Nigergate I: The Truth Behind the Secrets and Lies

It has always been astonishing to me that there has been so much controversy over the claim by President George Bush in his 2003 State of the Union address that “the British Government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa.” Regular readers of this blog will know that I am no friend of Bush and the fraudulent way in which he and Tony Blair took us to war. But as I have often said, and I am going to say again, those now infamous “16 words” were probably the only accurate comment on Iraqi WMD that the president made in the run-up to war.

The British intelligence service MI6 did believe that Saddam was trying to persuade Niger to sell it uranium ore, and as I report in today’s Sunday Times, with good reason. Indeed, they still do. MI6 has apologised for and withdrawn every bit of intelligence on Iraqi WMD that was used to make the case for war, apart from the claim that Saddam was seeking uranium from Niger. Why would that be? Well because the French secret service the DGSE, who supplied the intelligence concerned, are also still sticking by it. The intelligence they continue to defend, and which was described by the Butler report as “credible”, was a letter from Wissam Zahawi, the Iraqi ambassador to the Vatican, dated July 6, 2000, specifically talking about obtaining uranium.

The DGSE knew, as did MI6 and for that matter the CIA, that Saddam would never get uranium out of Niger because even if the Niger government agreed to sell it to him, the French would intervene to stop it. So long of course as they knew that the deal was going down. The Zahawi letter was obtained as part of a major DGSE operation to ensure that it did know of any deal. The letter was not in any way evidence of an actual deal, only that Iraq wanted one, and if you read those “16 words” again you’ll see that is all the British, and Bush at this brief strangely honest moment in time, were saying.

I said earlier that I have always been amazed at the controversy over the actual claim, but it is very easy to understand why the affair as a whole became so controversial. The first reason had its genesis in Italy in February 2000 - almost a year before Bush came to power - and was directly caused by the DGSE operation to ensure that Saddam Hussein could not obtain uranium from Niger.

Antonio Nucera, an officer in the Italian intelligence service SISMI, thought he could help out a couple of former agents. One was a former policeman turned freelance spy called Rocco Martino. The other was a woman called Laura Montini, who was the personal assistant to the Niger Ambassador in Rome and had supplied Nucera with Niger’s diplomatic ciphers and a number of documents. But when Nucera was moved to another job Montini had been dropped as a source. She needed the money from spying to supplement her salary. Nucera knew Martino was still in the business. He offered to introduce them. What he didn’t know was that Martino was now working for the DGSE and being run out of its station in Brussels.

He was looking for more sources and Montini fitted the bill. She supplied the goods and Martino was authorised to pay her 500 Euros a month for her work. Then in the spring of 2000 she gave him a genuine document concerning a visit to Niger by Zahawi. Martino’s DGSE paymasters expressed great interest and he told her how much more money his masters would pay for a copy of a Nigerien contract to sell uranium to Iraq. It was a classic mistake. If you offer enough money for a given piece of intelligence there will always be someone who will “find” it.

Montini and a colleague forged the documents, giving them to Martino in October 2000. But when he took them to the DGSE, they rejected the documents as fake. He then tried to sell them to an Italian journalist, who strangely took them to the US embassy to get them authenticated. Not unnaturally the US embassy sent them to Washington where they were ignored by the CIA but used by the State Department for a fact sheet they were preparing on the Iraqi declaration to the UN on its WMD programmes. The fact sheet was published on December 19, 2002 and the IAEA swiftly asked to see the evidence that led to its claim that Iraq’s declaration “ignores efforts to procure uranium from Niger”.

The documents were sent to the IAEA on February 4, 2003, and a month later the IAEA dismissed them as amateurish forgeries. According to the Senate Intelligence Committee report, the US government learned at the same time “that the French had based their initial assessment that Iraq had attempted to procure uranium from Niger on the same documents that the US had provided to the IAEA”. This statement is deeply misleading. In fact, the French had based their initial assessment on a number of pieces of intelligence which included just one of the Martino/Montini documents the US gave to the IAEA, the genuine document on Zahawi’s 1999 visit to Niger and that initial assessment had since been confirmed by the July 2000 Zahawi letter.

But despite the IAEA announcement that “the documents that pointed towards an agreement between Niger and Iraq for the sale of uranium” were “not authentic”, the controversy did not begin in earnest until several months later as a result of a particularly inept attempt at “news-management” by the White House.

The early reporting from European intelligence services, including MI6 and SISMI, on possible Iraqi attempts to obtain uranium from Iraq was fragmented and both services stressed in their communications with the CIA that they had no real evidence, only unsubstantiated reports. It was in fact the routine stuff of intelligence exchange. One side providing what it knows and hoping the other side can add more to it, in this case either by standing up the reports or knocking them down.

A number of CIA experts were keen to do the latter. They were deeply sceptical of the reports but with the administration already hurtling towards war with Iraq and anxious to persuade the American people to enjoy the ride, there was intense pressure to find out the truth one way or another. Dick Cheney was breathing down the CIA’s neck for evidence that would prove the case for war. So in February 2002, the CIA decided to send a former US ambassador Joe Wilson to Niger to investigate. Wilson was chosen because his wife, who worked in the CIA’s Weapons Intelligence, Non-Proliferation and Arms Control Centre WINPAC and was one of those sceptical of the claims, put his name forward.

Few of those involved in the decision had high hopes of Wilson’s mission. Given Bush’s famous “you’re either with us or against us” speech, if Nigerien officials had discussed selling uranium to Iraq they were hardly likely to admit this to a US envoy. But nevertheless, no visit to the scene of the alleged crime is ever wasted. Wilson came home rightly convinced that there was no actual deal, although he did not rule out the possibility that Iraq might have been trying to obtain uranium from Niger, indeed a former prime minister Ibrahim Mayaki told Wilson he believed the Iraqis had been seeking to buy uranium from Niger in mid-1999.

The date is important because Zahawi had visited Niger in February 1999, meeting with President Ibrahim Bare Mainassara. Zahawi claims this was simply to invite him to visit Baghdad. The visit never happened because Mainassara was assassinated in April 1999, which makes Mayaki’s testimony interesting. He told Wilson that he was asked in June 1999 to meet an Iraqi delegation to discuss “expanding commercial relations”, which he said he took to mean supplying Iraq with uranium. It was as I say interesting, but hardly anything more than a possible link in a chain.

But by the time the president made his State of the Union address on January 28, 2003, there was a much more substantial link in the chain. We know from the Butler Inquiry that the French told MI6 about the Zahawi letter sometime in 2002 but we can actually pin that down a bit more. It was clearly not available for a report from the UK’s Joint Intelligence Committee published in March 2002 but had arrived in time to feature in the now infamous British dossier Iraq’s Weapons of Mass Destruction published in September 2002. The then Chief of MI6, Sir Richard Dearlove, told the Parliamentary Intelligence and Security Committee that there were two pieces of key human intelligence, one of which was obtained in June 2002 and the other in September 2002. The letter was one of these two pieces of intelligence.

The only problem was that although the MI6 reports on Iraqi attempts to obtain uranium from Niger were much harder, they had provided the CIA with no evidence. They couldn’t. The French had provided them with a copy of the letter but were insistent that it could not be supplied to the Americans. The DGSE knew that if they passed a copy of the document to the CIA, Bush and Cheney would see it and want to publish its existence in order to justify the war, putting the French agent who provided the letter at risk. Lacking the evidence seen by the French and the British, most US intelligence experts still doubted the reports of Iraqi attempts to obtain uranium from Niger. The fallout from the President’s State of the Union address was to completely entrench their suspicions.

Wilson had been surprised to hear the president talking about Iraqi attempts to buy uranium from Niger in such a certain fashion in his State of the Union address and six months later penned an article in the New York Times, entitled What I Didn’t Find in Africa, which fairly politely questioned the claim before ending with a sting in the tail accusing the administration of “selective use of intelligence to justify the war in Iraq”. He had a good point there of course. But given that his own mission had not actually knocked down the attempts which formed the basis of the President’s claim, it was a weak platform from which to mount his attack.

But sometimes you can count on the other side making the critical mistakes that hand you victory, particularly when you’re dealing with this administration. They could have politely pointed out that Wilson’s visit was very useful, but had not been critical to the intelligence assessments. They could even have briefed out that other intelligence now contradicted Wilson’s conclusions, something he actually accepted as a possibility in his New York Times article. But instead they launched a vindictive, and frankly illegal, series of briefings to selected journalists in which they pointed out with a nod and a wink that Wilson’s wife Valerie Plame was a CIA officer, the implication being that there were those in the CIA who didn’t accept the truth about Iraq and Wilson was fighting their corner.

When details of the briefings emerged along with the news that Plame was actually operating under cover, all hell broke loose. It is illegal in America to name a serving intelligence officer. Bush expressed outrage that someone in the administration might have leaked her name and promised that if anyone were found to have done so they would be punished. A special prosecutor was appointed to investigate the affair amid reports that those likely to be indicted by the prosecutor included Bush’s closest aide Karl Rove. He has not been indicted yet but Lewis “Scooter” Libby, Cheney’s chief of staff, has for obstruction of justice and perjury and last week it emerged that he claims the briefings were Cheney’s idea and authorised by Bush. It is not clear if they authorised the leaking of Plame’s name but if they did, they are likely to be in serious trouble. 

Comments

[Joe Bongiovanni]

We want to see a copy of the July 6 2000 letter from Zahawi, the Iraqi Vatican attache, regarding the attempt to purchase the uranium.
What does it say?

[Mick says: So do I. But I dont have high hopes of getting one! The IAEA had a copy which they will not pass on to anyone because the French who provided it told them not to. MI6 had a copy which they were famously not allowed to pass on to the CIA so they are hardly likely to let us see it. The French of course also had a copy but since they are the ones stopping MI6 and the IAEA from passing it on we're hardly likely to see it. We also know that the IAEA believed it to be genuine and that it was not part of the forged Martino documents because these were not passed to the IAEA until 4 February 2003 whereas the IAEA interviewed Iraqi officials about the Zahawi letter on 20 January 2003, and did not believe their denials. This was revealed by one of those Iraqi officials, Jafar Dhia Jafar, in his book The Assignment.

We also know that the Butler Inquiry deemed it to be credible and confirmed it had nothing to do with the faked documents.

What it says precisely we do not know. But we do have a fair idea of what it says in general terms. We know for instance that it doesnt say that there was a contract between Iraq and Niger, because we can be pretty sure that if it did we would be told that, and we know that it indicates in some way that Iraq was trying to obtain uranium from Niger, not just because that was the interpretation put on it by the DGSE and MI6. It was also clearly the interpretation put on it by the IAEA when they refused to believe Jafar's denials.

[FMJ]

Hi. Interesting article. Just wondering though, how do you know it was DGSE that provided the July, 2000, Zahawie letter to MI6?

Also, do you know anything more about the letter's content?

[Mick says: You seem to be asking me to reveal my sources and like all journalists I have the same duty to protect my source that led the DGSE to prevent the Zahawi letter being sent to the Americans. As for the letter's content. See my response to the comment above.]

[Jeff Davis]

Mick,

Just read your Nigergate I & II pieces. Great work. How is it I haven't seen your work before? (Partly rhetorical, partly serious.) I've been following this business as closely and comprehensively as possible since the start, and this is absolutely the first time I've come across someone who seems to have gotten it straight. Mostly. I say "mostly" because "getting it straight" is a challenge in an affair so twisted it makes the Gordian knot seem like a length of dental floss.

When no one else was paying attention to anything but the forgeries -- they certainly deserve every bit of attention they have and continue to receive -- I noticed the tail end of Wilson's report where he mentioned the Iraqi trade delegation sent to Niger, presumably seeking uranium. So "the sixteen words" were "accurate".

Case closed? I think not.

Just as Libby's claim that Bush declassified and authorized, through Dick Cheney, some portion of the Plame affair leaks, seems at once connected yet irrelevant to the obstruction and perjury charges Libby faces, so too, "the sixteen words" are simultaneously "a truth", "a lie", and neither of these.

According to reports, as Bush's staff prepared the SotU address, they were completely convinced (because of the forgeries?) of the discredited nature of the "uranium from Niger" intelligence. Yet they so fiercely craved its inclusion that they (Hadley?) proposed its use anyway, grasping at "truth through a technicality" by attributing the intel to the Brits. In my view, the coy, masterful lie is a more serious offense, showing a greater degree of premeditation and awareness of guilt, than a blunt unconsidered lie. How odd and ironic that they could have dispensed with their habitual deceitfulness if only they had read Wilson's report of the Iraqi trade delegation's trip to Niger?! It seems that they were trying so hard to lie that they failed to notice that they were telling the truth. So it seems a case of masterful, habitual, unabashed liars telling the truth by accident!!! I mean, you couldn't make this stuff up!

And finally, just when you think you've reached the very limit of surreality, you have to consider "the sixteen words" emanating from the mouth of George Bush, a man arguably incapable of nuanced thought in the reality-based realm. Did HE lie?, did HE tell the truth? It's like asking the same of the utterances of Charlie McCarthy.

My two cents.

[Mick says: Your two cents is worth as much as amyone else's on this blog. But for what it's worth, I think you've pretty much understood it the way it is. Everyone assumes too much of this administration. They think they are deviously clever. But let's look at the facts. They were mainlining on Star Wars while the terrorists lined up the 9/11 attacks. They were mainlining on how to justify invading Iraq while bin Laden made his escape from Afghanistan. They were mainlining on how to do down critics of Iraq while Katrina hurtled towards New Orleans and they are now mainlining on Iran while Iraq falls apart and bin Laden sits happily wherever he is on the Pakistan/Afghanistan border. They're addicts. We should feel sorry for them. We should book them into rehab. But what we shouldn't do - sorry what you shouldn't do - is let them run America. Thanks for your posts Jeff.]

[smintheus]

Hi Michael, have been enjoying reading your blog. Many very perceptive comments.

Perhaps you've noticed, there's a slight complication today in the Washington Post story about the Plame leak. WaPo reports on a heretofore unknown National Intelligence Council memo that the White House received in Jan. 2003. This is the gist of the revelation:

"The council's reply, drafted in a January 2003 memo by the national intelligence officer for Africa, was unequivocal: The Niger story was baseless and should be laid to rest."

The WH might claim that it's British sources were stronger than the negative conclusions penned by the NIC. But that runs into two difficulties.

First, the NIC presumably would have investigated the British evidence as far as possible. Second, (and this may be related to the NIC conclusion) if US authorities could not examine the actual French document, then there was no substantive grounds for Bush to prefer the conclusion that the unseen document, unlike the junk the CIA had reviewed by autopsy, was authentic. So it was a bit much for Bush to assert that the British had learned anything. "May have learned..." would be more like it, no?

Also, could you clarify this: Did the British receive the actual document from the French? Or just a report? If the latter, is it certain that they were in a position to validate its authenticity? If not, then it seems to me that the most that Bush might have legitimately claimed in his SOTU was that the British had been told that Iraq was seeking to purchase uranium.

Off topic, we are still pushing the DSM story on this side of the Atlantic, and it may come back in fashion again, perhaps soon.

Best, Michael Clark (smintheus)

[Mick says: Thanks Michael I think you are getting to the heart of the matter. First did MI6 have a copy of the letter. I am told that MI6 had a copy of the letter and could pass on their conclusions but not why they had made those conclusions ie either a copy of the letter itself or the contents but were not allowed to pass on details and this is why the US intelligence analysts did not put any credence on the MI6 report, it was effectively unsubstantiated although as Butler said on the basis of seeing the intelligence (and Butler was the only one of those conducting inquiries into this who did see all the intelligence) it was "well-founded".

Your point about was Bush being honest is a good one. But it is like the glass that is half-full or half-empty depending on which way you look at it. There was no doubt it was a getaround and that he could not have made the point legitimately had he not cited the British. If Butler had come up with different conclusions? Well I was going to say he would have been in real trouble. But I know from bitter experience that the current adminsitration can do what it likes and Congress will just go along with it.]

[FMJ]

"You seem to be asking me to reveal my sources and like all journalists I have the same duty to protect my source that led the DGSE to prevent the Zahawi letter being sent to the Americans."

It was worth a shot. Thanks for taking the time to reply. :)

I have a few more questions though. Do you think that the Zahawie letter is a genuine document? Or is it more likely another forgery?

Also, do you know how DGSE got a hold of the letter? Was it through Rocco Martino?

[Mick says: Good questions. Was it a forgery? I doubt it. The IAEA certainly believed it and it is difficult to believe that the DGSE and MI6 have not gone over it with a fine toothcomb to check before deciding to stick with it, particularly given the controversy it provoked. Was it obtained by Rocco Martino? No. By June 2002, which is the earliest date the letter could have been passed to MI6, his market in documents from the Niger embassy was over having ended sometime in 2001.]

[Simon Collister]

Fantastic stuff, Mick.

I followed the Niger Uranium forgery story in private Eye and now your post has provided me with that moment of clarity (or at least as much clarity is possible in international affairs!).

Even better I had no idea that the Plame scandal was linked to the Niger story. I haven't reallly followed the intricacies of who leaked what. But now it seems to make sense.

Can I ask how recently all these facts came to light? Obviously without compromising your sources!

[Mick says: The allegations that the forgeries were carried out by people within the embassy have been around for a long time, having leaked out from the investigation while it was in progress. But the investigation has only just reported so this is the first time it has been confirmed and the two staff have been specifically named (as a search on google will show). But for me the more interesting development is the detail of what led the DGSE and MI6 to be so certain that Iraq had sought uranium from Niger. I frankly always believed that the forgery was carried out for money.]

[FMJ]

Thanks again for replying, Mick.

Another question. You mention the French obtained the Zahawie letter after "a major DGSE operation". Can you reveal anything more about this operation? When might it have taken place?

[Mick said: I understand it was an ongoing operation that started with the increasing reports of possible attempts by Saddam to get uranium that began being exchanged between the DGSE and MI6 in 1999. The French put out the word to any of their agents who might have a handle on it, including Martino.]

[Withheld]

Why according to the IAEA as of a couple weeks back anyhow have the British never forwarded the letter to them, as requested? Are they afraid it too will be outted as a forgery? Or have they provided it and the IAEA for some reason denies they have received the famous additional evidence claimed by the Brits?

[Mick says: The British cannot send the IAEA the letter any more than they can send it to the CIA. Those were the rules laid down by the French. But the IAEA have it anyway because the French sent it to them way back. They were also told they could not show it to any Iraqi officials. The IAEA took the letter so seriously that they insisted on interviewing Zahawi. But the French caveat limited what they could do. They couldnt tell him what they had and he insisted whatever it was, it was a forgery. They didnt believe him but the French caveat meant they had nowhere to go. I don't blame the French for this. That is just how it is when you need to protect your source.

Just one more thing. There's no need to be anonymous here! No-one's going to beat up on you for blogging here, whatever you think and say (unless of course its offensive - which your post isn't - and even if it was we wouldn't beat up on you we would just delete the offensive portion.)]

[Elisabeth Ham]

I think you were a little light on describing Wilson's visit to Niger. He had, after alll, been an ambassador in Niger for a number of years and knew the people to contact, personally. He wasn't just some politcal hack from the US. And, his wife who was an operative at the CIA, was just that. She was not one of the directors and had no power to send Mr. Wilson anywhere. His work was pro bono and had only his expenses paid. It was hardly a holiday junket. There seems to be a concerted effort to downplay Wilson's role and support the president in the press, ie Washington Post editorial. I,m not sure what that's all about, but Honest Abe, he ain't!

[Mick says: No Bush isn't Honest Abe that's for sure. I'm not denigrating Wilson at all here, nor do I accuse him of some holiday junket. As you say, he had good sources in Niger and he went there because he - and the people who actually sent him - thought he could help. I'm just saying what he said was interesting but not really decisive one way or the other. Depending on your view you could take what he said and use it to back your view, and people have. He found no evidence of a contract and there wasnt one of course, so he was right, those who believe there was no attempt to get uranium latch on to that. He was told about a suspicion that Iraq might have been trying to get Niger to sell it uranium and that was right, those who support the claim that Iraq sought uranium from Niger latch on to that. I have no criticism of Wilson's visit. Nor do I suggest anywhere that his wife did send him. She put his name forward. That's all. I just can't see it proving anything one way or the other, and it didn't. What he found out didnt constitute something that you could say oh that's it. It's definite, and it certainly didnt knock down the President's claim, so it was a weak platform from which to mount an attack. But as I said, he was let off the hook by the ridiculous way in which the administration responded - largely because they knew that they had "fixed" the intelligence to match their claims and were scared that allowing one piece of criticism would open the floodgates.]

[Olav Riste]

Many thanks for this clarification. Ever since I wrote my own study of intelligence and policy-making in the run-up to the war in Iraq ("Were WMDs the real Issue? The International Community versus Iraq 1991-2003" Oslo: The Norwegian Institute for Defence Studies, 2005) I have been puzzled by the universal tendency of students and commentators to confuse "contract to purchase" with "seeking to obtain Niger" uranium. You have now clarified this for us. The Bush administration's "cherry-picking" of intelligence to suit their purpose remains scandalous, but on this particular point they seem in the clear.

[Des Moines]

A few more questions, thanks for being so generous with your time in answering these.

[Mick says: Er.. alright but try to remember I actually have a life! No more long lists of questions! Othere people only ask one or two.]

1) It's hard to fathom that a Niger diplomat would get such stupid things wrong with the Niger forgeries like who was the Nigerien foreign minister when. Can you honestly imagine a British diplomat not knowing if he worked mistaking Douglas Hurd for Jack Straw? It's the kind of mistake a diplomat working in that system wouldn't make, the way one wouldn't forget who one's boss was.

[Mick says: No but if you were using copies of genuine old documents and replacing the key facts like the date, who the contract was between and how much you were supplying to make it look like it was a new contract, which is what Montini allegedly told the investigation they were doing, you might well leave in bits that were out of date, like the name of the minister, an old crest and an outdated constitution. Isnt that more likely than that a forger would think "who was the foreign minister of Niger, oh let's put this one from 1998-1999 in"? Neither of the forgers could ever have thought that their documents would ever receive this much attention.]

2) The IAEA says they have not received any documents on this matter except from the Americans -- not from the French, not from the British.

[Mick says: When did they say this? Even in March 2003 when they dismissed the documents which actually "pointed to an agreement between Niger and Iraq for the sale of uranium between 1999 and 2001" as not authentic they said they had received a number of such documents "provided by a number of states".

The Americans gave the IAEA the faked documents passed to the US via Martino-Burba on February 4. The IAEA was discussing documents "provided to the IAEA by a certain country on condition they would never be shown to Iraq" with Jafar Dhia Jafar, the chief Iraqi negotiator, on January 20, 2003.]

3) The forgeries the IAEA received from the Americans would have necessitated an interview with Zawahie, not just the letter. It was always well known that there was a real Zawahie trip to Niger in 1999, so the fact that there's a mix of "real" cables mixed in with crude forgeries is not new.

[Mick says: There was an interview with Zahawie, which he has spoken about widely. It took place over two days on February 12 and 13, 2003. He told the IAEA that whatever document they had it must be a forgery. Zahawie admitted that the inspectors didnt believe him. "The feeling was that I knew more than I was willing to reveal," he said. He later claimed that the document concerned had been one of those deemed not authentic by the inspectors. The Zahawi letter was not one of the batch of Martino documents. Nor was it one of those that "point to an agreement". It only showed that Iraq had sought uranium from Niger. So it cannot have been one of the documents dismissed by the IAEA, which would have surely said documents suggesting Iraq was seeking uranium from Niger rather than pointing to an actual agreement. The IAEA isn't in the business of getting the specifics of what it says wrong in this area. I suspect that there was a deal between the French and the IAEA that Jacques Baute, the French head of the IAEA's Iraq Nuclear Verification Office would be the only one allowed to see the document in the French offices in the UN. It was Baute who quized Jafar on the Zahawi issue. It is of course possible that he didnt get to take a copy of the actual document away, just read it in the French offices in the UN and took notes of what it said. We know there was a very tight security issue with this particular document which meant it could not be passed to the CIA.]

4) What efforts have British intelligence undertaken to ascertain the veracity of the letter? Since there were so many other forgeries, why are they convinced this is not a forgery?

[Mick says: They had a copy of the letter given to them by the French and had prolonged discussions with their French opposite numbers to work out an agreed DGSE/MI6 position. I havent seen the letter so I cant say what made them sure it was right, although we know they also had some signals intelligence. But what I do know is that the Butler inquiry, which saw the intelligence, judged the DGSE/MI6 interpretation of its meaning to be "well-founded".]

5) How did Sismi receive the forgeries as early as the late fall of 2001 to transmit transcripts of them to the Americans (CIA) as they did in full in February 2002? From where did SISMI receive the forgeries?

[Mick says: First of all you are making an assumption that the intelligence the Italians passed to the Americans actually came from the documents. They didnt have documents and they made it clear to the CIA that this was the case, and I have that from two completely different sources in two completely different countries. So where have the Italians got this from? I don't know for sure but the information clearly matches the fake documents so how to explain it?

We can only speculate. My guess is that Martino is desperately trying to make some money out of his documents which he now knows are fake, the French told him so in October 2000. He's lost his nice little earner out of the Niger embassy and he needs to make some money. By now its the beginning of 2002 and he knows there is a market in information on Iraq. The press is full of talk about US intentions to invade Iraq. So he takes the documents to the Italians to try to sell the info to them. He won't let them have the documents themselves because he knows if he does they'll say the same thing as the French. He just lets whoever he meets from SISMI copy out the detail of the contract but no more. Which is why the Italians have this detail that they just arent sure about and pass it on. But this is only speculation. I dont know for sure that the Italian intelligence was the same as the stuff in the forged documents, it certainly looks like it though.]

6) Why have Italian officials not touched Rocco Martino, or Laura Montini, if they are aware they are guilty of crimes?

[Mick says: They almost certainly did a deal giving them immunity in return for testifying before the magistrate. But what could you actually charge them with? They didnt get any money for the documents, so it wasnt actually a criminal fraud. And would the Italian authorities have wanted a court case that re-opened the whole issue. The whole point of the magistrate's investigation was to try to put the whole thing to bed, a vain hope of course, but one they no doubt harboured.]

7) Why have Italian officials acted in hysterically panicky "cover up" mode for more than two years on this? Surely the flamboyant Mr. Berlusconi has never been known for excessive diplomatic concens? (calling the German official a good concentration camp guard, etc.) If they have nothing to hide, why have they acted like their political survival depends on hiding it? In a way that resembles nothing so much as White House panic over the Joe Wilson allegations?

[Mick says: Well I cant argue that they havent behaved in a panicky way. SISMI has a very tarnished past. They were no doubt very protective and they have suffered from a very poor reputation. They also have a press which is not in any way comparable to the British and US press. Corriere del Sera is a good paper but most either write complete rubbish to justify attacks on the intelligence services, or slavishly put in anything their secret service contacts tell them without checking. But despite their past reputation, SISMI has been completely reformed in recent years and that is not my view that is the view of Luigi Malabarba, a communist member of the Italian parliamentary oversight body, who is scarcely a friend of Berlusconi and was an ardent opponent of the Iraq War. He backs SISMI over this and says SISMI told the oversight commitee in November 2002 that there was no conclusive evidence of a deal between Iraq and Niger. So SISMI was hardly trying to hype the contract up as has been suggested.]

8) Is it possible British intelligence became too attached to the Niger yellowcake story to let it go? Not the policymakers mind you, but the intelligence officials?

[Mick says: Well the policy makers have stuck with it too. The intelligence officials pulled back from virtually everything they said about Iraqi WMD but they havent pulled back from this. Why? But we dont have to take any notice of them. We can just stick with the Butler Inquiry which criticised all the other major intelligence claims but said the intelligence on Niger was "credible" and the joint DGSE/MI6 assessment was "well-founded".]

9) Why would Iraq have sought uranium from abroad when it had tons of it in Iraq it could do nothing with?

[Mick says: This is a canard. It did have uranium but it was under IAEA seal and subject to annual inspections. It takes years to make a nuclear bomb. The IAEA would have spotted that the uranium was missing way before Iraq got anywhere near making a bomb.]

[FMJ]

Hi Mick. I've written a reply to some of your key points. It would be great if you could check it out and let me know what you think (either through comments or email). My reply is available here:
http://www.eurotrib.com/?op=displaystory;sid=2006/4/18/61938/5664

BTW, Seixon's technique (from the other Niger thread) for unredacting parts of the SSCI report, while undeniably handy, is only good for readctions less than two or three words long. Even then it's hit and miss. Unfortunately, uncovering two sentences is near impossible.

That said, the redaction you referred to seems to have been revealed in the report of the Robb-Silberman Commission on p. 76. The February Sismi report described Zahawie's 1999 visit to Niger and that subsequently Iraq and Niger signed the uranium accord.

[Chuck Unsworth]

I've looked at FMJ's lengthy further comments. Frankly, most are unsupported and unsupportable.

For example, he(she?) says that 'There is ample evidence that Iraq ended its uranium enrichment program in the early 90s and had no plans to reconstitute the program until after sanctions had been lifted. Without an enrichment program, Iraq simply had no need for uranium.'

This is crass. No intelligence officer with any experience or ability would say that was the case. It might be said that they were unable to find evidence of a 'continuation of' the program or plans - but that is all. At its simplest, one can not actually stop nuclear scientists from even thinking or talking about their work. And, as even the most incompetent intelligence officers recognise, you cannot prove a negative.

Further, how can he assert that Iraq had 'no plans to reconstitute the program until...'? Really? Was FMJ party to the innermost discussions of Saddam and his closest colleagues? Was he indeed, privy to what passed through Saddam's head?

I will not bore others (and maybe myself) with a point by point analysis of the screed. I feel it would be profoundly discourteous to Mick Smith - whose blog this is - to do so.

Suffice to say that FMJ makes other assertions as to the roles of the various organisations and personalities, but I would like to see some hard evidence for these comments and conclusions. There is little, if any, contained within his narrative.

[FMJ]

Chuck,

I don't want to hijack Mick's blog so I'll just invite you to post your comment on my diary at EuroTrib. I'll be happy to discuss it there. (Unless you think you might get bored.;)

[Doc]

Mick
Apparently, this fellow not only disagrees with you, but finds Butler not credible as well. Aside from his lack of sourcing, could you show me where he's wrong?

http://www.eurotrib.com/?op=displaystory;sid=2006/4/18/61938/5664

[Mick says: Sadly I've got a life outside of this blog and Nigergate otherwise I would. But I am standing by the above I am afraid. Still watch this space because there will be more.]