NationStates Jolt Archive

Some food for thought on the man the Bush Administration sent to Niger to investigate possible Niger/Iraq uranium yellowcake trade.

Joseph Wilson:

"Given the structure of the consortiums that operated the mines, it would be exceedingly difficult for Niger to transfer uranium to Iraq. Niger's uranium business consists of two mines, Somair and Cominak, which are run by French, Spanish, Japanese, German and Nigerian interests. If the government wanted to remove uranium from a mine, it would have to notify the consortium, which in turn is strictly monitored by the International Atomic Energy Agency."
http://www.commondreams.org/views03/0706-02.htm


However, according to an AP report on 09/22/03:

"A U.N. nuclear agency team plans to visit Niger in the coming months, hoping to speed government approval of an agreement that would permit in-depth monitoring of uranium exports, the Associated Press learned.

Without this safeguards agreement, the International Atomic Energy Agency can't require Niger to tighten security and has no authority to inspect shipments."
http://finance.lycos.com/qc/news/story.aspx?story=35759143
http://www.americanintelligence.us/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=744&mode=&order=0&thold=0


Granted, the AP report is from 09/22/03. But it says that unlike Wilson's statement that the IAEA would have the authority to inspect shipments, apparently he was wrong - the IAEA has no authority to inspect shipments.

In light of the facts regarding the security situation of uranium in Niger, I find Wilson's report potentially inaccurate.

Was it a mistake to send a man who is not a WMD expert, not an intelligence analyst, and not a real, trained CIA agent to do this work?

bump

Some food for thought on the man the Bush Administration sent to Niger to investigate possible Niger/Iraq uranium yellowcake trade.

Joseph Wilson:




However, according to an AP report on 09/22/03:




Granted, the AP report is from 09/22/03. But it says that unlike Wilson's statement that the IAEA would have the authority to inspect shipments, apparently he was wrong - the IAEA has no authority to inspect shipments.

In light of the facts regarding the security situation of uranium in Niger, I find Wilson's report potentially inaccurate.

Was it a mistake to send a man who is not a WMD expert, not an intelligence analyst, and not a real, trained CIA agent to do this work?


Oh brother.

point A. Wilson's report notes that the IAEA doesn't directly inspect Niger, but inspects the consortium of the many nations involved. By saying that Niger could have shipped uranium to the Iraqis, you are saying that France, Germany, etc., would have been involved in a transfer to Iraq of uranium, which is a much different issue than being involved in monetary kickbacks in the food for oil program.

Furthermore, yellowcake is not a WMD issue, but a mining issue and a diplomatic issue, issues that Wilson was well qualified in. If the CIA had wanted a WMD expert to go in, they would have (and they very well might have...such a mission would, of course, still be classified, unlike Wilson's mission.) Furthermore a NOC spook wouldn't be able to meet with the heads of state and administrators of the mining consortium openly, as Wilson could.

Furthermore a NOC spook wouldn't be able to meet with the heads of state and administrators of the mining consortium openly, as Wilson could.

And I'm sure that if the administrators of the mining consortium (the head of which says that Wilson never met with him and never requested to meet with him) were selling something under the table, that they would admit it to Wilson.

Riiight. I'll give you a hint - that consortium has been dealing yellowcake under the table since 1981 - precisely because the consortium is not filling the role of "inspector" and the IAEA hasn't had the right to inspect shipments.

I totally thought this was going to be a thread about Home Improvement.

And I'm sure that if the administrators of the mining consortium (the head of which says that Wilson never met with him and never requested to meet with him) were selling something under the table, that they would admit it to Wilson.

Riiight. I'll give you a hint - that consortium has been dealing yellowcake under the table since 1981 - precisely because the consortium is not filling the role of "inspector" and the IAEA hasn't had the right to inspect shipments.
Oh wait, you mean the supposed Niger deal that was started thanks to forged documents?

November 4, 2005
Intelligence
Source of Forged Niger-Iraq Uranium Documents Identified
By ELAINE SCIOLINO
and ELISABETTA POVOLEDO
ROME, Nov. 3 - Italy's spymaster identified an Italian occasional spy named Rocco Martino on Thursday as the disseminator of forged documents that described efforts by Iraq to buy uranium ore from Niger for a nuclear weapons program, three lawmakers said Thursday.

The spymaster, Gen. Nicolò Pollari, director of the Italian military intelligence agency known as Sismi, disclosed that Mr. Martino was the source of the forged documents in closed-door testimony to a parliamentary committee that oversees secret services, the lawmakers said.

Senator Massimo Brutti, a member of the committee, told reporters that General Pollari had identified Mr. Martino as a former intelligence informer who had been "kicked out of the agency." He did not say Mr. Martino was the forger.

The revelation came on a day when the Federal Bureau of Investigation confirmed that it had shut down its two-year investigation into the origin of the forged documents.

The information about Iraq's desire to acquire the ore, known as yellowcake, was used by the Bush administration to help justify the invasion of Iraq, notably by President Bush in his State of the Union address in January 2003. But the information was later revealed to have been based on forgeries.

The documents were the basis for sending a former diplomat, Joseph C. Wilson IV, on a fact-finding mission to Niger that eventually exploded into an inquiry that led to the indictment and resignation last week of Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff, I. Lewis Libby.

Mr. Martino has long been suspected of being responsible for peddling the false documents. News reports have quoted him as saying he obtained them through a contact at the Niger Embassy here. But this was the first time his role was formally disclosed by the intelligence agency.

Neither Mr. Martino nor his lawyer, Giuseppe Placidi, were available for comment.

Senator Brutti also told reporters that Italian intelligence had warned Washington in early 2003 that the Niger-Iraq documents were false.

"At about the same time as the State of the Union address, they said that the dossier doesn't correspond to the truth," Senator Brutti said. He said he did not know whether the warning was given before or after President Bush's address.

He made the claim more than once, but gave no supporting evidence. Amid confusing statements by various lawmakers, he later appeared to backtrack in conversations with both The Associated Press and Reuters, saying that because Sismi never had the documents, it could not comment on their merit.

There had long been doubts within the United States intelligence community about the authenticity of the yellowcake documents, and references to it had been deleted from other presentations given at the time.

Senator Luigi Malabarba, who also attended Thursday's hearing, said in a telephone interview that General Pollari had told the committee that Mr. Martino was "offering the documents not on behalf of Sismi but on behalf of the French" and that Mr. Martino had told prosecutors in Rome that he was in the service of French intelligence.

A senior French intelligence official interviewed Wednesday in Paris declined to say whether Mr. Martino had been a paid agent of France, but he called General Pollari's assertions about France's responsibility "scandalous."

General Pollari also said that no Italian intelligence agency officials were involved in either forging or distributing the documents, according to both Senator Brutti and the committee chairman, Enzo Bianco.

Committee members said they were shown documents defending General Pollari, including a copy of a classified letter from Robert S. Muller III, the director of the F.B.I., dated July 20, which praised Italy's cooperation with the bureau.

In Washington, an official at the bureau confirmed the substance of the letter, whose contents were first reported Tuesday in the leftist newspaper L'Unità. The letter stated that Italy's cooperation proved the bureau's theory that the false documents were produced and disseminated by one or more people for personal profit, and ruled out the possibility that the Italian service had intended to influence American policy, the newspaper said.

As a result, the letter said, according to both the F.B.I. official and L'Unità, the bureau had closed its investigation into the origin of the documents.

The F.B.I. official declined to be identified by name.

After the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, Italy's military intelligence service sent reports to the United States and Britain claiming that Iraq was actively trying to acquire uranium, according to current and former intelligence officials.

Senator Brutti told reporters on Thursday that indeed Sismi had provided information about Iraq's desire to acquire uranium from Niger as early as the 1990's, but that it had never said the information was credible.

Thursday's hearing followed a three-part series in La Repubblica, which said General Pollari had knowingly provided the United States and Britain with forged documents. The newspaper, a staunch opponent of Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, also reported that General Pollari had acted at the behest of Mr. Berlusconi, who was said to be eager to help President Bush in the search for weapons in Iraq.

Mr. Berlusconi has denied such accounts.

La Repubblica said General Pollari had held a meeting on Sept. 9, 2002, with Stephen J. Hadley, then the deputy national security adviser. Mr. Hadley, now the national security adviser, has said that he met General Pollari on that date, but that they did not discuss the Niger-Iraq issue.

"Nobody participating in that meeting or asked about that meeting has any recollection of a discussion of natural uranium, or any recollection of any documents being passed," Mr. Hadley told a briefing on Wednesday in Washington. "And that's also my recollection."

At the time, Mr. Hadley took responsibility for including the faulty information in Mr. Bush's State of the Union address.

David Johnston contributed reporting from Washington for this article.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/04/international/europe/04italy.html?ex=1131944400&en=8918e149805be185&ei=5070 *Reg required*

So are you seriously suggesting that said documents were not spun out of thin air, that Iraq did indeed get yellowcake from Niger, even though the documents were fakes, or that Ambassador Wilson didn't look hard enough to find something that never existed?

Oh wait, you mean the supposed Niger deal that was started thanks to forged documents?


http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/04/international/europe/04italy.html?ex=1131944400&en=8918e149805be185&ei=5070 *Reg required*

So are you seriously suggesting that said documents were not spun out of thin air, that Iraq did indeed get yellowcake from Niger, even though the documents were fakes, or that Ambassador Wilson didn't look hard enough to find something that never existed?

The documents are not the only source. The British apparently have their own sources, which during their recent commission found that while Iraq had not actually purchased uranium, it had certainly put out feelers to do so - none of which is contradicted by the forgeries.

Also, the IAEA and the US are well aware that the country sold 250 tons of uranium to Iraq as far back as 1981 - a point that is not in contention at all. The Niger uranium mines have been leaking uranium to various nations since 1981 - a point that is not in contention.

What I am contesting is the idea that Wilson, a man not trained as an agent, speaking to people who would have a great motivation to lie - people who are part of an organization that no one contests has smuggled uranium before - who by his own admission spent "eight days drinking mint tea" - could examine the whole uranium operation and suddenly know for certain whether or not any uranium smuggling was going on - it strains credulity to the utmost to say that Wilson alone would absolutely know what was going on.

To say that he would know more than the British - or that he would know more than the rest of the CIA - is incredulous, to say the least.

And I'm sure that if the administrators of the mining consortium (the head of which says that Wilson never met with him and never requested to meet with him) were selling something under the table, that they would admit it to Wilson.

Riiight. I'll give you a hint - that consortium has been dealing yellowcake under the table since 1981 - precisely because the consortium is not filling the role of "inspector" and the IAEA hasn't had the right to inspect shipments.

You got a source for that, or is it just "something you heard."

a.k.a: a talking point

http://uspolitics.about.com/od/wariniraq/a/niger_2.htm

The documents are not the only source. The British apparently have their own sources, which during their recent commission found that while Iraq had not actually purchased uranium, it had certainly put out feelers to do so - none of which is contradicted by the forgeries.

Oh? And I suppose you have a source for this? And isn't absolutly amazing that this administration, after getting egg on its face over this, hasn't bothered to state the multitude of sources confirming the yellowcake story, but instead issued a retraction on that intelligence as being false and faked?

Also, the IAEA and the US are well aware that the country sold 250 tons of uranium to Iraq as far back as 1981 - a point that is not in contention at all. The Niger uranium mines have been leaking uranium to various nations since 1981 - a point that is not in contention.
Source?

What I am contesting is the idea that Wilson, a man not trained as an agent, speaking to people who would have a great motivation to lie - people who are part of an organization that no one contests has smuggled uranium before - who by his own admission spent "eight days drinking mint tea" - could examine the whole uranium operation and suddenly know for certain whether or not any uranium smuggling was going on - it strains credulity to the utmost to say that Wilson alone would absolutely know what was going on.
No, what strains credulity is your willingness to attempt to use this story after it has been disproven so many times it has long since ceased to be funny.

To say that he would know more than the British - or that he would know more than the rest of the CIA - is incredulous, to say the least.
As I recall, he was sent because the situation was so murky and the Vice President's office wanted clairification. So how is it that the CIA and the Brits KNEW about this, and knew it that they had no doubt and with evidence to back it up, and yet didn't bother to tell the Vice President of this? BEFORE the US Goverment sent over Ambassador Wilson to find out?

And of course, you have never delt with the full retraction that the inteligence community and President Bush have issued over the yellowcake.

oseph Wilson:

"Given the structure of the consortiums that operated the mines, it would be exceedingly difficult for Niger to transfer uranium to Iraq. Niger's uranium business consists of two mines, Somair and Cominak, which are run by French, Spanish, Japanese, German and Nigerian interests. If the government wanted to remove uranium from a mine, it would have to notify the consortium, which in turn is strictly monitored by the International Atomic Energy Agency."
http://www.commondreams.org/views03/0706-02.htm


However, according to an AP report on 09/22/03 (much later):

"A U.N. nuclear agency team plans to visit Niger in the coming months, hoping to speed government approval of an agreement that would permit in-depth monitoring of uranium exports, the Associated Press learned.

Without this safeguards agreement, the International Atomic Energy Agency can't require Niger to tighten security and has no authority to inspect shipments."
http://finance.lycos.com/qc/news/story.aspx?story=35759143
http://www.americanintelligence.us/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=744&mode=&order=0&thold=0


One would gather from this that Wilson believed that the IAEA was inspecting and controlling shipments - which it most certainly was not. So how could anyone know what was going on, least of all Wilson, who didn't even know the first thing about the controls in place?

In 1981, Seyni Kountche, president of Niger, said that his country would "sell uranium even to the devil." He made good on his word, doing business with both Libya and Iraq, and funneling billions in profits into private slush funds to prop up his corrupt regime. A 1993 IAEA report on the Iraqi nuclear program listed 580 tons of natural uranium in Iraq, some of it originating from Niger. Ancient history? Well maybe. (I've certainly written about it before.) But it is useful to remind people, in an age of short-attention spans, that Niger and Iraq were part of a nuclear family dating back to the 1970s.

Joseph C. Wilson probably knew about that previous relationship. He was first in Niger with USAID during the Carter administration, then later in the 1990s as a Clinton National Security Council staffer. He arrived back in the Niger's capital of Niamey in February 2002 on a CIA-sponsored mission to investigate a report that Iraq had bought uranium from Niger in 1999. This trip took place a year before President Bush uttered the so-called "16 words" in his State of the Union address ("The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa"). Note that the president accused Iraq of seeking uranium, not actually obtaining it, which is what Wilson was sent to look into. He spent most of his time at the hotel � a fourth-floor suite at the Gawaeye, one report said. He was very open about his mission and its object, and began to take meetings near the pool. "I spent the next eight days drinking sweet mint tea and meeting with dozens of people," Wilson wrote in the New York Times last July, "current government officials, former government officials, people associated with the country's uranium business. It did not take long to conclude that it was highly doubtful that any such transaction had ever taken place." It is unclear with whom Wilson met. No Nigerien officials have admitted to attending those meetings. El Hadj Habibou Allele, who runs COMINAK, the major uranium-mining concern, stated he was never contacted. For their part, the staff at the Gawaeye thought Wilson was a nice guy, and they nicknamed him "Bill Clinton" after his former employer.

Let's concede that the public face of Wilson's mission may not be the whole story. There may have been a secret side to it � a side he may have been oblivious to � that has not yet been reported. It hardly seems credible that Wilson could have single-handedly investigated every aspect of the Niger-Iraq connection spending "eight days drinking sweet mint tea" and talking to people. If Niamey were nurturing such a relationship with Baghdad it surely would have been highly secretive. Uranium trade with Iraq was illegal after all; you could not expect to get a straight answer from anyone involved in it. Moreover, the wounds of 9/11 were still fresh, and this was only a few months after Coalition forces had swiftly overthrown the Taliban regime in Afghanistan. What country was going to freely admit to selling illegal WMD material to the only ruler in the world who openly praised the attacks on the Twin Towers? As noted, Wilson came away with no evidence that the 1999 uranium sale had taken place. But over the last few months, particularly since Wilson's New York Times piece, this very narrow finding has been taken as proof that Iraq never even tried to obtain uranium. That was not the question Wilson was sent to Niger to answer, and his investigation certainly never came close to being that thorough. Yet the press reflexively cites this brief visit as the basis for the definitive answer on the entire Niger uranium controversy. Wilson's purported influence has been inflated to the point where otherwise sensible people (and some not-so) are alleging that the inner circles of the White House had to resort to felonious leaking to discredit him.

The British have consistently stood by that conclusion. In September 2003, an independent British parliamentary committee looked into the matter and determined that the claim made by British intelligence was "reasonable" (the media forgot to cover that one too). Indeed, Britain's spies stand by their claim to this day. Interestingly, French intelligence also reported an Iraqi attempt to procure uranium from Niger.

Yes, there were fake documents relating to Niger-Iraq sales. But no, those forgeries were not the evidence that convinced British intelligence that Saddam may have been shopping for "yellowcake" uranium. On the contrary, according to some intelligence sources, the forgery was planted in order to be discovered — as a ruse to discredit the story of a Niger-Iraq link, to persuade people there were no grounds for the charge. If that was the plan, it worked like a charm.

But that's not all. The Butler report, yet another British government inquiry, also is expected to conclude this week that British intelligence was correct to say that Saddam sought uranium from Niger.

And in recent days, the Financial Times has reported that illicit sales of uranium from Niger were indeed being negotiated with Iraq, as well as with four other states.

According to the FT: "European intelligence officers have now revealed that three years before the fake documents became public, human and electronic intelligence sources from a number of countries picked up repeated discussion of an illicit trade in uranium from Niger. One of the customers discussed by the traders was Iraq."

There's still more: As Susan Schmidt reported — back on page A9 — of Saturday's Washington Post: "Contrary to Wilson's assertions and even the government's previous statements, the CIA did not tell the White House it had qualms about the reliability of the Africa intelligence."

The Senate report says fairly bluntly that Wilson lied to the media. Schmidt notes that the panel found that, "Wilson provided misleading information to the Washington Post last June. He said then that he concluded the Niger intelligence was based on a document that had clearly been forged because 'the dates were wrong and the names were wrong.'"

The problem is Wilson "had never seen the CIA reports and had no knowledge of what names and dates were in the reports," the Senate panel discovered. Schmidt notes: "The documents — purported sales agreements between Niger and Iraq — were not in U.S. hands until eight months after Wilson made his trip to Niger."

*SNIP*
GOT YOU! You know, where I come from, plaigerism is an offence that not only leaves one stripped of any academic standing you may have held, but also loses that person any credit to their words they may have once had.

Now, will you kindly stop channeling The National Review?
http://www.nationalreview.com/robbins/robbins200310010838.asp
http://www.nationalreview.com/may/may200407121105.asp

As I thought, your words have no meaning more than those claimed by MacBeth, full of sound and furry, signifiying nothing.

GOT YOU! You know, where I come from, plaigerism is an offence that not only leaves one stripped of any academic standing you may have held, but also loses that person any credit to their words they may have once had.

Now, will you kindly stop channeling The National Review?
http://www.nationalreview.com/robbins/robbins200310010838.asp
http://www.nationalreview.com/may/may200407121105.asp

As I thought, your words have no meaning more than those claimed by MacBeth, full of sound and furry, signifiying nothing.

Only quoting a source... And it doesn't change the fact that it's true... ;)

Only quoting a source... And it doesn't change the fact that it's true... ;)
No, using words that are not yours without noting a source is plagerism, trust me on this, I'm an English teacher.

And an opinion article from October 2003 does not inspire confidence. Because, gee wiz, can't find anything else on this supposed British panel that validated the whole yellowcake story NOR have you delt with the retraction by President Bush and the US Goverment's admission that the story and intelligence was false.

Edit: Just because I like compleatness, and before you come up with some more opinions as facts.

By extension, we conclude also that the statement in President Bush’s State of the Union Address of 28 January 2003 that “The British Government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa” was well-founded.

However:

Now, we've long acknowledged -- and this is old news, we've said this repeatedly -- that the information on yellow cake did, indeed, turn out to be incorrect.
What we've said subsequently is, knowing what we now know, that some of the Niger documents were apparently forged, we wouldn't have put this in the President's speech -- but that's knowing what we know now.
These 16 words should never have been included in the text written for the President.
http://www.factcheck.org/article222.html

Well, at the end of the day, I think it is fair to say that he knew more than anyone on this forum.! Case closed!

Some food for thought on the man the Bush Administration sent to Niger to investigate possible Niger/Iraq uranium yellowcake trade.

Joseph Wilson:

However, according to an AP report on 09/22/03:

Granted, the AP report is from 09/22/03. But it says that unlike Wilson's statement that the IAEA would have the authority to inspect shipments, apparently he was wrong - the IAEA has no authority to inspect shipments.

In light of the facts regarding the security situation of uranium in Niger, I find Wilson's report potentially inaccurate.

Was it a mistake to send a man who is not a WMD expert, not an intelligence analyst, and not a real, trained CIA agent to do this work?

Give it up already.

Wilson did nothing wrong and merely carried out a mission for the CIA prompted by requests from the Vice-President's office.

Wilson was an expert on Iraq. The man had been a foreign service diplomat for some 22 years. He served under both Bush and Clinton in positions of sensitivity. His standing up to Saddam Hussein regarding the shelter of 100 Americans at the US Embassy led George Bush Sr. to praise him as "truly inspiring" and "courageous."

The CIA chose Wilson to investiage the Nigeria situation. He did so. They didn't like his answers so they ignored them. Then we spoke out, they sought to smear him.

The documents are not the only source. The British apparently have their own sources, which during their recent commission found that while Iraq had not actually purchased uranium, it had certainly put out feelers to do so - none of which is contradicted by the forgeries.

Also, the IAEA and the US are well aware that the country sold 250 tons of uranium to Iraq as far back as 1981 - a point that is not in contention at all. The Niger uranium mines have been leaking uranium to various nations since 1981 - a point that is not in contention.

What I am contesting is the idea that Wilson, a man not trained as an agent, speaking to people who would have a great motivation to lie - people who are part of an organization that no one contests has smuggled uranium before - who by his own admission spent "eight days drinking mint tea" - could examine the whole uranium operation and suddenly know for certain whether or not any uranium smuggling was going on - it strains credulity to the utmost to say that Wilson alone would absolutely know what was going on.

To say that he would know more than the British - or that he would know more than the rest of the CIA - is incredulous, to say the least.

Both the US and the UK have backed away from th Nigerian forgeries and the whole allegation.

Only serious conspiracy theorists like youself have failed to smell the coffee and drop this issue.

BTW, a man with 22 years of experience as a foreign service officer is trained in doing more than drinking tea.