# So who forged the uranium documents? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [October 31, 2005, 3:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-who-forged-the-uranium-documents/328722 "2005-10-31T15:01:18Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Spoke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a88e57/32.png) [@Spoke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoke)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2005, 3:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-who-forged-the-uranium-documents/328722/1 "2005-10-31T15:01:18Z")
The thread on Joe Wilson got me thinking about this, but I didn’t want to start a hijack. Besides, this question deserves its own debate. Here’s the timeline, as posted in the other thread: > [@Lynwood Slim](#): > > 1. There is suspicion that when the Iraqi ambassador to Italy visited Niger with his large complement of intelligence agents, that his secret agenda was to obtain enriched uranium for a nuclear program that would be advanced once the sanctions withered away (see Kenneth Pollack’s book "The Threatening Storm). > 2. **British intelligence produced documents, which later turned out to be forgeries, which seemed so to substantiate that claim.** > 3. Cheney wanted validation of the claim, so he asked the CIA to investigate. > 4. Valerie Plame either volunteered or was assigned the job, she decided to send her husband, Joe Wilson, who went to Niger in early 2002. > 5. Joe Wilson could find no evidence for the claim, and reported as such. We assume this was reported not only to Cheney, but also to Defense, State, and and to Bush > 6. Bush uses the British assessment (which they have never retracted), ignoring, as far as we can tell, Wilson’s report, as part of his rationale for invading Iraq. Here’s how we know the documents were forged (from The New Yorker 03/31/03): > [@](#): > > On March 7th, Mohamed ElBaradei, the director-general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, in Vienna, told the U.N. Security Council that the documents involving the Niger-Iraq uranium sale were fakes. “The I.A.E.A. has concluded, with the concurrence of outside experts, that these documents . . . are in fact not authentic,” ElBaradei said. > > One senior I.A.E.A. official went further. He told me, “These documents are so bad that I cannot imagine that they came from a serious intelligence agency. It depresses me, given the low quality of the documents, that it was not stopped. At the level it reached, I would have expected more checking.” > > …It took Baute’s team only a few hours to determine that the documents were fake…The problems were glaring. One letter, dated October 10, 2000, was signed with the name of Allele Habibou, a Niger Minister of Foreign Affairs and Coöperation, who had been out of office since 1989. Another letter, allegedly from Tandja Mamadou, the President of Niger, had a signature that had obviously been faked and a text with inaccuracies so egregious, the senior I.A.E.A. official said, that “they could be spotted by someone using Google on the Internet.” [More here.](http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/?030331fa_fact1) So who forged the documents? The article suggests it was British intelligence, but leaves the question open, also mentioning The Iraqi exile community, the Italians and the French (??) as suspects. [More detail on those theories here.](http://www.slate.com/id/2085616/) After two years of investigation of the matter, [the FBI seems to have come up with bupkis](http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/28/politics/28niger.html). Who had a motive? This seems fertile ground for conspiracy theorists, so surely there must be plenty of ideas around. Here are some possible suspects, starting with those mentioned by The New Yorker: 1. British intelligence. (Were the British really that eager to go to war?) 2. The Italians. The Italians may have been the conduit for the documents but I’d be surprised if they were the source. No motive. (Though there is the notion that the Italians were conned into _buying_ the documents by a grifter who forged them.) 3. The French. Huh? What possible motive would the French have? Well, according to the Italians, the French wanted to trick the US into making unsupportable claims, thus making supporters of war look foolish. [Cite.](http://news.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2004/09/05/wuran05.xml) Seems implausible.That’s a plan that could (and did) backfire, if its goal was to keep the US _out_ of a war with Iraq. 4. Iraqi exiles. Plausible. One can at least see their motive. And it would explain the amateurish quality of the documents. (on to the conspiracy theories…) 1. Iranian intelligence. The US goes to war, takes out the hated Sunni/Baathist regime in Iraq and opens the door for Iraq’s Shiite majority (who will presumably be friendly to their ideological brethren in Iran). 2. Israel. A US war against Iraq helps Israel deal with its most formidable enemy in the region. On the other hand, the faked documents sound amateurish. Not what you’d expect from Mossad. 3. US Intelligence. The Bush administration needed _casus belli_. Did US operatives try to create documents that would justify war? Not likely. The US seems to have been suspicious of the documents all along. (Which is why Wilson was sent to investigate.) 4. [Your theory here.] So who forged these documents? And why? And why haven’t they been traced to their ultimate source by now? ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_Captor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f17d59/32.png) [@Evil\_Captor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Captor)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2005, 3:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-who-forged-the-uranium-documents/328722/2 "2005-10-31T15:07:11Z")
> [@spoke-](#): > > Who had a motive? This seems fertile ground for conspiracy theorists, so surely there must be plenty of ideas around. Here are some possible suspects, starting with those mentioned by The New Yorker: This is the key point I think, and to my mind the two most obvious suspects are the American neocons, with their hands on the levers of power in Washington, and the righ-wing Israelis. I don’t see the others having such a red-hot interest in justifying war against Saddam. ---
**Author:** ![NurseCarmen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/5daacb/32.png) [@NurseCarmen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NurseCarmen)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2005, 3:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-who-forged-the-uranium-documents/328722/3 "2005-10-31T15:26:14Z")
Add into the theory, a Nigerian looking to make a quick buck threw together some really really bad forgeries and sold them to someone who wanted so badly to believe that they were real, that he accepted them as fact. That answers the question of who forged them. Now we have the question of who’s the rube that accepted them. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2005, 3:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-who-forged-the-uranium-documents/328722/4 "2005-10-31T15:31:35Z")
I refer the interested reader to Josh Marshall’s _Talking Points Memo_, without which no citizen can hope to remain well-informed. [http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/](http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/) In today’s installment, he discusses these points and offers some insight gained on his own. Joe Bob **'Luc** says “Check it out!” ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2005, 4:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-who-forged-the-uranium-documents/328722/5 "2005-10-31T16:42:04Z")
I’d say 8) Someone looking to cash in on the various intelligence groups paranoia about Iraq’s possible nuke program. At a guess the forger (or someone associated with them) received a large chunk of cash for their efforts. I doubt whether the actual forgery was done by any of the other groups (the only plausable one I’d say is Iran…and even there I don’t see what they would gain by it). It doesn’t really answer the question, but here is what [factcheck](http://www.factcheck.org/article222.html) has to say about the whole 16 words by Bush and the yellow cake thing: > [@](#): > > Summary > > The famous “16 words” in President Bush’s Jan. 28, 2003 State of the Union address turn out to have a basis in fact after all, according to two recently released investigations in the US and Britain. > > Bush said then, “The British Government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa .” Some of his critics called that a lie, but the new evidence shows Bush had reason to say what he did. > > A British intelligence review released July 14 calls Bush’s 16 words “well founded.” > A separate report by the US Senate Intelligence Committee said July 7 that the US also had similar information from “a number of intelligence reports,” a fact that was classified at the time Bush spoke. > Ironically, former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, who later called Bush’s 16 words a “lie”, supplied information that the Central Intelligence Agency took as confirmation that Iraq may indeed have been seeking uranium from Niger . > Both the US and British investigations make clear that some forged Italian documents, exposed as fakes soon after Bush spoke, were not the basis for the British intelligence Bush cited, or the CIA’s conclusion that Iraq was trying to get uranium. > None of the new information suggests Iraq ever nailed down a deal to buy uranium, and the Senate report makes clear that US intelligence analysts have come to doubt whether Iraq was even trying to buy the stuff. In fact, both the White House and the CIA long ago conceded that the 16 words shouldn’t have been part of Bush’s speech. > > But what he said – that Iraq sought uranium – is just what both British and US intelligence were telling him at the time. So Bush may indeed have been misinformed, but that’s not the same as lying > [@](#): > > Analysis > > The “16 words” in Bush’s State of the Union Address on Jan. 28, 2003 have been offered as evidence that the President led the US into war using false information intentionally. The new reports show Bush accurately stated what British intelligence was saying, and that CIA analysts believed the same thing. > > The Butler Report > > After nearly a six-month investigation, a special panel reported to the British Parliament July 14 that British intelligence had indeed concluded back in 2002 that Saddam Hussein was seeking to buy uranium. The review panel was headed by Lord Butler of Brockwell, who had been a cabinet secretary under five different Prime Ministers and who is currently master of University College, Oxford. > > The Butler report said British intelligence had “credible” information – from several sources – that a 1999 visit by Iraqi officials to Niger was for the purpose of buying uranium: > > Butler Report: It is accepted by all parties that Iraqi officials visited Niger in 1999. 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. > > The Butler Report affirmed what the British government had said about the Niger uranium story back in 2003, and specifically endorsed what Bush said as well. > > Butler Report: By extension, we conclude also that the statement in President Bush’s State of the Union Address of 28 January 2003 that “The British Government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa” was well-founded. > [@](#): > > “Reasonable to Assess” > > At this point the CIA also had received “several intelligence reports” alleging that Iraq wanted to buy uranium from the Democratic Republic of the Congo and from Somalia, as well as from Niger. The Intelligence Committee concluded that “it was reasonable for analysts to assess that Iraq may have been seeking uranium from Africa based on Central Intelligence Agency reporting and other available intelligence.” > > Reasonable, that is, until documents from an Italian magazine journalist showed up that seemed to prove an Iraq-Niger deal had actually been signed. The Intelligence Committee said the CIA should have been quicker to investigate the authenticity of those documents, which had “obvious problems” and were soon exposed as fakes by the International Atomic Energy Agency. > > “We No Longer Believe” > > Both the Butler report and the Senate Intelligence Committee report make clear that Bush’s 16 words weren’t based on the fake documents. The British didn’t even see them until after issuing the reports – based on other sources – that Bush quoted in his 16 words. But discovery of the Italian fraud did trigger a belated reassessment of the Iraq/Niger story by the CIA. > > Once the CIA was certain that the Italian documents were forgeries, it said in an internal memorandum that “we no longer believe that there is sufficient other reporting to conclude that Iraq pursued uranium from abroad.” But that wasn’t until June 17, 2003 – nearly five months after Bush’s 16 words. > > Soon after, on July 6, 2003, former ambassador Wilson went public in a New York Times opinion piece with his rebuttal of Bush’s 16 words, saying that if the President was referring to Niger “his conclusion was not borne out by the facts as I understood them,” and that “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.” Wilson has since used much stronger language, calling Bush’s 16 words a “lie” in an Internet chat sponsored by the Kerry campaign. > > On July 7, the day after Wilson’s original Times article, White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer took back the 16 words, calling them “incorrect:” > > Fleischer: Now, we’ve long acknowledged – and this is old news, we’ve said this repeatedly – that the information on yellow cake did, indeed, turn out to be incorrect. > > And soon after, National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice acknowledged that the 16 words were, in retrospect, a mistake. She said during a July 11, 2003 White House press briefing : > > Rice: What we’ve said subsequently is, knowing what we now know, that some of the Niger documents were apparently forged, we wouldn’t have put this in the President’s speech – but that’s knowing what we know now. > > That same day, CIA Director George Tenet took personal responsibility for the appearance of the 16 words in Bush’s speech: > > Tenet: These 16 words should never have been included in the text written > for the President. > > Tenet said the CIA had viewed the original British intelligence reports as “inconclusive,” and had “expressed reservations” to the British. > > The Senate report doesn’t make clear why discovery of the forged documents changed the CIA’s thinking. Logically, that discovery should have made little difference since the documents weren’t the basis for the CIA’s original belief that Saddam was seeking uranium. However, the Senate report did note that even within the CIA the comments and assessments were “inconsistent and at times contradictory” on the Niger story. > > Even after Tenet tried to take the blame, Bush’s critics persisted in saying he lied with his 16 words – for example, in an opinion column July 16, 2003 by Michael Kinsley in the Washington Post : > > Kinsley: Who was the arch-fiend who told a lie in President Bush’s State of the Union speech? . . .Linguists note that the question “Who lied in George Bush’s State of the Union speech” bears a certain resemblance to the famous conundrum “Who is buried in Grant’s Tomb?” > > However, the Senate report confirmed that the CIA had reviewed Bush’s State of the Union address, and – whatever doubts it may have harbored – cleared it for him. > > Senate Report: When coordinating the State of the Union, no Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) analysts or officials told the National Security Council (NSC) to remove the “16 words” or that there were concerns about the credibility of the Iraq-Niger uranium reporting. > > The final word on the 16 words may have to await history’s judgment. The Butler report’s conclusion that British intelligence was “credible” clearly doesn’t square with what US intelligence now believes. But these new reports show Bush had plenty of reason to believe what he said, even if British intelligence is eventually shown to be mistaken. It seems to me that someone just wanted to cash in on a good thing. Having been several times to Africa I can well imagine someone in Niger catching wind of British and US intelligence sniffing around after Saddam and, well, accomidating them by telling them what they most wanted to hear. -XT ---
**Author:** ![Frankenstein\_Monster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ccd318/32.png) [@Frankenstein\_Monster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frankenstein_Monster)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2005, 4:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-who-forged-the-uranium-documents/328722/6 "2005-10-31T16:46:50Z")
This subject was extensively covered by the Italian newspaper _La Repubblica_. The articles have been translated by bloggers. It was discussed in the following Kos diary: [http://www.dailykos.com/story/2005/10/29/211121/82](http://www.dailykos.com/story/2005/10/29/211121/82) Here’s the summary posted by dailykos user “smintheus”: > [@smintheus](#): > > The newspaper argues that a second-rate con-artist named Martino, who had contacts in SISMI, arranged through a woman who worked in the Nigerian embassy to create these forgeries. His purpose was to sell them to the French, who have a vested interest knowing about any sales of Nigerian uranium to anybody but themselves. But the French allegedly spotted immediately that the documents were fakes. > > Berlusconi only came in later by bringing pressure to bear on his underlings to produce info on Iraqi WMD that could be given to Bush, so as to strengthen Italy’s relationship with the US. That was when, allegedly, the earlier forgeries came back into circulation and were shipped off to both the UK and US. > > So according to La Repubblica, Berlusconi or his top people knew that the documents were forgeries but pawned them off as credible. ---
**Author:** ![furt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/439d5e/32.png) [@furt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/furt)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2005, 4:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-who-forged-the-uranium-documents/328722/7 "2005-10-31T16:55:13Z")
> [@spoke-](#): > > 1. The French. Huh? What possible motive would the French have? Well, according to the Italians, the French wanted to trick the US into making unsupportable claims, thus making supporters of war look foolish. [Cite.](http://news.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2004/09/05/wuran05.xml) Seems implausible.That’s a plan that could (and did) backfire, if its goal was to keep the US _out_ of a war with Iraq. I find that very plausible. And it didn’t “backfire” at all: the US was going to go into Iraq, period. If they hadn’t had those documents, they would have found something else. The French were trying to keep the US out of Iraq, but that was a tactical goal. France’s larger _strategic_ aim is to reduce the US’s power and influence in the world, and to expand their own via various inter- and supra-national organizations. In that light, making the US and it’s vaunted intelligence agencies look like saps in front of the world is a great thing. It’s especially good if you can find a way to let the right people know or suspect that you were the one that did it. I’m not saying that’s what happened; but I find it more plausible than some of the possibilities you’ve outlined. ---
**Author:** ![Frankenstein\_Monster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ccd318/32.png) [@Frankenstein\_Monster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frankenstein_Monster)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2005, 5:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-who-forged-the-uranium-documents/328722/8 "2005-10-31T17:01:52Z")
> [@xtisme](#): > > It seems to me that someone just wanted to cash in on a good thing. Having been several times to Africa I can well imagine someone in Niger catching wind of British and US intelligence sniffing around after Saddam and, well, accomidating them by telling them what they most wanted to hear. I didn’t see your post before mine, but if that Italian story is correct, you nailed it…