http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/iraq/2004-07-21-uranium_x.htm• Why would Iraq try to buy uranium from Niger when it already had uranium of its own?
Iraq had 550 tons of partially processed uranium ore, or yellowcake, that it had mined and processed itself or imported in the 1980s from Niger. But the material was subject to United Nations inspections, and Iraq's uranium mining and processing facilities had been destroyed in the 1991 Persian Gulf War. British intelligence believed Iraq wanted a secret source of uranium to evade U.N. inspections. U.S. intelligence said Iraq was unlikely to risk exposure in an international uranium deal and would more likely divert its own stockpile because the U.N. inspections occurred only once a year.
• What was Wilson's role?
Wilson had been an ambassador to Gabon and was posted to Niger earlier in his career. In 1999, he had gone to Niger to gather information about rumors of uranium sales to Iraq. The CIA sent Wilson back to Niger in February 2002 to check on unconfirmed reports about an Iraqi contract to buy uranium. Wilson reported that he found no evidence of a contract and that Niger's uranium was under French control and could not be diverted to Iraq.
He said Niger's former prime minister, Ibrahim Mayaki, had told him that in 1999 he had been approached by a businessman who urged him to meet with an Iraqi delegation. Mayaki said he assumed the meeting would be about uranium, but uranium never came up.
• What did the Senate Intelligence Committee report say about Wilson, and how does he respond?
The committee reported that CIA analysts believe Mayaki's comments about the meeting, while inconclusive, tended to support allegations that Iraq was at least trying to buy uranium. Wilson says the Mayaki information was thin and notes that the CIA did not deem it important enough to report to the White House.
The committee reported that Wilson conceded he may have "misspoken" when he told a reporter last year that documents purporting to confirm an Iraq-Niger deal were forgeries when, in fact, he had no access to those documents and could not have known they were forgeries. Wilson says he never claimed to have known about the forged documents.
The committee also questioned Wilson's repeated denials that his wife had "anything to do" with his selection by the CIA to go to Niger. It quoted from a memo by Plame that lays out Wilson's qualifications for the assignment. Wilson and the CIA confirm that the agency, not Plame, selected him for the mission. He says the memo merely laid out his qualifications after he was picked.
• Did Iraq, in fact, try to buy uranium in Niger?
The Senate Intelligence Committee report accepted the CIA's ultimate assessment — not reached until after the war — that there was little if any credible evidence available to U.S. intelligence to support the charge that Iraq sought, let alone bought, uranium from Niger.
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