Jack Kelly
Britain's Financial Times reported Wednesday that an official British government inquiry into the intelligence used to justify the war in Iraq has concluded that Britain's MI-6 was correct to conclude that Saddam Hussein's regime had sought to buy uranium ore from Niger.
If so, this gives the lie to the charge: "Bush lied!" when he said in his 2003 State of the Union address: "The British government has learned that Saddam recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa."
"The Financial Times revealed last week that a key part of the UK's intelligence on the uranium came from a European intelligence service that undertook a three year surveillance of an alleged clandestine uranium-smuggling operation of which Iraq was a part," wrote reporter Mark Huband.
Huband doesn't identify the "European intelligence service" in this or his earlier story. The scuttlebutt is that it was the DSGE, the French external intelligence service, which shared the intelligence with MI-6 only on the express condition that the Brits not share it with the United States.
(Terrific allies, those Frogs.)
In the earlier article, Huband said: "Illicit sales of uranium from Niger were being negotiated with five states including Iraq at least three years before the U.S.-led invasion." The other countries were North Korea, Iran, Libya and China.
The "Bush lied!" charge hung on two slender reeds. The first is that the only "evidence" the CIA had at the time of an Iraq-Niger-yellowcake connection was a fairly obvious forgery obtained through Italian sources.
The second was the "investigation" conducted by former Ambassador Joseph Wilson on behalf of the CIA.
Wilson spent two weeks in Niger. He described his investigation as sitting by the pool at his hotel, drinking mint tea, talking to people. The people he talked to told him that Niger hadn't sold uranium to Iraq.
There were two problems with this investigation. The first is that the people to whom Wilson was talking might not have been telling him the truth. The second is that to say that Niger did not sell uranium to Iraq is not the same as saying Iraq did not try to buy yellowcake ore from Niger.
In fact, Wilson himself has confirmed that Iraq did indeed try to buy uranium from Niger.
Wilson's sensational charges against the Bush administration earned him his 15 minutes of fame — frequent appearances on television, and a book deal. But in the book, Wilson acknowledges that in 1999, Saddam Hussein's information minister, Mohammed Saeed Sahhaf (aka "Baghdad Bob") approached an official of the Niger government to discuss trade. Since Niger's only other export is goats — of which there is no shortage in Iraq — the official surmised that Baghdad Bob's interest was in yellowcake ore.
Few of the news organs which played up Wilson's original charges have bothered to mention the reversal of field Wilson made in his book. Surely some of the reporters, editors and producers have read it.
Britain's Financial Times reported Wednesday that an official British government inquiry into the intelligence used to justify the war in Iraq has concluded that Britain's MI-6 was correct to conclude that Saddam Hussein's regime had sought to buy uranium ore from Niger.
If so, this gives the lie to the charge: "Bush lied!" when he said in his 2003 State of the Union address: "The British government has learned that Saddam recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa."
"The Financial Times revealed last week that a key part of the UK's intelligence on the uranium came from a European intelligence service that undertook a three year surveillance of an alleged clandestine uranium-smuggling operation of which Iraq was a part," wrote reporter Mark Huband.
Huband doesn't identify the "European intelligence service" in this or his earlier story. The scuttlebutt is that it was the DSGE, the French external intelligence service, which shared the intelligence with MI-6 only on the express condition that the Brits not share it with the United States.
(Terrific allies, those Frogs.)
In the earlier article, Huband said: "Illicit sales of uranium from Niger were being negotiated with five states including Iraq at least three years before the U.S.-led invasion." The other countries were North Korea, Iran, Libya and China.
The "Bush lied!" charge hung on two slender reeds. The first is that the only "evidence" the CIA had at the time of an Iraq-Niger-yellowcake connection was a fairly obvious forgery obtained through Italian sources.
The second was the "investigation" conducted by former Ambassador Joseph Wilson on behalf of the CIA.
Wilson spent two weeks in Niger. He described his investigation as sitting by the pool at his hotel, drinking mint tea, talking to people. The people he talked to told him that Niger hadn't sold uranium to Iraq.
There were two problems with this investigation. The first is that the people to whom Wilson was talking might not have been telling him the truth. The second is that to say that Niger did not sell uranium to Iraq is not the same as saying Iraq did not try to buy yellowcake ore from Niger.
In fact, Wilson himself has confirmed that Iraq did indeed try to buy uranium from Niger.
Wilson's sensational charges against the Bush administration earned him his 15 minutes of fame — frequent appearances on television, and a book deal. But in the book, Wilson acknowledges that in 1999, Saddam Hussein's information minister, Mohammed Saeed Sahhaf (aka "Baghdad Bob") approached an official of the Niger government to discuss trade. Since Niger's only other export is goats — of which there is no shortage in Iraq — the official surmised that Baghdad Bob's interest was in yellowcake ore.
Few of the news organs which played up Wilson's original charges have bothered to mention the reversal of field Wilson made in his book. Surely some of the reporters, editors and producers have read it.
