Niger uranium forgeries

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The Niger uranium forgeries refers to falsified classified documents initially revealed by Italian intelligence. These documents depict an attempt by the regime of Iraq's Saddam Hussein to purchase yellowcake uranium from Niger during the Iraq disarmament crisis.

On the basis of these documents and other indicators, the governments of the United States and the United Kingdom asserted that Iraq had attempted to procure nuclear material for the purpose of creating what they called weapons of mass destruction, referred to as WMD, in defiance of United Nations sanctions.

Yellowcake, a mixture of different uranium oxides and other uranium compounds, is the leachant obtained from uranium ore in the early stages of refinement. At this stage the natural isotopes of uranium are present in their natural ratios. After refinement, further processing, isotopic separation is needed to make depleted uranium or enriched uranium for use in a nuclear reactor or a nuclear weapon.

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[edit] Iraq and WMD

In late 2002, the administration of U.S. President George W. Bush was soliciting support for a policy of military force to disarm Iraq. The U.S. government had for some time alleged that Iraq both possessed and was continuing to develop weapons of mass destruction including nuclear, biological, and chemical arms. One of the allegations was that Iraq had attempted to purchase yellowcake. Specifically, Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) director George Tenet and Secretary of State Colin Powell both cited an attempted yellowcake purchase from Niger in their September testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. At that time, the UK government also publicly reported an attempted purchase from an unnamed African country. In December, the State Department issued a fact sheet listing the alleged Niger yellowcake affair in a report entitled "Illustrative Examples of Omissions From the Iraqi Declaration to the United Nations Security Council."[1] In his January 2003 State of the Union address, President George W. Bush repeated the allegation, citing British intelligence sources. The administration later conceded that evidence in support of the claim was inconclusive and stated "these 16 words should never have been included" (referring to Bush's State of the Union address), attributing the error to the CIA.[1]

[edit] Initial doubts

The classified documents appearing to depict an Iraqi attempt to purchase yellowcake uranium from Niger had allegedly been suspected to be fraudulent by some individuals in U.S. intelligence, according to news reports. According to further news accounts of the situation, by early 2002 investigations by both the CIA and the State Department had found the documents to be inaccurate. Days before the Iraq invasion, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) voiced doubt on the authenticity of the documents to the U.N. Security Council. A Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) investigation into the origin of these documents has been reopened.

[edit] Oblique reference in Bush speech

During the 2003 State of the Union speech, U.S. President George W. Bush said, "The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa."[2] The British claim has not been substantiated with hard evidence, however the British Government continues to stand by its initial assessment. Critics claim the statement in the speech was a reference to the documents.

A more direct reference to Iraq's reconstitution of its nuclear program may be found in the transcript of President Bush's Cincinnati speech on October 7, 2002. [3]

[edit] European and British intelligence reports

The front page of the June 28, 2004 Financial Times carried a report from their national security correspondent, Mark Huband, describing that between 1999 and 2001, three European intelligence services were aware that Niger was possibly engaged in illicit negotiations over the export of its uranium ore with North Korea, Libya, Iraq, Iran, and China. [4] "The same information was passed to the US" but US officials decided not to include it in their assessment, Huband added several days later. [5]

French intelligence also had informed the United States a year before President Bush's State of the Union address that the allegation could not be supported with hard evidence. [6]

The Sunday Times of London dated August 1, 2004 contains an interview with an Italian source describing his role in the forgeries. The source said he was sorry to have played a role in passing along false intelligence. [7]

Although the claims made in the British intelligence report regarding Iraq's interest in yellowcake ore from Niger were never withdrawn, the CIA and Department of State could not verify them and are said to have thought the claims were "highly dubious." [8]

[edit] US doubts

Previously, in February 2002, three different American officials had made efforts to verify the reports. The deputy commander of U.S. Armed Forces Europe, Marine General Carlton W. Fulford, Jr., went to Niger and met with the country's president, Tandja Mamadou. He concluded that, given the controls on Niger's uranium supply, there was little chance any of it could have been diverted to Iraq. His report was sent to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Richard Myers. The U.S. Ambassador to Niger, Barbro Owens-Kirkpatrick, was also present at the meeting and sent similar conclusions to the State Department [2]. CNN reported on 14 March 2003 (before invasion) that the International Atomic Energy Agency found the documents to be forged [3].

[edit] Wilson and Niger

In late February of 2002, the CIA sent Ambassador Joseph Wilson to investigate the claims himself. Wilson had been posted to Niger 14 years earlier, and throughout a diplomatic career in Africa he had built up a large network of contacts in Niger. Wilson interviewed former prime minister of Niger, Ibrahim Assane Mayaki, who reported that he knew of no attempted sales to Iraq. Mayaki did however recall that in June 1999 an Iraqi delegation had expressed interest in "expanding commercial relations", which he had interpreted to mean yellowcake sales.[4]

Ultimately, Wilson concluded that there was no way that production at the uranium mines could be ramped up or that the excess uranium could have been exported without it being immediately obvious to many people both in the private sector and in the government of Niger. He returned home and told the CIA that the reports were "unequivocally wrong."[5] The CIA retained this information in its Counter Proliferation Department and it was not passed up to the CIA Director, according to the unanimous findings of the bipartisan Senate Intelligence Committee's July 2004 report.

[edit] Criticism

Former Ambassador Wilson had claimed that he found no evidence of Saddam Hussein ever attempting or buying yellowcake uranium from Niger on his trip to Niger.[citation needed]

The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence suggested that the evidence Wilson found could be interpreted differently:

“

[Wilson's] intelligence report indicated that former Nigerien Prime Minister Ibrahim Mayaki was unaware of any contracts that had been signed between Niger and any rogue states for the sale of yellowcake while he was Prime Minister (1997-1999) or Foreign Minister (1996-1997). Mayaki said that if there had been any such contract during his tenure, he would have been aware of it. Mayaki said, however, that in June 1999, (REDACTED) businessman, approached him and insisted that Mayaki meet with an Iraqi delegation to discuss "expanding commercial relations" between Niger and Iraq. The intelligence report said that Mayaki interpreted 'expanding commercial relations' to mean that the delegation wanted to discuss uranium yellowcake sales. The intelligence report also said that "although the meeting took place, Mayaki let the matter drop due to the UN sanctions on Iraq."[6]

 ”

Wilson has responded to criticism by observing that uranium was not actually discussed at the 1999 meeting. On Meet the Press, for example, Wilson stated:

“

At that meeting, uranium was not discussed. It would be a tragedy to think that we went to war over a conversation in which uranium was not discussed because the Niger official was sufficiently sophisticated to think that perhaps he might have wanted to discuss uranium at some later date.[7]

 ”

[edit] CIA doubts

In early October 2002, George Tenet called Deputy National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley to ask him to remove reference to the Niger uranium from a speech Bush was to give in Cincinnati on October 7. This was followed up by a memo asking Hadley to remove another, similar line. Another memo was sent to the White House expressing the CIA's view that the Niger claims were false; this memo was given to both Hadley and National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice.[citation needed]

[edit] IAEA analysis

Further, in March 2003, the Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) released results of his analysis of the documents. Reportedly, it took IAEA officials only a matter of hours to determine that these documents were fake. Using little more than a Google search, IAEA experts discovered indications of a crude forgery, such as the use of incorrect names of Nigerian officials. As a result, the IAEA reported to the U.N. Security Council that the documents were "in fact not authentic." The U.N. spokesman wrote:

“

The I.A.E.A. was able to review correspondence coming from various bodies of the government of Niger and to compare the form, format, contents and signature of that correspondence with those of the alleged procurement-related documentation. Based on thorough analysis, the I.A.E.A. has concluded, with the concurrence of outside experts, that these documents, which formed the basis for the reports of recent uranium transaction between Iraq and Niger, are in fact not authentic. We have therefore concluded that these specific allegations are unfounded.[8]

 ”

[edit] Wilson and Plame

Main article: Plame affair

Retired ambassador Joseph C. Wilson wrote a critical op-ed in The New York Times in which he explained the nature of the documents and the government's prior knowledge of their unreliability for use in a case for war. Shortly after Wilson's op-ed, in a column by Robert Novak, the identity of Wilson's wife, undercover CIA analyst Valerie Plame, was revealed. The Senate Intelligence Committee report and other sources seem to confirm that Plame gave her husband a positive recommendation. However, they also confirm that she did not personally authorize the trip (and in fact did not have any authority to do so).

The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence Report also claimed that when Wilson briefed the CIA on his trip to Niger, CIA analysts felt the claim that Iraq sought WMD from Africa was further substantiated, though the State Department thought Wilson's findings refuted the claim.[citation needed] But the CIA had warned the President in March 2002 that Wilson's trip had concluded the claims were unsubstantiated.[9]

The "Plame affair" (aka. "CIA leak scandal"), which ensued as a result of the unauthorized disclosure of Plame's identity, is an ongoing political scandal and criminal investigation into the source of the leak which "outed" Plame, and whether or not that person committed a crime.

The actual words President Bush spoke: "The British Government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa" suggests that his source was British intelligence and not the forged documents.[10]

However, the Administration has admitted that making the claim was a mistake. [11]

[edit] Butler Report

The Butler Report issued after a review by the British government concluded that the report Saddam's government was seeking uranium in Africa appeared credible:

“

a. It is accepted by all parties that Iraqi officials visited Niger in 1999.

b. The British government had intelligence from several different sources indicating that this visit was for the purpose of acquiring uranium. Since uranium constitutes almost three-quarters of Niger's exports, the intelligence was credible.

c. The evidence was not conclusive that Iraq actually purchased, as opposed to having sought, uranium, and the British government did not claim this.
 ”

Nevertheless, the Butler report fails to advance any specific proof to support its conclusion.[9]

[edit] More doubts

In January 2006, the New York Times revealed the existence of a memo which stated that the suggestion of uranium being sold was "unlikely" because of a host of economic, diplomatic and logistical obstacles. The memo, dated March 4, 2002, was distributed at senior levels by the office of former Secretary of State Colin L. Powell and by the Defense Intelligence Agency.[12]

[edit] Statements by Wilson

In a July 2003 op-ed, Ambassador Wilson recounted his experiences and stated "I have little choice but to conclude that some of the intelligence related to Iraq's nuclear weapons program was twisted to exaggerate the Iraqi threat."[13] Although the president had cited "The British Government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa", British intelligence have failed to show any other source of information.

Wilson told The Washington Post anonymously in June 2003 that he had concluded that the intelligence about the Niger uranium was based on the forged documents because "the dates were wrong and the names were wrong." The relevant papers were not in CIA hands until eight months after Wilson made his trip. Wilson had to backtrack and said he may have "misspoken" on this.[14] The Senate intelligence committee, which examined pre-Iraq war intelligence, reported that Wilson "had never seen the CIA reports and had no knowledge of what names and dates were in the reports."

[edit] Origin - Who forged the documents?

No one has been convicted of forging the documents. Various theories have been reported on how they were produced, distributed, and where pressure was applied to keep their fraudulent nature a secret.

[edit] Funneled Through Former Italian Intelligence Agent

By late 2003, the trail of the documents had been partially uncovered. They were obtained by a "security consultant" (and former agent of the precursor agency to SISMI, the SID), Rocco Martino, from Italian military intelligence (SISMI). An article in The Times (London) quoted Martino as having received the documents from a woman on the staff of the Niger embassy (located in a tiny apartment in Rome), after a meeting was arranged by a serving SISMI agent. [10] Martino later recanted and said he had been misquoted, and that SISMI had not facilitated the meeting where he obtained the documents. It was later revealed that Martino had been invited to serve as the conduit for the documents by Col. Antonio Nucera of SISMI, the head of the counterintelligence and WMD proliferations sections of SISMI's Rome operations center. [15]

Martino, in turn, offered them to Italian journalist Elizabetta Burba. On instructions from her editor at Panorama, Burba offered them to the U.S. Embassy in Rome in October, 2002. [16] Burba was dissuaded by the editors of the Berlusconi-owned Panorama from investigating the source of the forgeries.

An August 2004 Financial Times article indicated French officials may have had a role in the forged documents coming to light. The article states:

“

According to senior European officials, in 1999 [Rocco Martino] provided French officials with genuine documents which revealed Iraq may have been planning to expand 'trade' with Niger. This trade was assumed to be in uranium, which is Niger's main export. It was then that Mr Martino first became aware of the value of documents relating to Niger's uranium exports. He was then asked by French officials to provide more information, which led to a flourishing 'market' in documents. He subsequently provided France with more documents, which turned out to have been forged when they were handed to the International Atomic Energy Agency by US diplomats.

 ”

The Times article also stated that "French officials have not said whether they know Mr Martino, and are unlikely to either confirm or deny that he is a source."[17]

[edit] Current or Former United States Executive Branch Employees

It is as yet unknown how Italian intelligence came by the documents and why they were not given directly to the U.S. In 2005, Vincent Cannistraro, the former head of counterterrorism operations at the CIA and the intelligence director at the National Security Council under Ronald Reagan, expressed the opinion that the documents had been produced in the United States and funneled through the Italians: "The documents were fabricated by supporters of the policy in the United States. The policy being that you had to invade Iraq in order to get rid of Saddam Hussein ...."[18]

According to a 2003 article in The New Yorker by Seymour Hersh, the forgery may have been a deliberate entrapment by current and former CIA officers to settle a score against Cheney and other neoconservatives. Hersh recounts how a former officer told him that "somebody deliberately let something false get in there."[19] Hersh continues:

“

"He became more forthcoming in subsequent months, eventually saying that a small group of disgruntled retired C.I.A. clandestine operators had banded together in the late summer of last year and drafted the fraudulent documents themselves."

"The agency guys were so pissed at Cheney", the former officer said. "They said, 'O.K, we’re going to put the bite on these guys.'" My source said that he was first told of the fabrication late last year, at one of the many holiday gatherings in the Washington area of past and present C.I.A. officials. "Everyone was bragging about it—'Here’s what we did. It was cool, cool, cool.'" These retirees, he said, had superb contacts among current officers in the agency and were informed in detail of the sismi intelligence.

 ”

In an interview published April 7, 2005, Cannistraro was asked by Ian Masters what he would say if it were asserted that the source of the forgery was former National Security Council and State Department consultant Michael Ledeen. (Ledeen had also allegedly been a liaison between the American Intelligence Community and SISMI two decades earlier.) Cannistraro answered by saying: "you'd be very close."[20] Ledeen has denied this - see [21] - an article which mentions, though, that he has worked for the aforementioned Panorama magazine.

In an interview on July 26, 2005, Cannistraro's business partner and columnist for the "American Conservative" magazine, former CIA counter terrorism officer Philip Giraldi, confirmed to Scott Horton that the forgeries were produced by "a couple of former CIA officers who are familiar with that part of the world who are associated with a certain well-known neoconservative who has close connections with Italy." When Horton said that must be Ledeen, he confirmed it, and added that the ex-CIA officers, "also had some equity interests, shall we say, with the operation. A lot of these people are in consulting positions, and they get various, shall we say, emoluments in overseas accounts, and that kind of thing." [22]

In a second interview with Horton, Giraldi elaborated to say that Ledeen and his former CIA friends worked with Ahmad Chalabi and the Iraqi National Congress. "These people did it probably for a couple of reasons, but one of the reasons was that these people were involved, through the neoconservatives, with the Iraqi National Congress and Chalabi and had a financial interest in cranking up the pressure against Saddam Hussein and potentially going to war with him."[23]

[edit] Current and Former Italian Intelligence Employees

The suggestion of a plot by CIA officers is countered by an explosive series of articles [24] in the Italian newspaper La Repubblica.[25][26][27] Investigative reporters Carlo Bonini and Giuseppe d'Avanzo report that Nicolo Pollari, chief of Italy's military intelligence service, known as Sismi, brought the Niger yellowcake story directly to the White House after his insistent overtures had been rejected by the Central Intelligence Agency in 2001 and 2002. Sismi had reported to the CIA on October 15, 2001, that Iraq had sought yellowcake in Niger, a report it also plied on British intelligence, creating an echo that the Niger forgeries themselves purported to amplify before they were exposed as a hoax.

Pollari met secretly in Washington on September 9, 2002, with then–Deputy National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley. Their secret meeting came at a critical moment in the White House campaign to convince Congress and the American public that war in Iraq was necessary to prevent Saddam Hussein from developing nuclear weapons. What may be most significant to American observers, however, is La Repubblica's allegation that the Italians sent the bogus intelligence about Niger and Iraq not only through traditional allied channels such as the CIA, but seemingly directly into the White House. That direct White House channel amplifies questions about the 16-word reference to the uranium from Africa in President Bush's 2003 State of the Union address -- which remained in the speech despite warnings from the CIA and the State Department that the allegation was not substantiated.[28][29][30]

[edit] Aftermath

In March 2003, Senator Jay Rockefeller, vice-chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, agreed not to open a Congressional investigation of the matter, but rather asked the FBI to conduct the investigation.

In 2003, unidentified "senior officials" in the administration leaked word to columnist Robert Novak that Wilson's wife, Valerie Plame, was a CIA operative. The CIA requested an investigation into whether this public disclosure was illegal, thus the Niger uranium controversy spawned an on-going legal investigation and political scandal.

In September 2004, the CBS News program 60 Minutes decided to delay a major story on the forgeries because such a broadcast might influence the 2004 U.S. presidential election. A CBS spokesman stated, "We now believe it would be inappropriate to air the report so close to the presidential election."[11]

Nicolo Pollari, director of the SISMI intelligence agency[12], told an Italian parliamentary intelligence committee that the dossier came from Rocco Martino, a former Italian spy.

The Los Angeles Times reported on December 3, 2005, that the FBI reopened the inquiry into "how the Bush administration came to rely on forged documents linking Iraq to nuclear weapons materials as part of its justification for the invasion." According to the Times, "a senior FBI official said the bureau's initial investigation found no evidence of foreign government involvement in the forgeries, but the FBI did not interview Martino, a central figure in a parallel drama unfolding in Rome."

On May 11, 2006, New American Media reported how pre-Iraq War Italian forged documents were delivered to the White House alleging that Saddam Hussein had obtained yellowcake uranium ore from Niger. New links implicating Italian companies and individuals with then-Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi now raise the question of whether Berlusconi received a payback as part of the deal -- namely, a Pentagon contract to build the U.S. president's special fleet of helicopters.

Christopher Hitchens speculates that the forged documents were made to be such bad forgeries in order that they would be "discovered" in short order.[13]

The irony is that the Tuwaitha facility south of Baghdad already possessed yellow cake uranium. Between 1980 and 1982, Iraq procured more than 400 tons of yellowcake from Portugal and Niger which remained in a storage complex close to Tuwaitha. [14] [15] The facility and its yellowcake were monitored and frequently inspected by the International Atomic Energy Agency after the 1991 Gulf War. About 1.8 metric tons of "yellow cake" and 500 tons of unrefined uranium went missing as the Iraqis left Tuwaitha unattended during the war.[16]When the facility was first encountered by U.S. Marines, they thought they had stumbled upon an illegal weapons cache; according to nuclear experts, however, they actually wound up breaking the IAEA seals that are "designed to ensure the materials aren't diverted for weapons use or end up in the wrong hands."[17] The Pentagon dispatched a team to survey the site "after a month of official indecision", finding it heavily looted.[18]

[edit] Footnotes

  1. ^ CNN.com - Tenet admits error in approving Bush speech - Dec. 25, 2003
  2. ^ Whitehouse.gov website, January 28, 2003, "President Delivers "State of the Union" "
  3. ^ CNN.com Inside Politics website, October 8, 2002, "Bush: Don't wait for mushroom cloud"
  4. ^ Financial Times, June 28, 2004, "European Intelligence Suggests Iraq Sought Uranium in Niger"
  5. ^ Financial Times, July 7, 2004, "Inquiry will confirm that Iraq sought uranium"
  6. ^ 'The Los Angeles Times, February 17, 2006, "Niger Uranium Rumors Wouldn't Die"
  7. ^ The Sunday Times of London, August 1, 2004, "Italian spies ‘faked documents’ on Saddam nuclear purchase"
  8. ^ Time Magazine, July 21, 2003, "A Question of Trust"
  9. ^ Butler Report
  10. ^ "Tracked down", by Nicholas Rufford and Nick Fielding, Sunday Times (London), August 1, 2004.
  11. ^ The New York Times > Washington > Campaign 2004 > The Fallout: '60 Minutes' Delays Report Questioning Reasons for Iraq War
  12. ^ http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,1280,-5369408,00.html
  13. ^ "Wowie Zahawie: Sorry everyone, but Iraq did go uranium shopping in Niger." (Slate, 4.11.06) by Christopher Hitchens.
  14. ^ IAEA report "The components of Iraq's clandestine nuclear programme"
  15. ^ Iraq Survey Group "Iraq’s Known Uranium Holdings"
  16. ^ "Missing Iraq uranium 'secured'" (BBC, 6.21.03)
  17. ^ William J. Kole, "Experts Say US 'Discovery' of Nuclear Materials in Iraq was Breach of UN-Monitored Site", Associated Press (10 April 2003).
  18. ^ Barton Gellman, "Iraqi Nuclear Site Is Found Looted", Washington Post (4 May 2003) A1.

[edit] Bibliography

  • Eisner, Peter (2007). The Italian Letter: How the Bush Administration Used a Fake Letter to Build the Case for War in Iraq. Rodale Books. ISBN 1594865736. ISBN 9781594865732.

[edit] See also

[edit] External links and references

Background

Documents and those who relied on them

Joseph Wilson and Valarie Plame

United States Administration statements, speeches, plans

Legislative Investigations