What's this about faked documents re: Iraq?

[Gadarene]

AZCowboy brought this up in the Blix thread, but it deserves a discussion of its own: Some Evidence on Iraq Called Fake

Anyone wanna speculate on a) who in the world would fabricate these documents, and b) how in the world our intelligence guys “fell for it”? Also, what does it mean for our case for war? (These questions are assuming that the head of the IAEA, Mohammed El-Baradei, is on the up-and-up; anyone know for sure?)

[wmfellows]

Until now I’ve never read anything doubting him, but of course…

Still, from the article:

Knowledgeable sources familiar with the forgery investigation described the faked evidence as a series of letters between Iraqi agents and officials in the central African nation of Niger. The documents had been given to the U.N. inspectors by Britain and reviewed extensively by U.S. intelligence. The forgers had made relatively crude errors that eventually gave them away – including names and titles that did not match up with the individuals who held office at the time the letters were purportedly written, the officials said.

"We fell for it," said one U.S. official who reviewed the documents.

A spokesman for the IAEA said the agency did not blame either Britain or the United States for the forgery. The documents “were shared with us in good faith,” he said.

The discovery was a further setback to U.S. and British efforts to convince reluctant U.N. Security Council members of the urgency of the threat posed by Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction. Powell, in his statement to the Security Council Friday, acknowledged ElBaradei’s findings but also cited “new information” suggesting that Iraq continues to try to get nuclear weapons components.

Emphasis added.

Hard to avoid the impression someone got caught with their hand in the cookie jar. It seems oddly like the special intelligence dossier that the British Government produced, that turned out not to be so special, nor intelligent.

[CyberPundit]

Ahem. I started a thread on this.
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=168075

Anyway there is no question that the IAEA is right since the WaPo article quotes an American official as admitting that they were fooled.

But yes there is the interesting question of who forged those documents and why? Presumably the Americans/Brits know who gave them the documents. Let’s hope there is enough public outcry to force an investigation.

[Gadarene]

Sorry 'bout that, CyberPundit. Mods, can you lock this thread?