arch/ive/ief (2000 - 2005)

In March this year some articles appeared in which was written that the CIA warned Bush and co about the uranium from Niger. Just before that the end of February, the UEAI said also the uranium-claim was forged.

Following are some parts of articles about this subject, all from March. In fact, at that time, the White House admitted it's fault.

Fantasy replaced fiction which replaced reality, no?

>>>

Published on Saturday, March 22, 2003 by the Washington Post
CIA Questioned Documents Linking Iraq, Uranium Ore
by Dana Priest and Karen DeYoung

"CIA officials now say they communicated significant doubts to the administration about the evidence backing up charges that Iraq tried to purchase uranium from Africa for nuclear weapons, charges that found their way into President Bush's State of the Union address, a State Department "fact sheet" and public remarks by numerous senior officials.That evidence was dismissed as a forgery early this month by United Nations officials investigating Iraq's weapons of mass destruction programs. The Bush administration does not dispute this conclusion.Asked how the administration came to back up one of its principal allegations against Iraq with information its own intelligence service considered faulty, officials said all such assertions were carefully tailored to stay within the bounds of certainty."
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines03/0322-04.htm

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A9011-2003Mar22?language=printer

A letter of Harry Waxman to Bush:

March 17, 2003

"The evidence in question is correspondence that indicates that Iraq sought to obtain nuclear material from an African country, Niger. For several months, this evidence has been a central part of the U.S. case against Iraq. On December 19, the State Department filed a response to Iraq’s disarmament declaration to the U.N. Security Council. The State Department response stated: “The Declaration ignores efforts to procure uranium from Niger.” A month later, in your State of the Union address, you stated: “The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa.” Defense Secretary Rumsfeld subsequently cited the evidence in briefing reporters.

It has now been conceded that this evidence was a forgery. On March 7, the Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Mohamed ElBaradei, reported that the evidence that Iraq sought nuclear materials from Niger was “not authentic.” As subsequent media accounts indicated, the evidence contained “crude errors,” such as a “childlike signature” and the use of stationary from a military government in Niger that has been out of power for over a decade.

Even more troubling, however, the CIA, which has been aware of this information since 2001, has never regarded the evidence as reliable. The implications of this fact are profound: it means that a key part of the case you have been building against Iraq is evidence that your own intelligence experts at the Central Intelligence Agency do not believe is credible."
http://www.house.gov/waxman/text/admin_iraq_march_17_let.htm

CIA analysts do a CYA, telling the press, Don't blame the phony nuke docs on us!

By Jack Shafer

Posted Sunday, March 23, 2003, at 1:37 PM PT

"The CIA covers its ass today in both the Washington Post and the New York Times, further distancing itself from the forged documents the Bush administration forwarded to the United Nations to support its case that Iraq had attempted to purchase uranium. News that the documents were forged has given succor to Bush administration critics, who accuse the government of ginning up evidence against Iraq to justify war."

http://slate.msn.com/id/2080583/