Butler 'wrong' on Iraq uranium link

[cal04]

A leading nuclear expert has pointed out a technical error in the Butler report on WMD intelligence in Iraq, and criticised the committee's finding that intelligence on Saddam Hussein seeking uranium from Africa was "credible". The Butler report demolished the most controversial allegation in the Government's September 2002 WMD dossier - that Iraq could deploy chemical or biological weapons in 45 minutes - but observers were surprised that the uranium claim passed scrutiny.

American investigators have dismissed the suggestion that Iraq was seeking uranium from the west African state of Niger in a quest for nuclear weapons, because it was based on forged documents. It was also inherently implausible, they added, since Iraq had 550 tons of "yellowcake" - uranium which has undergone the first stage of processing. But the Butler committee accepted the Government's contention that it had separate intelligence, which has never been disclosed, to support the claim.

Norman Dombey, retired professor of theoretical physics at Sussex University, said yesterday that the Butler report wrongly described Iraq's stocks of uranium as unprocessed. But Professor Dombey, credited with pointing out numerous flaws in the story of an Iraqi defector whose nuclear claims were widely circulated in the US during the 1990s, was more critical of the committee's intelligence findings on the Niger issue. "The Butler report says the claim was credible because an Iraqi diplomat visited Niger in 1999, and almost three-quarters of Niger's exports were uranium. But this is irrelevant, since France controls Niger's uranium mines," he said.

Last year this newspaper interviewed the now-retired diplomat, Wissam al-Zahawie, who said he had been sent on a tour of African countries in 1999 to invite their leaders to a trade fair in Iraq. In Niger he met only the President, who was assassinated two months later. British intelligence on the issue appears to be based entirely on speculation by other Niger officials about the purpose of Mr Zahawie's visit.

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/politics/story.jsp?story=544436

[lakeguy]

1. why isn't there an investigation into

WHO forged the documents. my guess is the handwriting is Cheney's.

[Rose Siding]

5. The New Yorker reported that Chalabi's INC ran a forgery shop

in Kurdistan. Lots of support included, too -from a May 04 article:

snip>
In retrospect, one detail of Chalabi’s operation seems particularly noteworthy. In 1994, Baer said, he went with Chalabi to visit “a forgery shop” that the I.N.C. had set up inside an abandoned schoolhouse in Salahuddin, a town in Kurdistan. “It was something like a spy novel,” Baer said. “It was a room where people were scanning Iraqi intelligence documents into computers, and doing disinformation. There was a whole wing of it that he did forgeries in.” Baer had no evidence that Chalabi forged any of the disputed intelligence documents that were used to foment alarm in the run-up to the war. But, he said, “he was forging back then, in order to bring down Saddam.” In the Los Angeles Times, Hugh Pope wrote of one harmless-seeming prank that emerged from Chalabi’s specialty shop: a precise mockup of an Iraqi newspaper that was filled with stories about Saddam’s human-rights abuses. Another faked document ended up directly affecting Baer. It was a copy of a forged letter to Chalabi, made to look as if it were written on the stationery of President Clinton’s National Security Council. The letter asked for Chalabi’s help in an American-led assassination plot against Saddam. “It was a complete fake,” Baer said, adding that he believed it was an effort to hoodwink the Iranians into joining a plot against Saddam; an indication of American involvement, Chalabi hoped, would convince them that the effort was serious. Brooke acknowledged that the I.N.C. had run a forgery shop, but denied that Chalabi had created the phony assassination letter. “That would be illegal,” he said. To Baer’s dismay, the letter eventually made its way to Langley, Virginia, and the C.I.A. accused him of being involved in the scheme. Baer said he had to pass a polygraph test in order to prove otherwise....

http://www.bintjbeil.com/articles/2004/en/0529_mayer.html

[daleo]

7. “That would be illegal,” he (Chalabi) said.

Hilarious.

[REVOLT823]

2. So being how everyone is tearing down Ambassador Wilson

over this supposed "golden" intel from the UK on this, I guess thye once again owe hima big apology

[Matilda]

3. He shouldn't hold his breath.

The Butler Report was set up to be a whitewash anyway.

[xchrom]

4. butler report is wrong

but don't expect bushco to ever say so.

[struggle4progress]

6. Yep:

Not much on the Niger-uranium claims has changed - The Hill
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=103&topic_id=63947

Editorial: Iraq, Niger/There was no uranium link
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=103&topic_id=63767

New Niger/uranium tale flops
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=103&topic_id=63866

A Right-Wing Smear Is Gathering Steam (Amb Wison notes GOP Lies/Smear)
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=103&topic_id=63785

[stickdog]

8. kick (nt)

[Stockholm]

9. kick n/t