Treasongate: The Niger Forgeries v. the CIA Intel Reports - Introduction

by eriposte

In a previous post, that focused on the findings of the Robb-Silberman Report (RSR, for short) in the context of the uranium from Africa issue, I pointed out that the CIA directly admitted what I had proven in previous posts - that there was only one set of Niger documents, that those documents were forged and that they were the basis of the three CIA intelligence reports on Niger in 2001/2002 (including the ones that led to Joseph Wilson's trip to Niger). Specifically, RSR says (emphasis mine):

Moreover, the CIA concluded that the original reporting was based on the forged documents and was thus itself unreliable [214].

Footnote 214 refers to this statement (emphasis mine):

214 CIA, Analyses on an Alleged Iraq-Niger Uranium Agreement (undated but prepared sometime after March 7, 2003). See also Senior Publish When Ready, Iraq's Reported Interest in Buying Uranium from Niger and Whether Associated Documents are Authentic (March 11, 2003) (concluding the documents were forgeries). The errors in the original documents, which indicated they were forgeries, also occur in the February 2002 report that provided a "verbatim" text of the agreement, indicating that the original reporting was based on the forged documents.

However, the significant matching between the Niger forgeries and the CIA intel reports is not the whole story. An equally big scandal lies in some of the information contained in the Niger forgeries that is missing in the unclassified sections of the three CIA intel reports on Niger in the Senate (SSCI) Report. Comprehending the missing (or changed information) is critical to understanding the complicity, or lack thereof, of the CIA's source in this whole affair: Italian intelligence - aka SISMI. After all, the Italian Government and SISMI have vehemently issued "denials" on charges that they had something to do with the creation/dissemination of the forged Niger documents (and the FBI has conveniently refused to either investigate the matter speedily or reveal the results of the investigation thus far).

So, in this new series I will focus on the wording in the CIA intel reports on Niger and compare them to the contents of the relevant Niger forgeries to see what that teaches us about how the forgeries were "mainstreamed" and whether that indicates SISMI complicity in that process.