Didn't think this would come back to the forefront, definitely something to follow to see if anything new comes of it.



Safire

quote:

Beware of Certitude By WILLIAM SAFIRE nly two days ago, I wrote with all the confidence of a bigfoot pundit that French President Jacques Chirac, at the NATO summit in Istanbul, would find it in his political interest to paper over past differences with the U.S., Britain and most other European nations about overthrowing Saddam. So much for my certitude. Instead, Chirac stuck his thumb in the alliance's eye: he would not allow any troops under the NATO flag to help the newly sovereign Iraqis defeat the terrorists. Even the training of Iraqi police officers would have to take place outside that country; Chirac slyly suggested Rome. And when President Bush dared to hope that the host nation, Turkey (a NATO nation that did more than France to counter the Soviet threat), would be accepted into the European Union, Chirac lashed out at the American with: "He not only went too far, but he has gone into a domain that is not his own. He has nothing to say on this subject." I was profoundly mistaken about how far into isolation this former ally would go. Evidently Chirac finds political salvation in being openly and contemptuously anti-Bush. He has placed all of his nation's diplomatic chips on the defeat of Bush in November. Chirac takes that gamble because he is afflicted with certitude about this: if freedom fails in Iraq, France's long and profitable protection of Saddam will somehow be justified. But certitude is an uncertain thing. Take, for example, the assumption now taken as fact that Saddam's Iraq was not seeking the raw material for the production of atomic weapons. Remember Bush's claim in last year's State of the Union address about Iraq's negotiating with an African nation for the "yellowcake" refined from uranium ore? When it turned out that this suspicion was based on forged documents, the embarrassed C.I.A. and humiliated White House confessed error. Great and gleeful derision was heaped on Bush for misleading the world on one of the three bases for intervention. If anything in the intelligence world can be a sure thing, the conclusion that Bush had blundered badly was it. The husband of a C.I.A. employee was lionized by the antiwar left for having doubted the fraudulent report; Joseph Wilson is promoting his book about alleged intimidation in the exposure of his wife's job, and the ensuing leak investigation has been making headlines ever since. Comes now a front-page story in The Financial Times by Mark Huband, that international newspaper's security correspondent, headlined "Intelligence Backs Claims Iraq Had Talks on Uranium." Were the documents on which Bush based his charge fake? Yes; though "legal constraints" prevent the F.T. and the Italian magazine Panorama from identifying the suspected forger, the source is reportedly a convicted con man who tried to peddle phony yellowcake papers to several spy services. No wonder everybody belatedly ran from any notion that Iraq sought the uranium product from Niger. But hold that horselaugh: "Embarrassment on fake documents obscured earlier intelligence that Iraq may have been trying to buy uranium," notes an F.T. subheading. Huband writes: "Three intelligence services were aware of possible illicit trade in uranium from Niger between 1999 and 2001. Human intelligence . . . had shown Niger officials referring to possible illicit uranium deals with at least five countries, including Iraq. This intelligence provided clues about plans by Libya and Iran to develop their undeclared nuclear programs." A close reading of the article suggests the original human source was Italian, whose tip was confirmed by British and French electronic intercepts. C.I.A. analysts, who often disdain data not gathered by us, ignored the real thing until they were suckered by the forged documents. Was Iraq, like Iran and Libya, in the secret market for atomic material? This article does not yet prove it, but neither does the falsity of some of the data prove the opposite. A safe bet for thee and me is to dispense with certitude. In the months and years ahead, we are highly likely (almost wrote "sure") to get more evidence from seekers after W.M.D. truth. These range from the new Iraqi government to ousted officials, from the coalition's official team to freelance former spooks and serious journalists. Don't jump to hasty derision. As Mark Twain advised, the problem is not just what we don't know, but what we do know that ain't so.

Another article

quote:

Iraq tried to buy uranium from Niger London, England, Jun. 28 (UPI) -- Iraq and four other countries were attempting to purchase uranium from Niger as far back as 1999, European intelligence officials told the Financial Times. The unidentified sources told the newspaper illicit sales were being negotiated at least three years before last year's U.S.-led invasion. They said between 1999 and 2001, uranium smugglers planned to sell the ore or refined ore called yellow cake, to Iran, Libya, China, North Korea and Iraq. An official said meetings between Niger officials and would-be buyers from the five countries were held in several European countries. Intelligence officers were convinced that the uranium would be smuggled from abandoned mines in Niger, circumventing official export controls. Claims of the illicit export of uranium were widely dismissed when letters referring to the sales were proved by the International Atomic Energy Agency to be forgeries. This embarrassed the Bush administration and led it to reverse its earlier claim about weapons of mass destruction being amassed by Iraq. The investigation suggested it was the smugglers who were actively marketing the ore, although it was unclear how far the deals had progressed and whether actual deliveries of uranium were made.

The Financial Times article requires a subscription that I don't have, but here's a link for anyone who does or has an interest in one.

FT Article