There seem to be only three possibilities here. Either a) American
intelligence concocted the note; b) someone in Italy did so in the
hope of gain; or c) it was the product of disinformation, intended to
protect Niger and discredit any attention paid to the actual, real-
time Zahawie visit. The CIA is certainly incompetent enough to have
fouled up this badly. (I like Edward Luttwak's formulation in the
March 22 Times Literary Supplement, where he writes that "there have
been only two kinds of CIA secret operations: the ones that are widely
known to have failed—usually because of almost unbelievably crude
errors—and the ones that are not yet widely known to have failed.")
Still, it almost passes belief that any American agency would fake a
document that purportedly proved far more than the administration had
asked and then get every important name and date wrapped round the
axle. Forgery for gain is easy to understand, especially when it is
borne in mind that nobody wastes time counterfeiting a bankrupt
currency. Forgery for disinformation, if that is what it was, appears
at least to have worked. Almost everybody in the world now affects to
believe that Saddam Hussein was framed on the Niger rap.
According to the London Sunday Times of April 9, the truth appears to
be some combination of b) and c). A NATO investigation has identified
two named employees of the Niger Embassy in Rome who, having sold a
genuine document about Zahawie to Italian and French intelligence
agents, then added a forged paper in the hope of turning a further
profit. The real stuff went by one route to Washington, and the
fakery, via an Italian journalist and the U.S. Embassy in Rome, by
another. The upshot was—follow me closely here—that a phony paper
alleging a deal was used to shoot down a genuine document suggesting a
connection.
Zahawie's name and IAEA connection were never mentioned by ElBaradei
in his report to the United Nations, and his past career has never
surfaced in print. Looking up the press of the time causes one's jaw
to slump in sheer astonishment. Here, typically, is a Time magazine
"exclusive" about Zahawie, written by Hassan Fattah on Oct. 1, 2003:
The veteran diplomat has spent the eight months since President Bush's
speech trying to set the record straight and clear his name. In a rare
interview with Time, al-Zahawie outlined how forgery and
circumstantial evidence was used to talk up Iraq's nuclear weapons
threat, and leave him holding the smoking gun.
A few paragraphs later appear, the wonderful and unchallenged words
from Zahawie: "Frankly, I didn't know that Niger produced uranium at
all." Well, sorry for the inconvenience of the questions, then, my old
IAEA and NPT "veteran" (whose nuclear qualifications go unmentioned in
the Time article). Instead, we are told that Zahawie visited Niger and
other West African countries to encourage them to break the embargo on
flights to Baghdad, as they had broken the sanctions on Qaddafi's
Libya. A bit of a lowly mission, one might think, for one of the Iraqi
regime's most senior and specialized envoys.
The Duelfer Report also cites "a second contact between Iraq and
Niger," which occurred in 2001, when a Niger minister visited Baghdad
"to request assistance in obtaining petroleum products to alleviate
Niger's economic problems." According to the deposition of Ja'far
Diya' Ja'far (the head of Iraq's pre-1991 nuclear weapons program),
these negotiations involved no offer of uranium ore but only "cash in
exchange for petroleum." West Africa is awash in petroleum, and Niger
is poor in cash. Iraq in 2001 was cash-rich through the oil-for-food
racket, but you may if you wish choose to believe that a near-bankrupt
African delegation from a uranium-based country traveled across a
continent and a half with nothing on its mind but shopping for oil.
Interagency feuding has ruined the Bush administration's capacity to
make its case in public, and a high-level preference for deniable
leaking has further compounded the problem. But please read my first
three paragraphs again and tell me if the original story still seems
innocuous to you./ article by Hitchens
I reread it... IMO the above is the best that Hitchens has to
offer....I still say that isn't anything like "incontrovertible"
fact, there...or even anything all that convincing as an
argument......For example....there are many more "likely suspects"
other than the U.S.- C.I.A. or some money-grubbing fakers who could
have forged documents (any of them first, second or third). Do any
evident names come to mind as to who those might be?... Israel, Iran,
Shi'ite, Kurd, even rival Sunni... etc.
nominal9
On Sep 22, 5:37 pm, Keith In Tampa <keithinta...@gmail.com> wrote:
> And neither was what Joe Wilson said. As a matter of fact, Hitchens, (who
> ain't my favorite journalist) pretty much shoots holes in Wilson's
> account.....And accountability. Read the article.
>
>
>
> On Wed, Sep 22, 2010 at 5:35 PM, nominal9 <nomin...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> > Sorry, Keith.... it's all old material (written 2006?).... nothing
> > certain in it was ever established as incontrovertible fact....
> > nominal9
>
> > On Sep 22, 5:22 pm, Keith In Tampa <keithinta...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > > Well, you thought wrong Nominal.
>
> > > Of course, the mainstream media didn't report a lot on it, but there was
> > > attempts by Hussein and his Baath Party Government to obtain
> > Uranium/yellow
> > > cake, not only from Niger, but from other Nation-States as well.
>
> > >http://www.slate.com/id/2139609/
>
> > > On Wed, Sep 22, 2010 at 5:12 PM, nominal9 <nomin...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> > > > I think the only "yellow-cake" that Saddam may ever have possibly
> > > > tried to obtain from Africa was.... "Angel-Food".
>
> > > > I guess the right must have it's counterpoint to the twin-towers
> > > > "bomb" theorists....
> > > > nominal9
>
> > > > On Sep 22, 2:27 pm, Keith In Tampa <keithinta...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > > > > I think it has been proven, time and time again, that Iraq *did* go
> > > > uranium
> > > > > shopping in Niger. That Joe Wilson is a typical partisan hack, who
> > did
> > > > > everything he could do to discredit the Bush Administration.
>
> > > > > Where the Bush Administration failed, was that they didn't expose
> > Wilson
> > > > for
> > > > > the hack that he was. He should have been charged with treason.
>
> > > > > On Wed, Sep 22, 2010 at 2:17 PM, dick thompson <
> > rhomp2...@earthlink.net
> > > > >wrote:
>
> >http://video.nytimes.com/video/2010/09/21/opinion/1248069063668/what-.
> > > > ..
>
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