Forged Niger documents

June 14, 2002 -- Date of last document from Niger, said 'Global Support meeting'

http://cryptome.org/niger-docs.htm

Comments\Summary
The Niger documents have been confirmed to be forgeries. This confirmation was only made public after the war had begun. It is now clear that the Intelligence Community was made aware of these documents as early as October 16, 2002; analyst as early as this date were questioning their validity. Despite knowing this the reference to uranium was included in the 2003 state of the Union address.

The media has been silent on the issue of who has benefited from these crafted documents and not done enough to highlight their orgins. The last Niger document existed prior to the July 23, 2002 “Downing Street Minutes” where the facts and intelligence “were” (past and present) in the process of being fixed, as Dr. Kelly put it were sexed-up.

These documents do tell a story of Iraq seeking to purchase Uranium from the African Country of Niger. Despite the contents of the documents, the Nigerians do not control or manage their countries uranium ore mining operation which is managed by France. (Note: There was an effort to quickly build a patriotic barrier between France and the US people at the onset of the war because of their opposition to it. This might be the reason why there was such a campaign. Credible information from France about the management of Nigerian uranium is likely the most compelling reason to run such a campaign.)

The reality is the Nigerians can make as many deals with whom ever they want, the bank has still got to cash that request for uranium. In this case the bank which handles the uranium is one operated by France. Iraq would have had to go to this French uranium bank that controls the export/delivery process of the uranium ore.

There have been many accounts in the media and news regarding the Niger uranium sales to Iraq. Many are ment to distract because unless the french wanted Iraq to have uranium; it would leave a paper trail. If that had been the case we also wouldn't be splitting hairs over the forgeries.


REPORT ON THE U S . INTELLIGENCE COMMUNITY’S
PREWAR INTELLIGENCE ASSESSMENTS ON IRAQ

Page 58

Also on October 11,2002, the US. Embassy in Rome reported to State Department headquarters that it had acquired photocopies of documents on a purported uranium deal between Iraq and Niger from an Italian joumalist. The cable said that the embassy had State Department’s Bureau of Nonproliferation (NP) on October 15,2002, which passed a copy of the documents to INR.

(U) Immediately after receiving the documents, the INR Iraq nuclear analyst e-mailed IC colleagues offering to provide the documents at a previously planned meeting of the Nuclear Interdiction Action Group (NIAG) the following day. The analyst, apparently already suspicious of the validity of the documents noted in his e-mail, “you’ll note that it bears a funky Emb. of Niger stamp (to make it look official, I guess).”

(U) The N R Iraq nuclear analyst told Committee staff that the thing that stood out immediately about the documents was that a companion document -a document included with the Niger documents that did not relate to uranium -mentioned some type of military campaign against major world powers. The members of the alleged military campaign included both Iraq and Iran, and was, according to the documents, being orchestrated through the Nigerien Embassy in Rome, which all struck the analyst as “completely implausible.” Because the stamp on this document matched the stamp on the uranium document, the analyst thought that all of the documents were likely suspect. The analyst was unaware at the time of any formatting problems with the documents or inconsistencies with the names or dates.

(U) On October 16,2002, INR made copies of the documents available at the NIAG meeting for attendees, including representatives from the CIA, DIA, DOE and NSA. Because the analyst who offered to provide the documents was on leave, the office’s senior analyst provided the documents. She cannot recall how she made the documents available, but analysts from several agencies, including the DIA, NSA and DOE, did pick up copies at that meeting. None of the four CIA representatives recall picking up the documents, however, during the CIA Inspector General’s investigation of this issue, copies of the documents were found in the DO’S CPD vault.