines in the West African nation of Niger.

...

"Everything was accounted for," the former spy said. "Case closed."

Hardly.

Over the next two years, other U.S. intelligence, military and diplomatic officials in cities across Europe sent Washington a growing stream of cables and reports suggesting that Iraqi President Saddam Hussein was seeking uranium from Niger.

Experienced intelligence officers repeatedly knocked down those reports, sometimes after painstaking inquiry.

But like the carnival game "Whack-a-Mole," similar reports kept popping back up in different places. The unconfirmed reports were embraced by the White House, which began to repeatedly warn that Iraq was trying to build nuclear weapons.

[DoYouEverWonder]

1. Who planted the original story?

That's the big question for me. If it can be proven that the original story and/or the forged documents were created by a BushCo insider, and we know they were, then their game is over.

I know the Repugs are trying their best to hold back the tidal wave that is come their way, but they're falling apart at the seams. The illusion has been shattered.

[HereSince1628]

3. The US funded radical ex-patriot Iraqi groups largely based on

the notion that they could provide insight about Iraq and possibly create havoc if recruited into the cause.

Once they realized that TEAM B was once again a force in the US (the use of alternative ideological intelligence analysis teams that elevated fantasy to probability), the wacko expatriots to no one's surprise realized there was a fortune to be made selling lies that included fabricated stories both about Saddam Hussein's weapsons capacity, the expatriots ability to raise armies of Iraqi "freedom fighters," and their ability to ground truth intelligence reports.

This of course didn't make more intelligence flow, but rather obscured reality.
Rice is trying to get 71 million a year to put together the same sort of lie factory for Iran.

[Igel]

7. The original story,

as far as has been made public, goes back to at least two, and probably 3, reports from a Nigerien trade official about conversations with the Iraq trade rep. The conversations were held in 1999, and were fairly quickly reported.

"We want increased trade ... no, not in dates or other things on the table."
"So ... well, you know, *some* exports are prohibited." (with yellocake the biggie)
"Let's get lunch, I'm peckish."
(quotes are entirely made up: the gist--more trade desired by Iraqis, yellowcake ruled out by Nigeriens, topic sharply changed at once by Iraqis)

The first fellow checking out the rumors about the fabled (now forged) documents, ex-military, IIRC, came back with the same report: no yellowcake obtained, nothing about documents, but there's this story--independent of the documents, and presumably unknown to him beforehand. Wilson went a year or so later, and filed essentially the same report. In fact, apart from the presumption entailed by numerous MSM and non-MSM editorializing, there's no claim by anybody that Iraq ever got yellowcake after 1991.

The Nigeriens recanted their thrice-told story in late 2002 or early 2003, but nobody knows if the recanting reflects the truth or French pressure. After all, the French are the BMOC in Niger, which also is an OIC country, and expected to be the BMOC in Iraq post-sanctions. In any event, the CIA backed off the tale as now too obfuscated, but that was late in the game.

[seemslikeadream]

2. HEY NEWSDAY

TALK TO LEDEEN!!!

[seemslikeadream]

4. no one here has any recollection

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com /

QUESTION: Thank you. Any more explanation of the Berlusconi-President discussion about Italian intelligence on Iraq -- is this to say that Mr. Fitzgerald's finding that the Niger claim had its genesis in Italian intelligence was wrong?
SCOTT McCLELLAN: Mr. Fitzgerald's -- I'll have to look back at what his finding was. I don't recall the specifics of that.

QUESTION: Fitzgerald found that what we had been calling British intelligence, the document -- the forged document --

SCOTT McCLELLAN: Maybe I missed that. I don't think so. I don't think so.

QUESTION: -- alleging an Iraq --

SCOTT McCLELLAN: Okay, I don't think he did.

QUESTION: I'm wrong on this?

SCOTT McCLELLAN: Maybe I'm wrong. But I don't think he --

QUESTION: That's not ringing any bells.

SCOTT McCLELLAN: Yes.

QUESTION: It's not ringing any bells with other people either.

QUESTION: No, it is, it is. And I can't remember if it's Fitzgerald or somebody else, but there's this is the central issue is --

QUESTION: The central issue was --

QUESTION: -- the source of the --

QUESTION: The source of the forged document was Italy, who handed it to --

SCOTT McCLELLAN: No, the -- we actually briefed on the source of the information back in July of 2003, and the source was the National Intelligence Estimate and British Intelligence. That was the basis for the reference in the President's State of the Union address.

QUESTION: Fitzgerald found an Italian tie, and I presume this is what the discussion between the President and Berlusconi was about.

SCOTT McCLELLAN: Yes, they -- like I said they -- Prime Minister Berlusconi brought it up, and as they indicated, that there wasn't any documents that were provided to us on Niger and uranium by --

QUESTION: Wait, no documents or no intelligence?

SCOTT McCLELLAN: I'm sorry?

QUESTION: The press report out of Italy is a transcription -- it's a transcription of the forged documents, not the actual documents themselves. But Berlusconi said yesterday was, no information passed from Italy to the United States.

SCOTT McCLELLAN: Yes, I think he was accurately reflecting what he indicated in the meeting.

QUESTION: So that accurately characterizes the President's position, that the United States never received any intelligence --

SCOTT McCLELLAN: Well, Prime Minister Berlusconi was reflecting that within the meeting, and we've previously said in regards to a question that came up about a meeting here at the White House that no one here has any recollection of Niger and uranium being discussed at that meeting, much less any documents being provided.

[SoCalDem]

5. Well Newsday..Quit repeating the rumors and they might "go away"

Don't you just love it when "media" complains about "coverage" of an issue, when THEY are the ones responsible for the very thing they complain about :)

[sabra]

6. actually Newsday does a pretty grood report how BushCo

ignored all concerns and kept repeating these claims...