Niger did NOT supply Hussein with uranium - from the source

mamajuana- It may be due to typos, but Niger and Nigeria are two different countries!

You are right. In my haste, I sacrifice accuracy.

Interesting story. It looks like there may be evidence that Niger was not involved, but nobody (but the powers-that-be) knows for sure. At the least, the report by Joseph Wilson needs to be evaluated more carefully.

dont worry,niger and Nigeria both produceUranium and Thorium and yellow cake and raffinates for the power industry( although niger , like South Africa, produces a whole lot more and Nigeria is more petroleum based). I dont think that , from trhe last time I worked in Nigeria that there was any evidence that their processing capability was that sophisticated. They would only beneficiate up to a raffinate stage and then ship. The interesting thing that makes me KNOW that this is bullshit is the fact that all U raffinates or yellow cake can be picked up by airborne scanners. Its the most easily identifiable product because there are many gamma emissions which travel almost forever , or till theyre absorbed. We did site prospecting in Nigeria from friggin helicopters outfitted with scintilometers and wide band recorders. you can map a county a day. So not finding nuclear weapons grade stuff in Iraq is evidence that this stuff was either buried and /or it wasnt shipped in the processed form(if at all). Otherwise, we could have flown scintilometers at 1000 ft all around the ports and wed have picked up a trail of nuclear waste dust just from emissions. This stuff is persistent and is like a neon sign in the desert. So the fact that the nuclear scientists arent gagging is a mystery to me.

farmerman - but wasn't that what the U.N. inspectors said was the case before they were summarily dismissed by the U.S.?

What I find interesting about this article is that the author comes forth and names himself as the unnamed person who was sent by the CIA (who footed his travel although he offered pro-bono), backed by State, so it was official. And that now he's never been shown the papers about his report. This guy is an old pro, with no discernible ax to grind, so it smells. And from what I've been reading about detection, I don't understand that either.

This administration seems to operate on the theory that everyone is too lazy or stupid to inquire and find answers, and will just keep swallowing whole anything they care to put out. I hope we're waking up.

not to spin a point mama- but I aint got no argument wiff your logic.

WEll - today's papers have me hopping.

I just heard John alters of newsweek on Imus. he said that the Whitehouse announced yesterday that the entire 'yellow cake' story involving niger and Iraq, was all fabricated and was still stuck into the state of the Union speech by "unknown members of the admin" .. Well, so i guess we have a really dumb president who doesnt QA his own speeches or else, hes a really devious person . which one would you choose?

GWBush can't exactly call himself a liar. c.i.

No, CI, he can't. However, sources on Tuesday, 8 July 2003 confirm the op-ed that appeared in the Sunday NY Times.

In the 8 July issue of the Times -
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/07/08/international/worldspecial/08PREX.htm

And in MSNBC -
http://www.msnbc.com/news/935946.asp?vts=07082003150&cp1=1

The White House is claiming they got it from the Brits. But......this was in a State of the Union Address. Are we to infer from this that either Bush has no idea at all of what's going on (in which case, why is he in this office?), or that the daily briefings he gets from every agency do not get fully vetted? And there's now a quote from Powell going around to the effect that before he delivered his speech at the U.N>, he's supposed to have said he couldn't deliver that **** (meaning the info he was holding).

If Bush didn't know - then he's not competent to hold the office. The buck ends at that desk. If he did know, and chose to go ahead with false information, then either he was lying or bending the truth to achieve his own ends. Whatever and whichever the case, it beccomes increasingly obvious that it was not intended to help the Iraqis.

There may have been a stained blue dress for Clinton to contemplate. This is a stained and strained blot on a number of papers. Did he lie? If he did, was it as bad as Clinton denying hanky panky with Monica?

Yeah, the article says they found out later, but they sure failed to retract their false claims. They had to get caught first. They don't get a pass on this one. c.i.

This from the man who was ordered to Niger to verify uranium

Why I believe intelligence was twisted to justify war

JOSEPH C WILSON


BASED on my experience with the George W Bush administration in the months leading up to the war in Iraq, I have little choice but to conclude that some of the intelligence related to Iraqs nuclear weapons programme was twisted to exaggerate the Iraqi threat.

For 23 years, from 1976 to 1998, I was a career foreign service officer and ambassador. In 1990, as chargi daffaires in Baghdad, I was the last American diplomat to meet Saddam. (I was also a forceful advocate for his removal from Kuwait.) After Iraq, I was President George HW Bushs ambassador to Gabon and Sao Tome and Principe; under President Bill Clinton, I helped direct Africa policy for the National Security Council.

It was my experience in Africa that led me to play a small role in the effort to verify information about Africas suspected link to Iraqs non-conventional weapons programmes. Those news stories about that unnamed former envoy who went to Niger? Thats me.

In February 2002, I was informed by officials at the CIA that Vice President Dick Cheneys office had questions about a particular intelligence report. While I never saw the report, I was told that it referred to a memorandum of agreement that documented the sale of uranium yellowcake - a form of lightly processed ore - by Niger to Iraq in the late 1990s. The agency officials asked if I would travel to Niger to check out the story so that they could provide a response to the vice presidents office.

In late February 2002, I arrived in Nigers capital, Niamey, where I had been a diplomat in the mid-Seventies and visited as a National Security Council official in the late Nineties. The city was much as I remembered it. Seasonal winds had clogged the air with dust and sand. Through the haze, I could see camel caravans crossing the Niger River (over the John F Kennedy Bridge), the setting sun behind them. Most people had wrapped scarves around their faces to protect against the grit, leaving only their eyes visible.

The next morning, I met Ambassador Owens-Kirkpatrick at the embassy. For reasons that are understandable, the embassy staff has always kept a close eye on Nigers uranium business. I was not surprised, then, when the ambassador told me that she knew about the allegations of uranium sales to Iraq - and that she felt she had already debunked them in her reports to Washington. Nevertheless, she and I agreed that my time would be best spent interviewing people who had been in government when the deal supposedly took place, which was before her arrival.

I spent the next eight days drinking sweet mint tea and meeting dozens of people: current government officials, former government officials, people associated with the countrys uranium business. It did not take long to conclude that it was highly doubtful that any such transaction had ever taken place.

Given the structure of the consortiums that operated the mines, it would be exceedingly difficult for Niger to transfer uranium to Iraq. Nigers 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. Moreover, because the two mines are closely regulated, quasi-governmental entities, selling uranium would require the approval of the minister of mines, the prime minister and probably the president. In short, theres simply too much oversight over too small an industry for a sale to have transpired.

Before I left Niger, I briefed the ambassador on my findings, which were consistent with her own. I also shared my conclusions with members of her staff. In early March, I arrived in Washington and promptly provided a detailed briefing to the CIA. I later shared my conclusions with the State Department African Affairs Bureau. There was nothing secret or earth-shattering in my report, just as there was nothing secret about my trip.

I thought the Niger matter was settled and went back to my life. (I did take part in the Iraq debate, arguing that a strict containment regime backed by the threat of force was preferable to an invasion.) In September 2002, however, Niger re-emerged. The British government published a white paper asserting that Saddam and his unconventional arms posed an immediate danger. As evidence, the report cited Iraqs attempts to purchase uranium from an African country. Then, in January, President Bush, citing the British dossier, repeated the charges about Iraqi efforts to buy uranium from Africa.

The next day, I reminded a friend at the State Department of my trip and suggested that if the president had been referring to Niger, then his conclusion was not borne out by the facts as I understood them. He replied that perhaps the president was speaking about one of the other three African countries that produce uranium: Gabon, South Africa or Namibia. At the time, I accepted the explanation. I didnt know that in December, a month before the presidents address, the State Department had published a factsheet that mentioned the Niger case.

Those are the facts surrounding my efforts. The vice presidents office asked a serious question. I was asked to help formulate the answer. I did so, and I have every confidence that the answer I provided was circulated to the appropriate officials within our government.

The question now is how that answer was or was not used by our political leadership. If my information was deemed inaccurate, I understand (though I would be very interested to know why). If, however, the information was ignored because it did not fit certain preconceptions about Iraq, then a legitimate argument can be made that we went to war under false pretences.

At a minimum, Congress, which authorised the use of military force at the presidents behest, should want to know if the assertions about Iraq were warranted.

I was convinced before the war that the threat of weapons of mass destruction in the hands of Saddam required a vigorous and sustained international response to disarm him. Iraq possessed and had used chemical weapons; it had an active biological weapons programme and quite possibly a nuclear research programme - all of which were in violation of UN resolutions. Having encountered Saddam and his thugs in the run-up to the Gulf war of 1991, I was only too aware of the dangers he posed.

But were these dangers the same ones the administration told us about? We have to find out. Americas foreign policy depends on the sanctity of its information. For this reason, questioning the selective use of intelligence to justify the war in Iraq is neither idle sniping nor "revisionist history", as President Bush has suggested.

The act of war is the last option of a democracy, taken when there is a grave threat to our national security. More than 200 American soldiers have lost their lives in Iraq already. We have a duty to ensure that their sacrifice came for the right reasons.

Joseph C Wilson was US ambassador to Gabon from 1992 to 1995.

Source: http://www.news.scotsman.com/topics.cfm?id=741312003&tid=518

It was discovered that the President responded to this e-mail:

Responded how? Most curious, PD. Whatever, now that Bush's trip to Africa is not proving so successful (whatever spin the WH puts on it), I imagine more questions will emerge.

good one Diddie. Umbooto Johnson, good one.

I'll send him my bank account numbers for the wire transfer if you will, farmerdude.

Is that Bush or Collen Farrell on your avatar Diddie?

Umbooto Johnson -hee hee

And just what is that finger doing?

Watching the photo-ops of Bush in Africa, I can believe he'd believe that letter from Umbooto. Probably ask Laura to read it to him.

Wilson, interviewed on Meet the Press (I think), said his information had reached at least the office of Cheney, because a request for more info had gone out from Cheney's office.