Yellowcake forgery
Encyclopedia
The Niger uranium forgeries are forged document
s initially revealed by Italian Military intelligence
. These documents seem to depict an attempt made by Saddam Hussein
in Iraq
to purchase yellowcake uranium powder 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 the United Nations
Iraq sanctions
.
These documents were sent to the CIA office in Rome
by the Italian Military Intelligence agency, SISMI
.
On May 10, 2002, the CIA’s Office of Near Eastern and South Asian Analysis (NESA) in the Directorate of Intelligence (DI) prepared a Principals Committee briefing book updating the status of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction (WMD) programs. The document noted that a "foreign government service says Iraq was trying to acquire 500 tons of uranium from Niger."
On July 22, 2002, the DOE
published an intelligence product (Daily Intelligence Highlight, Nuclear Reconstitution Efforts Underway?) which highlighted the intelligence on the Iraq-Niger uranium deal as one of three indications that Iraq might be reconstituting its nuclear program.
There was a second and third dissemination of these forged documents to the USA by SISMI in early September, 2002. One source being a suspicious "ex-agent," of SISMI who occasionally worked on and off for them, who was selling the documents.
Far more officially, Nicolo Pollari
, chief of Italy's military intelligence service, SISMI, brought the Niger yellowcake story directly to the White House, meeting secretly in Washington on September 9, 2002, with then–Deputy National Security Advisor
Stephen Hadley
. In that month, the claims of Saddam trying to buy yellowcake uranium from Niger became much stronger.
In September 2002, the DIA
published an intelligence assessment (Defense Intelligence Assessment, Iraq’s Reemerging Nuclear Program) which outlined Iraq’s recent efforts to rebuild its nuclear program including uranium acquisition. On this issue, the assessment said "Iraq has been vigorously trying to procure uranium ore and yellowcake."
September 11, 2002, National Security Council (NSC)
staff contacted the CIA to clear language for possible use by the President. The language cleared by the CIA said, "Iraq has made several attempts to buy high strength aluminum tubes used in centrifuges to enrich uranium for nuclear weapons. And we also know this: within the past few years, Iraq has resumed efforts to obtain large quantities of a type of uranium oxide known as yellowcake, which is an essential ingredient of this process."
In October, 2002 the Intelligence Community (IC) produced a classified
, 90-page National Intelligence Estimate (NIE)
on Iraq's WMD programmes which cited reports that Iraq began "vigorously trying to procure" more uranium from Niger and two other African countries.
The specific mention of yellowcake and Niger was not in this speech. There are many reports of a struggle about this, saying the Niger uranium claims were initially in this Cincinnati speech but taken out by the insistence of the CIA Director
George Tenet
.
" to refer to what later became the Multinational Force - Iraq. To back up its claim that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction, that administration referred to intelligence from Italy, Britain, and France detailing interactions between Saddam Hussein
and the governments of Niger
, Somalia
, and the Democratic Republic of Congo. Specifically, Central Intelligence Agency
(CIA) director George Tenet
and United States Secretary of State
Colin Powell
both cited attempts by Hussein to obtain uranium from Niger in their September testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. At that time, using information derived from the same source, the UK government also publicly reported an attempted purchase from an (unnamed) "African country". In December, the United States Department of State
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."
from Niger were considered dubious by some analysts in U.S. intelligence, according to news accounts. By early 2002, separate investigations by both the CIA and the US State Department had found the documents to be inaccurate. Days before the Iraq invasion, the International Atomic Energy Agency
(IAEA) voiced serious doubt on the authenticity of the documents to the U.N. Security Council, judging them counterfeit.
, U.S. President George W. Bush said, "The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa." This single sentence is known now as "Sixteen Words".
The administration later conceded that evidence in support of the claim was inconclusive and stated, "These sixteen words should never have been included." The administration attributed the error to the CIA. In mid-2003, the U.S. government declassified the 2002 National Intelligence Estimate
, which contained a dissenting opinion published by the U.S. Department of State stating that the intelligence connecting Niger to Saddam Hussein was "highly suspect," primarily because State Department's intelligence agency analysts did not believe that Niger would be likely to engage in such a transaction due to a French consortium which maintained close control over the Nigerien uranium industry.
According to The Washington Post
, when occupying troops found no evidence of a current nuclear program, the statement and how it came to be in the speech became a focus for critics in Washington and foreign capitals to press the case that the White House manipulated facts to take the United States to war. The Post reported, "Dozens of interviews with current and former intelligence officials and policymakers in the United States, Britain, France and Italy show that the Bush administration disregarded key information available at the time showing that the Iraq-Niger claim was highly questionable." With the release of the 2002 NIE report, the Bush administration was criticized for including the statement in the State of the Union despite CIA and State Department reports questioning its veracity.
carried a report from their national security correspondent, Mark Huband, describing that between 1999 and 2001, three unnamed 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
. "The same information was passed to the US" but American officials decided not to include it in their assessment, Huband added in a follow up report.
French intelligence 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.
The Sunday Times
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.
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".
, 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. CNN reported on 14 March 2003 (before invasion) that the International Atomic Energy Agency found the documents to be forged.
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.
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". 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.
The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence suggested that the evidence Wilson found could be interpreted differently:
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:
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
.
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
, in pondering why a State Dept employee was dispatched rather than a trained CIA agent, the identity of Wilson's wife, CIA analyst Valerie Plame
, was revealed. The Senate Intelligence Committee report and other sources confirm that Plame "offered his name up" to her superiors.
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.
However, George Tenet
has admitted that making the claim was a mistake stating "The president had every reason to believe that the text presented to him was sound. These 16 words should never have been included in the text written for the president."
(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 Nigerien officials. As a result, the IAEA reported to the U.N. Security Council that the documents were "in fact not authentic". The UN spokesman wrote:
, Iraq's Weapons of Mass Destruction: The Assessment of the British Government, including the topic of uranium acquisition.
In June and July, British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw
testified that the claim in the dossier rested on separate evidence to the fraudulent documents, and that this specific intelligence, obtained from a foreign government, was still under review and had not been shared with the CIA. In written evidence to the same committee, Straw further disclosed that the separate intelligence information upon which the British Government had based its conclusion, was also briefed to the IAEA by a foreign intelligence service that owned the reporting, shortly before IAEA Director General Dr. Mohamed ElBaradei's statement to the UN Security Council on March 7, 2003. This was further confirmed in a Parliamentary answer to Lynne Jones
MP. Lynne Jones subsequently contacted the IAEA to question whether a third party had discussed or shared separate intelligence with them and, if so, what assessment they made of it. IAEA spokesman Mark Gwozdecky responded to Jones in May 2004:
After talking with numerous witnesses and considering much evidence, the committee judged the evidence that Iraq was trying to procure uranium was not sufficiently strong enough to justify absolute terms.
, appointed by then Prime Minister Tony Blair
, concluded that the report Saddam's government was seeking uranium in Africa appeared "well-founded":
The Butler Report failed to advance any specific evidence to support its conclusion, critics argue.
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
.
, 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". 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." However, 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.
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."
, 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 (Italian word translates to Lady)(Milan station chief at the time was Robert S. Lady) on the staff of the Niger embassy (located in a tiny apartment in Rome
), after a meeting was arranged by a serving SISMI agent. 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.
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. 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:
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".
, 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
...."
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." Hersh continues:
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". Ledeen has denied this in 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".
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."
. Investigative reporters Carlo Bonini and Giuseppe d'Avanzo report that Nicolo Pollari
, chief of Italy's military intelligence service, 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 Repubblicas 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.
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 Federal Bureau of Investigation
(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." This decision closely followed the Killian documents controversy
.
Nicolo Pollari, director of the SISMI intelligence agency, 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."
(refined uranium ore) out of Iraq. This yellowcake had been stockpiled prior to the first Gulf War, and was declared to the International Atomic Energy Agency
and under IAEA safeguards. More than 550 tons of yellowcake was removed from Iraq and eventually shipped to Canada.
Documents and those who relied on them
Joseph Wilson and Valarie Plame
United States Administration statements, speeches, plans
Legislative investigations
Document
The term document has multiple meanings in ordinary language and in scholarship. WordNet 3.1. lists four meanings :* document, written document, papers...
s initially revealed by Italian Military intelligence
SISMI
Servizio per le Informazioni e la Sicurezza Militare was the military intelligence agency of Italy from 1977-2007....
. These documents seem to depict an attempt made by Saddam Hussein
Saddam Hussein
Saddam Hussein Abd al-Majid al-Tikriti was the fifth President of Iraq, serving in this capacity from 16 July 1979 until 9 April 2003...
in Iraq
Iraq
Iraq ; officially the Republic of Iraq is a country in Western Asia spanning most of the northwestern end of the Zagros mountain range, the eastern part of the Syrian Desert and the northern part of the Arabian Desert....
to purchase yellowcake uranium powder from Niger
Niger
Niger , officially named the Republic of Niger, is a landlocked country in Western Africa, named after the Niger River. It borders Nigeria and Benin to the south, Burkina Faso and Mali to the west, Algeria and Libya to the north and Chad to the east...
during the Iraq disarmament crisis
Iraq disarmament crisis
The issue of Iraq's disarmament reached a crisis in 2002-2003, when U.S. President George W. Bush demanded a complete end to what he alleged was Iraqi production of weapons of mass destruction and that Iraq comply with UN Resolutions requiring UN weapons inspectors unfettered access to areas those...
.
On the basis of these documents and other indicators, the governments of the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
and the United Kingdom
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
asserted that Iraq had attempted to procure nuclear material for the purpose of creating what they called weapons of mass destruction
Weapons of mass destruction
A weapon of mass destruction is a weapon that can kill and bring significant harm to a large number of humans and/or cause great damage to man-made structures , natural structures , or the biosphere in general...
, referred to as WMD, in defiance of the United Nations
United Nations
The United Nations is an international organization whose stated aims are facilitating cooperation in international law, international security, economic development, social progress, human rights, and achievement of world peace...
Iraq sanctions
Iraq sanctions
The Iraq sanctions were a near-total financial and trade embargo imposed by the United Nations Security Council on the nation of Iraq. They began August 6, 1990, four days after Iraq's invasion of Kuwait, stayed largely in force until May 2003 , and certain portions including reparations to Kuwait...
.
Abbreviated timetable
The first report of these documents was in a CIA Senior Executive Intelligence brief dated October 18, 2001, titled: "Iraq: Nuclear Related Procurement Efforts," This information was not considered to be certain and not much was done to promote this claim right away.These documents were sent to the CIA office in Rome
Rome
Rome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...
by the Italian Military Intelligence agency, SISMI
SISMI
Servizio per le Informazioni e la Sicurezza Militare was the military intelligence agency of Italy from 1977-2007....
.
On May 10, 2002, the CIA’s Office of Near Eastern and South Asian Analysis (NESA) in the Directorate of Intelligence (DI) prepared a Principals Committee briefing book updating the status of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction (WMD) programs. The document noted that a "foreign government service says Iraq was trying to acquire 500 tons of uranium from Niger."
On July 22, 2002, the DOE
United States Department of Energy
The United States Department of Energy is a Cabinet-level department of the United States government concerned with the United States' policies regarding energy and safety in handling nuclear material...
published an intelligence product (Daily Intelligence Highlight, Nuclear Reconstitution Efforts Underway?) which highlighted the intelligence on the Iraq-Niger uranium deal as one of three indications that Iraq might be reconstituting its nuclear program.
There was a second and third dissemination of these forged documents to the USA by SISMI in early September, 2002. One source being a suspicious "ex-agent," of SISMI who occasionally worked on and off for them, who was selling the documents.
Far more officially, Nicolo Pollari
Nicolò Pollari
Nicolò Pollari is a general of the Italian Guardia di Finanza, who was the former head of Italy's national military intelligence agency, or SISMI, until his resignation on 20 November 2006.He was born in Caltanissetta, Sicily....
, chief of Italy's military intelligence service, SISMI, brought the Niger yellowcake story directly to the White House, meeting secretly in Washington on September 9, 2002, with then–Deputy National Security Advisor
Deputy National Security Advisor
The Assistant to the President and National Security Advisor is a member of the Executive Office of the President of the United States, serving as deputy to the President's National Security Advisor....
Stephen Hadley
Stephen Hadley
Stephen John Hadley was the 21st U.S. Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs , serving under President George W. Bush....
. In that month, the claims of Saddam trying to buy yellowcake uranium from Niger became much stronger.
In September 2002, the DIA
Dia
Dia is free and open source general-purpose diagramming software, developed originally by Alexander Larsson. Dia uses a controlled single document interface similar to GIMP and Sodipodi.- Features :...
published an intelligence assessment (Defense Intelligence Assessment, Iraq’s Reemerging Nuclear Program) which outlined Iraq’s recent efforts to rebuild its nuclear program including uranium acquisition. On this issue, the assessment said "Iraq has been vigorously trying to procure uranium ore and yellowcake."
September 11, 2002, National Security Council (NSC)
United States National Security Council
The White House National Security Council in the United States is the principal forum used by the President of the United States for considering national security and foreign policy matters with his senior national security advisors and Cabinet officials and is part of the Executive Office of the...
staff contacted the CIA to clear language for possible use by the President. The language cleared by the CIA said, "Iraq has made several attempts to buy high strength aluminum tubes used in centrifuges to enrich uranium for nuclear weapons. And we also know this: within the past few years, Iraq has resumed efforts to obtain large quantities of a type of uranium oxide known as yellowcake, which is an essential ingredient of this process."
In October, 2002 the Intelligence Community (IC) produced a classified
Classified information
Classified information is sensitive information to which access is restricted by law or regulation to particular groups of persons. A formal security clearance is required to handle classified documents or access classified data. The clearance process requires a satisfactory background investigation...
, 90-page National Intelligence Estimate (NIE)
National Intelligence Estimate
National Intelligence Estimates are United States federal government documents that are the authoritative assessment of the Director of National Intelligence on intelligence related to a particular national security issue...
on Iraq's WMD programmes which cited reports that Iraq began "vigorously trying to procure" more uranium from Niger and two other African countries.
The specific mention of yellowcake and Niger was not in this speech. There are many reports of a struggle about this, saying the Niger uranium claims were initially in this Cincinnati speech but taken out by the insistence of the CIA Director
Director of Central Intelligence
The Office of United States Director of Central Intelligence was the head of the United States Central Intelligence Agency, the principal intelligence advisor to the President and the National Security Council, and the coordinator of intelligence activities among and between the various United...
George Tenet
George Tenet
George John Tenet was the Director of Central Intelligence for the United States Central Intelligence Agency, and is Distinguished Professor in the Practice of Diplomacy at Georgetown University....
.
Iraq and WMD
In late 2002, the Bush administration began soliciting support for war in Iraq using the political slogan "coalition of the willingCoalition of the willing
The term coalition of the willing is a post-1990 political phrase used to collectively describe participants in military or military-humanitarian interventions for which the United Nations Security Council cannot agree to mount a full UN peacekeeping operation...
" to refer to what later became the Multinational Force - Iraq. To back up its claim that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction, that administration referred to intelligence from Italy, Britain, and France detailing interactions between Saddam Hussein
Saddam Hussein
Saddam Hussein Abd al-Majid al-Tikriti was the fifth President of Iraq, serving in this capacity from 16 July 1979 until 9 April 2003...
and the governments of Niger
Niger
Niger , officially named the Republic of Niger, is a landlocked country in Western Africa, named after the Niger River. It borders Nigeria and Benin to the south, Burkina Faso and Mali to the west, Algeria and Libya to the north and Chad to the east...
, Somalia
Somalia
Somalia , officially the Somali Republic and formerly known as the Somali Democratic Republic under Socialist rule, is a country located in the Horn of Africa. Since the outbreak of the Somali Civil War in 1991 there has been no central government control over most of the country's territory...
, and the Democratic Republic of Congo. Specifically, Central Intelligence Agency
Central Intelligence Agency
The Central Intelligence Agency is a civilian intelligence agency of the United States government. It is an executive agency and reports directly to the Director of National Intelligence, responsible for providing national security intelligence assessment to senior United States policymakers...
(CIA) director George Tenet
George Tenet
George John Tenet was the Director of Central Intelligence for the United States Central Intelligence Agency, and is Distinguished Professor in the Practice of Diplomacy at Georgetown University....
and United States Secretary of State
United States Secretary of State
The United States Secretary of State is the head of the United States Department of State, concerned with foreign affairs. The Secretary is a member of the Cabinet and the highest-ranking cabinet secretary both in line of succession and order of precedence...
Colin Powell
Colin Powell
Colin Luther Powell is an American statesman and a retired four-star general in the United States Army. He was the 65th United States Secretary of State, serving under President George W. Bush from 2001 to 2005. He was the first African American to serve in that position. During his military...
both cited attempts by Hussein to obtain uranium from Niger in their September testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. At that time, using information derived from the same source, the UK government also publicly reported an attempted purchase from an (unnamed) "African country". In December, the United States Department of State
United States Department of State
The United States Department of State , is the United States federal executive department responsible for international relations of the United States, equivalent to the foreign ministries of other countries...
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."
Initial doubts
The classified documents detailing an Iraqi approach to purchase yellowcake uraniumUranium
Uranium is a silvery-white metallic chemical element in the actinide series of the periodic table, with atomic number 92. It is assigned the chemical symbol U. A uranium atom has 92 protons and 92 electrons, of which 6 are valence electrons...
from Niger were considered dubious by some analysts in U.S. intelligence, according to news accounts. By early 2002, separate investigations by both the CIA and the US State Department had found the documents to be inaccurate. Days before the Iraq invasion, the International Atomic Energy Agency
International Atomic Energy Agency
The International Atomic Energy Agency is an international organization that seeks to promote the peaceful use of nuclear energy, and to inhibit its use for any military purpose, including nuclear weapons. The IAEA was established as an autonomous organization on 29 July 1957...
(IAEA) voiced serious doubt on the authenticity of the documents to the U.N. Security Council, judging them counterfeit.
"Sixteen Words" controversy in 2003 State of the Union
In his January 2003 State of the Union speech2003 State of the Union Address
The 2003 State of the Union Address was a speech delivered by U.S. President George W. Bush on Tuesday, January 28, 2003. It outlined justifications for the 2003 invasion of Iraq...
, U.S. President George W. Bush said, "The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa." This single sentence is known now as "Sixteen Words".
The administration later conceded that evidence in support of the claim was inconclusive and stated, "These sixteen words should never have been included." The administration attributed the error to the CIA. In mid-2003, the U.S. government declassified the 2002 National Intelligence Estimate
National Intelligence Estimate
National Intelligence Estimates are United States federal government documents that are the authoritative assessment of the Director of National Intelligence on intelligence related to a particular national security issue...
, which contained a dissenting opinion published by the U.S. Department of State stating that the intelligence connecting Niger to Saddam Hussein was "highly suspect," primarily because State Department's intelligence agency analysts did not believe that Niger would be likely to engage in such a transaction due to a French consortium which maintained close control over the Nigerien uranium industry.
According to The Washington Post
The Washington Post
The Washington Post is Washington, D.C.'s largest newspaper and its oldest still-existing paper, founded in 1877. Located in the capital of the United States, The Post has a particular emphasis on national politics. D.C., Maryland, and Virginia editions are printed for daily circulation...
, when occupying troops found no evidence of a current nuclear program, the statement and how it came to be in the speech became a focus for critics in Washington and foreign capitals to press the case that the White House manipulated facts to take the United States to war. The Post reported, "Dozens of interviews with current and former intelligence officials and policymakers in the United States, Britain, France and Italy show that the Bush administration disregarded key information available at the time showing that the Iraq-Niger claim was highly questionable." With the release of the 2002 NIE report, the Bush administration was criticized for including the statement in the State of the Union despite CIA and State Department reports questioning its veracity.
European and French intelligence reports
The front page of the June 28, 2004 Financial TimesFinancial Times
The Financial Times is an international business newspaper. It is a morning daily newspaper published in London and printed in 24 cities around the world. Its primary rival is the Wall Street Journal, published in New York City....
carried a report from their national security correspondent, Mark Huband, describing that between 1999 and 2001, three unnamed European intelligence services were aware that Niger was possibly engaged in illicit negotiations over the export of its uranium ore with North Korea
North Korea
The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea , , is a country in East Asia, occupying the northern half of the Korean Peninsula. Its capital and largest city is Pyongyang. The Korean Demilitarized Zone serves as the buffer zone between North Korea and South Korea...
, Libya
Libya
Libya is an African country in the Maghreb region of North Africa bordered by the Mediterranean Sea to the north, Egypt to the east, Sudan to the southeast, Chad and Niger to the south, and Algeria and Tunisia to the west....
, Iraq, Iran
Iran
Iran , officially the Islamic Republic of Iran , is a country in Southern and Western Asia. The name "Iran" has been in use natively since the Sassanian era and came into use internationally in 1935, before which the country was known to the Western world as Persia...
, and China
China
Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...
. "The same information was passed to the US" but American officials decided not to include it in their assessment, Huband added in a follow up report.
French intelligence 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.
The Sunday Times
The Sunday Times
The Sunday Times is a British Sunday newspaper.The Sunday Times may also refer to:*The Sunday Times *The Sunday Times *The Sunday Times *The Sunday Times...
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.
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".
U.S. 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.Carlton W. Fulford, Jr.
Carlton W. Fulford, Jr. is a retired United States Marine Corps four-star general who served as Deputy Commander in Chief, United States European Command from 2000 to 2002.-Biography:Carlton Fulford, Jr...
, went to Niger and met with the country's president, Tandja Mamadou
Tandja Mamadou
Lieutenant Colonel Mamadou Tandja is a Nigerien politician who was President of Niger from 1999 to 2010. He was President of the National Movement of the Development Society from 1991 to 1999 and unsuccessfully ran as the MNSD's presidential candidate in 1993 and 1996 before being elected to his...
. 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
Joint Chiefs of Staff
The Joint Chiefs of Staff is a body of senior uniformed leaders in the United States Department of Defense who advise the Secretary of Defense, the Homeland Security Council, the National Security Council and the President on military matters...
, Gen. Richard Myers
Richard Myers
Richard Bowman Myers is a retired four-star general in the United States Air Force and served as the 15th Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. As Chairman, Myers was the United States military's highest ranking uniformed officer....
. The U.S. Ambassador to Niger, Barbro Owens-Kirkpatrick
Barbro Owens-Kirkpatrick
Barbro Owens-Kirkpatrick is an American diplomat.Owens-Kirkpatrick earned a Bachelor of Arts in Economics from the Helsinki School of Economics in Finland...
, was also present at the meeting and sent similar conclusions to the State Department. CNN reported on 14 March 2003 (before invasion) that the International Atomic Energy Agency found the documents to be forged.
Wilson and Niger
In late February 2002, the CIA sent Ambassador Joseph WilsonJoseph C. Wilson
Joseph Charles Wilson IV is a former United States diplomat best known for his 2002 trip to Niger to investigate allegations that Saddam Hussein was attempting to purchase yellowcake uranium; his New York Times op-ed piece, "What I Didn't Find in Africa"; and the subsequent "outing" of his wife...
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.
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". 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.
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.The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence suggested that the evidence Wilson found could be interpreted differently:
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:
CIA doubts
In early October 2002, George TenetGeorge Tenet
George John Tenet was the Director of Central Intelligence for the United States Central Intelligence Agency, and is Distinguished Professor in the Practice of Diplomacy at Georgetown University....
called Deputy National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley
Stephen Hadley
Stephen John Hadley was the 21st U.S. Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs , serving under President George W. Bush....
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
Condoleezza Rice
Condoleezza Rice is an American political scientist and diplomat. She served as the 66th United States Secretary of State, and was the second person to hold that office in the administration of President George W. Bush...
.
Wilson and Plame
Retired ambassador Joseph C. WilsonJoseph C. Wilson
Joseph Charles Wilson IV is a former United States diplomat best known for his 2002 trip to Niger to investigate allegations that Saddam Hussein was attempting to purchase yellowcake uranium; his New York Times op-ed piece, "What I Didn't Find in Africa"; and the subsequent "outing" of his wife...
wrote a critical op-ed
Op-ed
An op-ed, abbreviated from opposite the editorial page , is a newspaper article that expresses the opinions of a named writer who is usually unaffiliated with the newspaper's editorial board...
in The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
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
Robert Novak
Robert David Sanders "Bob" Novak was an American syndicated columnist, journalist, television personality, author, and conservative political commentator. After working for two newspapers before serving for the U.S. Army in the Korean War, he became a reporter for the Associated Press and then for...
, in pondering why a State Dept employee was dispatched rather than a trained CIA agent, the identity of Wilson's wife, CIA analyst Valerie Plame
Valerie Plame
Valerie Elise Plame Wilson , known as Valerie Plame, Valerie E. Wilson, and Valerie Plame Wilson, is a former United States CIA Operations Officer and the author of a memoir detailing her career and the events leading up to her resignation from the CIA.-Early life :Valerie Elise Plame was born on...
, was revealed. The Senate Intelligence Committee report and other sources confirm that Plame "offered his name up" to her superiors.
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.
However, George Tenet
George Tenet
George John Tenet was the Director of Central Intelligence for the United States Central Intelligence Agency, and is Distinguished Professor in the Practice of Diplomacy at Georgetown University....
has admitted that making the claim was a mistake stating "The president had every reason to believe that the text presented to him was sound. These 16 words should never have been included in the text written for the president."
IAEA analysis
Further, in March 2003, the Director General of the International Atomic Energy AgencyInternational Atomic Energy Agency
The International Atomic Energy Agency is an international organization that seeks to promote the peaceful use of nuclear energy, and to inhibit its use for any military purpose, including nuclear weapons. The IAEA was established as an autonomous organization on 29 July 1957...
(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
Google
Google Inc. is an American multinational public corporation invested in Internet search, cloud computing, and advertising technologies. Google hosts and develops a number of Internet-based services and products, and generates profit primarily from advertising through its AdWords program...
search, IAEA experts discovered indications of a crude forgery, such as the use of incorrect names of Nigerien officials. As a result, the IAEA reported to the U.N. Security Council that the documents were "in fact not authentic". The UN spokesman wrote:
Foreign Affairs Committee
The first British investigation into this matter was conducted by the House of Commons Foreign Affairs Select Committee (FAC). The committee comprises fourteen Members of Parliament from government and opposition parties, and has permanent cross-party support. They examined and tested several key claims in the September DossierSeptember Dossier
Iraq's Weapons of Mass Destruction: The Assessment of the British Government, also known as the September Dossier, was a document published by the British government on 24 September 2002 on the same day of a recall of Parliament to discuss the contents of the document...
, Iraq's Weapons of Mass Destruction: The Assessment of the British Government, including the topic of uranium acquisition.
In June and July, British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw
Jack Straw (politician)
John Whitaker Straw is a British Labour Party politician who has been the Member of Parliament for Blackburn since 1979. He served as Home Secretary from 1997 to 2001, Foreign Secretary from 2001 to 2006 and Lord Privy Seal and Leader of the House of Commons from 2006 to 2007 under Tony Blair...
testified that the claim in the dossier rested on separate evidence to the fraudulent documents, and that this specific intelligence, obtained from a foreign government, was still under review and had not been shared with the CIA. In written evidence to the same committee, Straw further disclosed that the separate intelligence information upon which the British Government had based its conclusion, was also briefed to the IAEA by a foreign intelligence service that owned the reporting, shortly before IAEA Director General Dr. Mohamed ElBaradei's statement to the UN Security Council on March 7, 2003. This was further confirmed in a Parliamentary answer to Lynne Jones
Lynne Jones
Lynne Mary Jones is a British Labour Party politician, who was the Member of Parliament for Birmingham Selly Oak from 1992 until the dissolution of parliament in April 2010.-Early life:...
MP. Lynne Jones subsequently contacted the IAEA to question whether a third party had discussed or shared separate intelligence with them and, if so, what assessment they made of it. IAEA spokesman Mark Gwozdecky responded to Jones in May 2004:
I can confirm to you that we have received information from a number of member states regarding the allegation that Iraq sought to acquire uranium from Niger. However, we have learned nothing which would cause us to change the conclusion we reported to the United Nations Security Council on March 7, 2003 with regards to the documents assessed to be forgeries and have not received any information that would appear to be based on anything other than those documents.
After talking with numerous witnesses and considering much evidence, the committee judged the evidence that Iraq was trying to procure uranium was not sufficiently strong enough to justify absolute terms.
We conclude that it is very odd indeed that the Government asserts that it was not relying on the evidence which has since been shown to have been forged, but that eight months later it is still reviewing the other evidence. The assertion "… that Iraq sought the supply of significant amounts of uranium from Africa …" should have been qualified to reflect the uncertainty.
Butler Committee
The Butler CommitteeButler Review
On February 3, 2004, the British Government announced an inquiry into the intelligence relating to Iraq's weapons of mass destruction which played a key part in the Government's decision to invade Iraq in 2003. A similar investigation was set up in the USA...
, appointed by then Prime Minister Tony Blair
Tony Blair
Anthony Charles Lynton Blair is a former British Labour Party politician who served as the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 2 May 1997 to 27 June 2007. He was the Member of Parliament for Sedgefield from 1983 to 2007 and Leader of the Labour Party from 1994 to 2007...
, concluded that the report Saddam's government was seeking uranium in Africa appeared "well-founded":
- 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.
- d. The forged documents were not available to the British Government at the time its assessment was made, and so the fact of the forgery does not undermine it.
The Butler Report failed to advance any specific evidence to support its conclusion, critics argue.
More doubts
In January 2006, The New York TimesThe New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
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
Secretary of State
Secretary of State or State Secretary is a commonly used title for a senior or mid-level post in governments around the world. The role varies between countries, and in some cases there are multiple Secretaries of State in the Government....
Colin L. Powell
Colin Powell
Colin Luther Powell is an American statesman and a retired four-star general in the United States Army. He was the 65th United States Secretary of State, serving under President George W. Bush from 2001 to 2005. He was the first African American to serve in that position. During his military...
and by the Defense Intelligence Agency
Defense Intelligence Agency
The Defense Intelligence Agency is a member of the Intelligence Community of the United States, and is the central producer and manager of military intelligence for the United States Department of Defense, employing over 16,500 U.S. military and civilian employees worldwide...
.
Statements by Wilson
In a July 2003 op-edOp-ed
An op-ed, abbreviated from opposite the editorial page , is a newspaper article that expresses the opinions of a named writer who is usually unaffiliated with the newspaper's editorial board...
, 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". 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
The Washington Post
The Washington Post is Washington, D.C.'s largest newspaper and its oldest still-existing paper, founded in 1877. Located in the capital of the United States, The Post has a particular emphasis on national politics. D.C., Maryland, and Virginia editions are printed for daily circulation...
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." However, 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.
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."
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.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 SISMISISMI
Servizio per le Informazioni e la Sicurezza Militare was the military intelligence agency of Italy from 1977-2007....
, the SID), Rocco Martino
Rocco Martino
Rocco Martino is an Italian secret agent. He was born in Tropea, province of Catanzaro.He played a major role in the fabrication and the dissemination of the Yellowcake Forgery, when he approached CIA Rome station chief Jeffrey W. Castelli with documents on Niger government letterhead describing...
, from Italian
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
military intelligence (SISMI).
An article in The Times
The Times
The Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...
(London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
) quoted Martino as having received the documents from a woman (Italian word translates to Lady)(Milan station chief at the time was Robert S. Lady) on the staff of the Niger embassy (located in a tiny apartment in Rome
Rome
Rome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...
), after a meeting was arranged by a serving SISMI agent. 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.
Martino, in turn, offered them to Italian journalist Elizabetta Burba. On instructions from her editor at Panorama
Panorama (Italian magazine)
Panorama is a right-wing Italian-language news magazine.-Ownership:The magazine is published by Arnoldo Mondadori Editore, the largest Italian publishing house...
, Burba offered them to the U.S. Embassy in Rome in October, 2002. Burba was dissuaded by the editors of the Berlusconi
Silvio Berlusconi
Silvio Berlusconi , also known as Il Cavaliere – from knighthood to the Order of Merit for Labour which he received in 1977 – is an Italian politician and businessman who served three terms as Prime Minister of Italy, from 1994 to 1995, 2001 to 2006, and 2008 to 2011. Berlusconi is also the...
-owned Panorama from investigating the source of the forgeries.
An August 2004 Financial Times
Financial Times
The Financial Times is an international business newspaper. It is a morning daily newspaper published in London and printed in 24 cities around the world. Its primary rival is the Wall Street Journal, published in New York City....
article indicated French officials may have had a role in the forged documents coming to light. The article states:
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".
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 CannistraroVincent Cannistraro
Vincent Cannistraro was Director of Intelligence Programs for the United States National Security Council from 1984 to 1987; Special assistant for Intelligence in the Office of the Secretary of Defense until 1988; and Chief of Operations and Analysis at the Central Intelligence Agency's ...
, the former head of counterterrorism operations at the CIA and the intelligence director at the National Security Council
United States National Security Council
The White House National Security Council in the United States is the principal forum used by the President of the United States for considering national security and foreign policy matters with his senior national security advisors and Cabinet officials and is part of the Executive Office of the...
under Ronald Reagan
Ronald Reagan
Ronald Wilson Reagan was the 40th President of the United States , the 33rd Governor of California and, prior to that, a radio, film and television actor....
, 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
Saddam Hussein
Saddam Hussein Abd al-Majid al-Tikriti was the fifth President of Iraq, serving in this capacity from 16 July 1979 until 9 April 2003...
...."
According to a 2003 article in The New Yorker
The New Yorker
The New Yorker is an American magazine of reportage, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons and poetry published by Condé Nast...
by Seymour Hersh
Seymour Hersh
Seymour Myron Hersh is an American Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative journalist and author based in Washington, D.C. He is a regular contributor to The New Yorker magazine on military and security matters...
, 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." Hersh continues:
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
Michael Ledeen
Michael Arthur Ledeen is an American specialist on foreign policy. His research areas have included state sponsors of terrorism, Iran, the Middle East, Europe , U.S.-China relations, intelligence, and Africa and is a leading neoconservative...
. (Ledeen had also allegedly been a liaison between the American Intelligence Community
Intelligence community
Intelligence community may refer to* Bangladeshi intelligence community* Croatian intelligence community * Israeli intelligence community* Italian intelligence community, see SISMI...
and SISMI two decades earlier.) Cannistraro answered by saying: "you'd be very close". Ledeen has denied this in 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
Philip Giraldi
Philip Giraldi is a former counter-terrorism specialist and military intelligence officer of the United States Central Intelligence Agency and a columnist and television commentator who is the Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest, a group that advocates for more even handed...
, confirmed to Scott Horton
Scott Horton (radio host)
Scott Horton is the host of for Pacifica Radio's KPFK 90.7 FM in Los Angeles, FM in Austin, Texas, FM in Riverside, California and Antiwar.com, where he is also assistant editor. Horton conducts interviews with journalists, politicians, pundits, lawyers and experts on foreign policy and war-time...
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".
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
Iraqi National Congress
The Iraqi National Congress is an umbrella Iraqi opposition group led by Ahmed Chalabi. It was formed with the aid and direction of the United States government following the Gulf War, for the purpose of fomenting the overthrow of Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein.-History:INC was set up following the...
. "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."
Current and former Italian intelligence employees
The suggestion of a plot by CIA officers is countered by an explosive series of articles in the Italian newspaper La RepubblicaLa Repubblica
la Repubblica is an Italian daily general-interest newspaper. Founded in 1976 in Rome by the journalist Eugenio Scalfari, as of 2008 is the second largest circulation newspaper, behind the Corriere della Sera.-Foundation:...
. Investigative reporters Carlo Bonini and Giuseppe d'Avanzo report that Nicolo Pollari
Nicolò Pollari
Nicolò Pollari is a general of the Italian Guardia di Finanza, who was the former head of Italy's national military intelligence agency, or SISMI, until his resignation on 20 November 2006.He was born in Caltanissetta, Sicily....
, chief of Italy's military intelligence service, SISMI, brought the Niger yellowcake story directly to the White House
White House
The White House is the official residence and principal workplace of the president of the United States. Located at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW in Washington, D.C., the house was designed by Irish-born James Hoban, and built between 1792 and 1800 of white-painted Aquia sandstone in the Neoclassical...
after his insistent overtures had been rejected by the Central Intelligence Agency
Central Intelligence Agency
The Central Intelligence Agency is a civilian intelligence agency of the United States government. It is an executive agency and reports directly to the Director of National Intelligence, responsible for providing national security intelligence assessment to senior United States policymakers...
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
National Security Advisor (United States)
The Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs, commonly referred to as the National Security Advisor , serves as the chief advisor to the President of the United States on national security issues...
Stephen Hadley
Stephen Hadley
Stephen John Hadley was the 21st U.S. Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs , serving under President George W. Bush....
. Their secret meeting came at a critical moment in the White House
White House
The White House is the official residence and principal workplace of the president of the United States. Located at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW in Washington, D.C., the house was designed by Irish-born James Hoban, and built between 1792 and 1800 of white-painted Aquia sandstone in the Neoclassical...
campaign to convince Congress and the American public that war in Iraq was necessary to prevent Saddam Hussein
Saddam Hussein
Saddam Hussein Abd al-Majid al-Tikriti was the fifth President of Iraq, serving in this capacity from 16 July 1979 until 9 April 2003...
from developing nuclear weapons. What may be most significant to American observers, however, is La Repubblicas 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.
Aftermath
In March 2003, SenatorUnited States Senate
The United States Senate is the upper house of the bicameral legislature of the United States, and together with the United States House of Representatives comprises the United States Congress. The composition and powers of the Senate are established in Article One of the U.S. Constitution. Each...
Jay Rockefeller
Jay Rockefeller
John Davison "Jay" Rockefeller IV is the senior United States Senator from West Virginia. He was first elected to the Senate in 1984, while in office as Governor of West Virginia, a position he held from 1977 to 1985...
, vice-chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, agreed not to open a Congressional investigation of the matter, but rather asked the Federal Bureau of Investigation
Federal Bureau of Investigation
The Federal Bureau of Investigation is an agency of the United States Department of Justice that serves as both a federal criminal investigative body and an internal intelligence agency . The FBI has investigative jurisdiction over violations of more than 200 categories of federal crime...
(FBI) to conduct the investigation.
In 2003, unidentified "senior officials" in the administration leaked word to columnist Robert Novak
Robert Novak
Robert David Sanders "Bob" Novak was an American syndicated columnist, journalist, television personality, author, and conservative political commentator. After working for two newspapers before serving for the U.S. Army in the Korean War, he became a reporter for the Associated Press and then for...
that Wilson's wife, Valerie Plame
Valerie Plame
Valerie Elise Plame Wilson , known as Valerie Plame, Valerie E. Wilson, and Valerie Plame Wilson, is a former United States CIA Operations Officer and the author of a memoir detailing her career and the events leading up to her resignation from the CIA.-Early life :Valerie Elise Plame was born on...
, 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
CBS News
CBS News is the news division of American television and radio network CBS. The current chairman is Jeff Fager who is also the executive producer of 60 Minutes, while the current president of CBS News is David Rhodes. CBS News' flagship program is the CBS Evening News, hosted by the network's main...
program 60 Minutes
60 Minutes
60 Minutes is an American television news magazine, which has run on CBS since 1968. The program was created by producer Don Hewitt who set it apart by using a unique style of reporter-centered investigation....
decided to delay a major story on the forgeries because such a broadcast might influence the 2004 U.S. presidential election
United States presidential election, 2004
The United States presidential election of 2004 was the United States' 55th quadrennial presidential election. It was held on Tuesday, November 2, 2004. Republican Party candidate and incumbent President George W. Bush defeated Democratic Party candidate John Kerry, the then-junior U.S. Senator...
. A CBS spokesman stated, "We now believe it would be inappropriate to air the report so close to the presidential election." This decision closely followed the Killian documents controversy
Killian documents controversy
The Killian documents controversy involved six documents critical of President George W. Bush's service in the Air National Guard in 1972–73...
.
Nicolo Pollari, director of the SISMI intelligence agency, told an Italian parliamentary intelligence committee that the dossier came from Rocco Martino
Rocco Martino
Rocco Martino is an Italian secret agent. He was born in Tropea, province of Catanzaro.He played a major role in the fabrication and the dissemination of the Yellowcake Forgery, when he approached CIA Rome station chief Jeffrey W. Castelli with documents on Niger government letterhead describing...
, a former Italian spy.
The Los Angeles Times
Los Angeles Times
The Los Angeles Times is a daily newspaper published in Los Angeles, California, since 1881. It was the second-largest metropolitan newspaper in circulation in the United States in 2008 and the fourth most widely distributed newspaper in the country....
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."
Removal of known yellowcake
In 2008, the United States facilitated shipping yellowcakeYellowcake
Yellowcake is a kind of uranium concentrate powder obtained from leach solutions, in an intermediate step in the processing of uranium ores. Yellowcake concentrates are prepared by various extraction and refining methods, depending on the types of ores...
(refined uranium ore) out of Iraq. This yellowcake had been stockpiled prior to the first Gulf War, and was declared to the International Atomic Energy Agency
International Atomic Energy Agency
The International Atomic Energy Agency is an international organization that seeks to promote the peaceful use of nuclear energy, and to inhibit its use for any military purpose, including nuclear weapons. The IAEA was established as an autonomous organization on 29 July 1957...
and under IAEA safeguards. More than 550 tons of yellowcake was removed from Iraq and eventually shipped to Canada.
See also
- 2003 invasion of Iraq2003 invasion of IraqThe 2003 invasion of Iraq , was the start of the conflict known as the Iraq War, or Operation Iraqi Freedom, in which a combined force of troops from the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia and Poland invaded Iraq and toppled the regime of Saddam Hussein in 21 days of major combat operations...
- Alleged Iraqi Mobile Weapons LabsMobile weapons laboratoryMobile weapons laboratories are bioreactors and other processing equipment to manufacture and process biological weapons that can be moved from location to location either by train or vehicle.-Iraqi Mobile weapons laboratories:...
- Downing Street memoDowning Street memoThe "Downing Street memo" , sometimes described by critics of the Iraq War as the "smoking gun memo", is the note of a secret 23 July 2002, meeting of senior British Labour government, defence and intelligence figures discussing the build-up to the war, which included direct reference to classified...
- Iraqi aluminum tubes order
- Iraq disarmament crisisIraq disarmament crisisThe issue of Iraq's disarmament reached a crisis in 2002-2003, when U.S. President George W. Bush demanded a complete end to what he alleged was Iraqi production of weapons of mass destruction and that Iraq comply with UN Resolutions requiring UN weapons inspectors unfettered access to areas those...
- List of uranium mines
- Plame affairPlame affairThe Plame Affair involved the identification of Valerie Plame Wilson as a covert Central Intelligence Agency officer. Mrs. Wilson's relationship with the CIA was formerly classified information...
- Operation RockinghamOperation RockinghamOperation Rockingham was the codeword for UK involvement in inspections in Iraq following the war over Kuwait in 1990-91. Early in 1991 the United Nations Special Commission on Iraq was established to oversee the destruction of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction...
- September DossierSeptember DossierIraq's Weapons of Mass Destruction: The Assessment of the British Government, also known as the September Dossier, was a document published by the British government on 24 September 2002 on the same day of a recall of Parliament to discuss the contents of the document...
- Hussein KamelHussein KamelHussein Kamel Hassan al-Majid was the son-in-law and second cousin of Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein. He defected to Jordan and assisted United Nations Special Commission and International Atomic Energy Agency inspection teams assigned to look for weapons of mass destruction in...
- Scott RitterScott RitterWilliam Scott Ritter, Jr. was an important United Nations weapons inspector in Iraq from 1991 to 1998, and later a critic of United States foreign policy in the Middle East. Prior to the U.S. invasion of Iraq in March 2003, Ritter stated that Iraq possessed no significant weapons of mass...
- Bush-Aznar memoBush-Aznar memoThe Bush–Aznar memo is reportedly a documentation of a February 22, 2003 conversation in Crawford, Texas between US president George W. Bush, Prime Minister of Spain José María Aznar, National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice, Daniel Fried, Alberto Carnero, and Javier Rupérez, the Spanish...
- Casus belliCasus belliis a Latin expression meaning the justification for acts of war. means "incident", "rupture" or indeed "case", while means bellic...
- Iraq document leak 18 September 2004Iraq document leak 18 September 2004On 18 September 2004 the British Daily Telegraph ran two articles titled "" and by reporter Michael Smith, revealing the contents of six leaked British government documents – labelled "secret" or "confidential" – concerning the lead-up to the war in Iraq.The documents achieved...
Further reading
- 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.
External links
Background- Detailed timeline of Africa-uranium allegation - Center for Cooperative Research
- "Who Lied to Whom?" by Seymour M. Hersh, The New Yorker, March 31, 2003.
- Bonini, Carlo and Giuseppe D'avanzo; translated by James Marcus. Collusion: International Espionage and the War on Terror (2007) Melville House Publishing (Hoboken, New Jersey. USA) ISBN 978-1933633275.
Documents and those who relied on them
- "Yellowcake Follies: An Interview with Carlo Bonini" at Propeller.com
- "Who Forged the Niger Documents?" interview of Vincent Cannistraro by Ian Masters, Alternet, April 7, 2005.
- Niger-Iraq Yellowcake documents
- Italy's intelligence chief met with Deputy National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley just a month before the Niger forgeries first surfaced by Laura Rozen, American Prospect Online, October 25, 2005
- "Fake Iraq documents 'embarrassing' for U.S." CNN, March 14, 2003.
- "A Leak, Then a Deluge" By Barton Gellman "Washington Post" Sunday, October 30, 2005; Page A01
Joseph Wilson and Valarie Plame
- Plame's Lame Game: What Ambassador Joseph Wilson and his wife forgot to tell us about the yellow-cake scandal, from SlateSlate (magazine)Slate is a US-based English language online current affairs and culture magazine created in 1996 by former New Republic editor Michael Kinsley, initially under the ownership of Microsoft as part of MSN. On 21 December 2004 it was purchased by the Washington Post Company...
- The Plame Game: Was This a Crime? By Victoria Toensing and Bruce W. Sanford. Wednesday, January 12, 2005; Page A21
- Joseph Wilson. What I Didn't Find in Africa, New York Times, July 6, 2003.
United States Administration statements, speeches, plans
- "Bush's "16 Words" on Iraq & Uranium: He May Have Been Wrong But He Wasn't Lying" - FactCheckFactCheckFactCheck.org is a non-partisan, nonprofit website that describes itself as a consumer advocate' for voters that aims to reduce the level of deception and confusion in U.S. politics." It is a project of the Annenberg Public Policy Center of the Annenberg School for Communication at the University...
- "Transcript of UN speech by Colin Powell" - CNN, February 6, 2003
- "Tenet admits error in approving Bush speech" CNN, December 25, 2003
- "Cheney's Plan to Nuke Iran" interview of Philip Giraldi by Scott Horton, WeekendInterviewShow.com, July 26, 2005
Legislative investigations
- "Report on Intelligence of Weapons of Mass Destruction" - Report of a Committee of Privy Counsellors chaired by Lord Butler of Brockwell
- "The Decision to go to War in Iraq" UK Foreign Affairs Committee, Ninth Report of Session 2002-03