How Bogus Letter Became a Case for War

[LiberalFighter]

Source: Washington Post

How Bogus Letter Became a Case for War
Intelligence Failures Surrounded Inquiry on Iraq-Niger Uranium Claim

It was 3 a.m. in Italy on Jan. 29, 2003, when President Bush in Washington began reading his State of the Union address that included the now famous -- later retracted -- 16 words: "The British Government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa."

Like most Europeans, Elisabetta Burba, an investigative reporter for the Italian newsweekly Panorama, waited until the next day to read the newspaper accounts of Bush's remarks. But when she came to the 16 words, she recalled, she got a sudden sinking feeling in her stomach. She wondered: How could the American president have mentioned a uranium sale from Africa?

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Burba arrived in Niamey, Niger's capital, on Oct. 17 and began tracking down leads on the Italian letter. Burba's investigation followed a series of similar inquiries by Wilson, the former ambassador, who investigated on behalf of the CIA eight months earlier. It became clear that Niger was not capable of secretly shipping yellowcake uranium to Iraq or anywhere else.

Burba found that a French company controlled the uranium trade, and any shipment of uranium would have been noticed. If a uranium sale had taken place, the logistics would have been daunting. "They would have needed hundreds of trucks," she said -- a large percentage of all the trucks in Niger. It would have been impossible to conceal.

Read more: www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/02/AR2007040201777.html?hpid=topnews

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This is a 4 page article

Elisabetta Burba is an Italian investigative reporter for the Italian newsweekly Panorama. She was the first person to receive the documents that turned out to be a fraud.