U.S. Had Iraq-Niger Documents from Private Source

[Kellanved]

U.S. Had Iraq-Niger Documents from Private Source
Thu July 17, 2003 04:09 PM ET
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States acquired forged documents on Iraq seeking uranium from Niger in October 2002 from a private non-governmental source in Rome, a senior State Department official said on Thursday.
The documents are one of the elements in the highly charged debate over whether President Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair, to justify their invasion of Iraq, made exaggerated claims about the extent of Iraqi efforts to resume a nuclear weapons program.

An Italian government official said on Wednesday that, contrary to some media suggestions, the Italian military intelligence organization Sismi did not pass on any false documents to U.S. or British secret services.

...
http://asia.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=politicsNews&storyID=3111220

[indictrichardperle]

1. The forgery will trace back to the OSP

Looks like we "created" our own forgery.

[Peachhead22]

2. So...

We weren't relying on the British interpretation (which we didn't believe anyways). We had our own copies (which we didn't believe either). Doesn't this make the SOTU claim look even worse.

[Skip Intro]

3. Yeah, that's true. And they can't have it both ways-

That totally contradicts the defense they were using just a couple of days ago, that the statement was technically accurate because it was attributed to Blair's inteligence. Why explain why a statement is technically accurate if you have proof that it substantively accurate as well?

They forfiet the "we said Brittish Intel said.." defense if they go off on this other, before now unheard of, intel of our own to back the statement.

What a bunch of clowns.

[NYC]

4. I heard that these forged papers were published in La Reppublica.

Published right in the newspaper. I also heard that one of the letters was addressed to the same person it was signed from.

[Kellanved]

5. Yes

They were published in that Newspaper; abc has them on it's Website.
However the mistakes in the papers were reported by ZDF Television and Reuters in march.



http://www.zdf.de/ZDFde/inhalt/3/0,1872,2052990,00.html
http://www.metimes.com/2K3/issue2003-13/reg/coalition_faked_it.htm


Here is a link to three scans, courtesy of RedSock:
http://abcnews.go.com/sections/wnt/US/uranium030716flaweddocs.html

LBN Thread about this:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=17139&mesg_id=17139&page=3

[Dirty Hippie]

6. Forgeries-R-Us

.

[Rose Siding]

7. Private source, huh?

Was it the crack addicted proprietor of the Italian equivalent of Kinkos?