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?

/snip/

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.

[Fabio]

1. ridiculous that this in "news"

[salin]

3. and not picked up two and a half years ago (give or take) when written about by

Laura Rozen and Josh Marshall in I beleive The American Prospect. (Maybe it was for the progressive). Took the Post long enough. And at least in the beginning of the article it still takes that "intelligence failures" tone - rather than the stovepiping/cherry picking also reported around three years ago by Seymour Hirsh in the New Yorker.

[soothsayer]

4. can't wait to hear condi tell congress all about it on april 18!

should be riveting

[rodeodance]

13. do you think she will show?---I read the State dept. is busy with Written

testimony

[soothsayer]

14. well, don't they submit a written statement that they also read, and

then take questions? damn, I hope she doesn't slither out of this. will be fun to watch! even tho she'll just do her patented blank look...

[kurtyboy]

11. If the WaPo had put this directly into this LBN forum

They have had the thread locked.

THIS IS NOT breaking--so how did it make page A01 of the Post?

I'm with another of the posters--something's up.

[UpInArms]

2. I call Bullshit!

a bogus letter and "Curveball" - all of which had been publicly debunked.

What crap.

:grr:

[HereSince1628]

5. We know this story well. But is it newsy when a paper with neocon-trolled

editorial board starts revealling history? Maybe, maybe.

Shit is apparently in play inside the Beltway.

[rodeodance]

12. I am glad to see it (and yes, LATE)

[Peace Patriot]

6. We need to look deeper than this at WaPo's motivation--deeper than saying

thanks for three year old news, assholes.

I'm mean, there's that, for sure.

But why are they publishing this NOW? How does this protect the war profiteers (their chief mission)?

Could be they just need to distance themselves from the UNFRIGGING BELIEVABLE LIES that they previously foisted upon us. Circulation falling? Their "credibility gap" showing? 75% of the American people now against the war--their propaganda simply not working; they've got to regain some support for obscene military spending? Or is it even more sinister--something really filthy dirty about to come out about the war, and they have to appear to be ahead of it, and want to protect the war machine FROM it?

My speculation on this is here (another thread about this letter) (comment #9:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x564876

I think it may be connected to Rumsfeld being gone, with no change of policy in Iraq. So...why is he gone?

[keopeli]

7. This is the kind of news we could have used in October 2002 when Congress was voting...uh...

that IS when Wilson had gone to Niger. Did the CIA fail to tell the Senate? Wasn't the Senate asking? Oh, that's right, the Republics had taken over during that time. Wilson really was the thorn in their flesh, wasn't he!

Of course, many of us have known this for years. They say I'm a conspiracy theorist until it's reported in the Post or the Times - but it's them thar varmin that're lyin'!

Peace.

[Rose Siding]

8. Page 1 and currently the top viewed story on msn

Well finally! At several points, this story references the CIA sending Wilson, once as a result of Cheney's pressure -Also an improvement.

[bunkerbuster1]

9. TPM's take seems spot on.

from http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/002941.php

It's actually not so much of a mystery. It's just that the Italians, for some reason, don't want to get to the bottom of it.

[rodeodance]

10. "Bush administration disregarded key information available at the time "

Dozens of interviews with current and former intelligence officials and policymakers in the United States, Britain, France and Italy show that the Bush administration disregarded key information available at the time showing that the Iraq-Niger claim was highly questionable.

[RaleighNCDUer]

15. What I don't get, what I've never gotten, is that even if it was all true

what the fuck difference would it make?

If Iraq did the bomb, who would he bomb? He might have been a brutal dictator, but he wasn't crazy. If he attacked us or any of our allies with a nuke he would unleash a hell on him that would make shock and awe look like a balmy May afternoon. And if there was any hint that he gave a bomb to terrorists and let them set it off, same thing.

And the same applies to Iran today. Nobody is going to set themselves up for US nuclear retaliation.