Fallout Over Niger Document Spreads

by Mary

Posted by Mary

The news of Joseph Wilson's bombshell is spreading rapidly. Will we next find out how the British Intelligence got their hands on the document so they could include it in the September dossier?

Meanwhile, in Australia, another former senior State Department official says that the Prime Minister was also informed of the falsity of the data before he gave his Feb 4th speech where he used it to justify his support of the war.

According to a former senior State Department official, CIA claims that the Iraqi regime had reconstituted its nuclear weapons program were strongly challenged by the State Department and the US Department of Energy, and this was made known to the Australian Government.

...snip...

"Only eight days later when Secretary [of State Colin] Powell made his presentation to the Security Council and didn't mention a word of it, I realised it must be that same piece of garbage we discredited some months earlier," Mr Theilmann said.

In the UK, the war of words is still going strong with a new report that the BBC was briefed by the head of MI6 before they published the "sexed up" charge.

Update: UK parliamentary committee issues report: Campbell exonorated of "sexed up" charge, Blair government criticized for misrepresention of intelligence. Questions still remain over veracity of key information in the September dossier, including charge that Iraq was seeking uranium in Africa to restart nuclear program.
Committee report (pdf): link