Treasongate: The Niger Forgeries and the Bush Administration
by eriposte
In yesterday's post titled "Treasongate: The Niger Forgeries v. INR Reports - "Global Support", Part A" I used an INR analyst's observations on the "Global Support" Niger forgery to show that the CIA (and INR) must have had in their possession one or more forged Niger uranium documents that have not yet been publicly revealed. In that post I deliberately left open the question of how and when such uranium documents (in the dossier) might have come into the possession of the CIA/INR because I was aware of additional evidence for my inference which was going to be published shortly.
That additional evidence has now been published by de Gondi at European Tribune - in this excellent post. In combination with what I have reported this week, De Gondi's post provides information that allows us to start making some inferences that go to the heart of the mystery surrounding when and how (some or all of) the Niger forgeries really got into the hands of the Bush administration. As I demonstrate here, there is now solid evidence that the CIA and INR had in their possession one or more of the Niger uranium forgeries which they did not receive from Panorama reporter Elisabetta Burba in October 2002. This fact is inconsistent with the impression left by the Bush administration/CIA in the SSCI Report that they did not have any other source who supplied them the Niger forgeries. Rather, the facts show that the Bush administration/CIA must have received at least one or more of the forged Niger documents through a different entity - other than Burba.
[Before I get to the details, let me also credit reader FMJ for noting the same evidence that de Gondi has surfaced, in the comments section of one of my posts.]
1. The IAEA-Wissam Al-Zahawie interview
2. Which forged Niger document(s) is (are) referred to in the interview?
3. What this means in the context of the Bush administration's knowledge of the Niger forgeries
4. Conclusions
1. The IAEA-Wissam Al-Zahawie interview
Let me start by quoting de Gondi's summary:
In an article that appeared in the Independent on August 10th, 2003, Raymond Whitaker interviewed the Iraqi ambassador to the Holy See, Wissam al-Zahawie who had been turned into a key figure in the forgeries, much to his surprise (bold mine):
The inspectors asked in detail what he knew of any contacts between Iraq and Niger and the visits exchanged between officials from both countries. "Then they asked me about the purposes and the details of my own visit and the meeting with the President. They even asked whether he gave me any presents. I said yes: he told me he would like to give me a camel's saddle -- a howdah....
The inspectors finally came around to the subject of documents, said Mr Zahawie, "and asked in particular whether I had signed a letter on 6 July 2000 to Niger concerning uranium. I said absolutely not, and if they had seen such a letter it must surely be a forgery.
"The questioning continued for more than an hour. They even asked about other officials working in the Iraq missions in Rome, and who kept the embassy seal. I explained that I myself kept the seal under lock and that it was used only to stamp official notes with no signature. Notes were only initialed, not signed, while letters were signed but not stamped with the seal. They did not seem to know of this standard procedure observed in all diplomatic correspondence. There was obviously something wrong with the document in their possession if it carried both the seal and a signature."
The retired ambassador was never allowed to see what documents the inspectors had, but learned the next day that the director of the IAEA, Mohamed ElBaradei, was deeply disappointed with the results of the interview: "The feeling was that I knew more than I was willing to reveal." He immediately asked for another meeting with the inspectors, at which he rejected suggestions that he was being unhelpful and demanded that they produce the document they held. They refused; he said he could sue them for libel.
"The inspectors told their Iraqi liaison officer that my denials would be better substantiated if they could obtain an original facsimile of my signature. I sent them, the next day, copies of letters that I had written when I was still in Rome. Those letters must have convinced the IAEA team at long last that the document they had was indeed a forgery."
It has since been suggested that after Mr Zahawie left the Vatican in August 2000, someone might have used his official seal in a forgery. Asked about this, he told The Independent on Sunday: "There were no Iraqi diplomats remaining in Rome after I left, so I gave the seal to the accountant of the Sudanese embassy, where the Iraqi interests section was housed, because he had a safe and could lock it up."
Reader FMJ contemporaneously found this in Time magazine:
...al-Zahawie was summoned back to Baghdad for what he had expected would be a request to help Iraq's Foreign Service plan for deputy prime minister Tariq Aziz's planned visit to the Vatican. Instead, upon landing in Baghdad, al-Zahawie was taken to meet with UN weapons inspectors. Five inspectors interviewed him in a 90-minute session, he says.
...
Italy had handed over cables from al-Zahawie to the Niger government announcing the trip, and other documents had pointed to his presence in Niger. But the inspectors were particularly interested in a July 6, 2000, document bearing al-Zahawie's signature, concerning a proposed uranium transaction. The inspectors refused to show him the letter, he says, but al-Zahawie was sure he had never written it."If they had such a letter, it had to have been a forgery," he says.
The tell-tale signs of the forgery were quite obvious, he stresses. Diplomatic procedure typically called for official notes between Iraq and other governments to feature a government seal, but they are typically unsigned; correspondence between an ambassador and other dignitaries would be signed but would have no seal. The letter in question had both, the inspectors admitted.
So, what we have here is a document that mentioned a uranium transaction between Niger and Iraq dated July 6, 2000 that Wissam al-Zahawie confirmed to be a forgery.
2. Which forged Niger document(s) is (are) referred to in the interview?
If you scroll through the full list of known Niger uranium forgeries (17 + 1 pages) that were publicized by Panorama magazine after Rocco Martino handed them over to reporter Elisabetta Burba, you will find that there is NO document in that list which (a) mentions uranium, (b) is dated July 6, 2000 and (c) has Wissam Al-Zahawie's signature.
In other words, the document referred to by the IAEA and Wissam Al-Zahawie in the interview is a Niger uranium forgery that is yet to be made public. This finding reinforces my finding from yesterday.
But what is this "new" document? De Gondi offers this (and so does FMJ) - and the emphasis is mine:
The only relevant forged document dated July 6, 2000, was the missing Purchase Agreement signed in Niamey. As a contract between two states, the forgers may have felt that Mr. Zahawie, seal and all, would be a fitting lawful representative of one of the parties to the agreement. After all he had negotiated the deal since 1999 according to the scenario. And just ten days before on June 30th, the forgers' Nigerien Minister of Foreign Affaires had sent a letter to their Rome Embassy asking them to contact Mr. Zahawie to hear his decision concerning their previous negotiations on the uranium transaction. (I refer to the false letter erroneously stamped "30 Jul 1999").
What de Gondi is referring to here is the forgery that was the actual Niger-Iraq uranium sale "accord" that has not surfaced to date. Although I cannot be 100% certain of it, I am strongly inclined to agree with his conclusion. Why?
For one thing, three separate Niger forgeries - TLC Niger Doc 3, TLC Niger Doc 4 and TLC Niger Doc 5 - all mention July 6, 2000 as the date when the "accord" was signed. So, any document mentioning Wissam al-Zahawie in the context of Niger, uranium and July 6, 2000 is virtually certain to be something that has to do with the (fake) uranium sale "accord".
Secondly, the fact that the "accord" forgery exists is not in doubt (more on this in the last sentence of Section 3). There has also always been a forged Cover Page (TLC Niger Doc 9) and "Annex" (TLC Niger Doc 5) to the so-called "Accord". The Annex mentions the July 6, 2000 date as well and also happens to be the document with the infamous (wrong) "WEDNESDAY JULY 7, 2000" date which was one of the give-aways that led me to conclude last year that "...the original intelligence on the alleged year 2000 uranium deal between Iraq and Niger, was in fact based on the forged Niger documents, [and] one can solidify the case that there was only one set of Niger documents." (The CIA came to the same conclusion.)
That said, the inference that this forgery is probably the uranium sale "Accord" has nothing to do with the overall conclusion of this post. In fact, in the discussion below, I refer to the above forgery as the "Wissam al-Zahawie/uranium/July 6, 2000" forgery.
3. What this means in the context of the Bush administration's knowledge of the Niger forgeries
Based on what I have discussed in my previous posts and this one, here's what we know.
3.1 There is no doubt that there were more forged documents in the dossier than what Panorama magazine and its Elisabetta Burba have publicly released (17+1 pages). Burba herself confirmed it in July 2003 and Seymour Hersh reported in late October 2003, after talking to Burba, that there were 22 pages in the dossier.
3.2 Burba has made it clear that she initially received 17 pages (+1 page ostensibly relating to China) from Rocco Martino and that she only took those pages to the U.S. Embassy in Rome for them to analyze/make copies. She did not give the U.S. embassy the additional pages that she received from Rocco Martino after her trip to the U.S. embassy. (This is very significant).
3.3 Burba also made it clear that she did not actually receive the uranium "Accord" - so it was not in the bunch of 17 (+1) pages which were provided to the U.S. embassy (something that de Gondi has also noted). The translation of her words by Nur al-Cubicle (this passage appears before she talks about her Embassy trip):
"Once we’re seated, he takes out his “wares”. 17 pages of documents.
...
We spend the evening studying the papers laid out on the kitchen table. I grasp a few things that had escaped me in the restaurant. Above all, the text of the purchase agreement is missing, there’s only the cover letter. Groan…. "
3.4 Likewise, the "Wissam al-Zahawie/uranium/July 6, 2000" forgery (probably the "Accord") was not part of the 17 (+1) pages that Burba provided to the U.S. embassy in Rome.
3.5 Yet, the IAEA got the "Wissam al-Zahawie/uranium/July 6, 2000" forgery (probably the "Accord") from the U.S. Government in early February 2003, even though Burba had not given the U.S. embassy this document. The former piece of information is confirmed by this letter (PDF) from the IAEA to Rep. Henry Waxman on June 20, 2003 (bold text is my emphasis) :
5 [Waxman]: On what date did IAEA officials receive intelligence documentation regarding these allegations? Who provided these documents? Were any assessments, qualifications, explanations, or warnings provided with these documents. If so, please describe what comments the IAEA received and when they were received.
[Response from Piet de Klerk for IAEA]: The documents were provided in early February to the Agency’s Iraq Nuclear Verification Office (INVO) by the US Government.....
(Note that de Gondi also effectively reached this same conclusion.)
3.6 There is independent evidence that INR/CIA had in their possession, at least by 15 October 2002, one or more Niger/Iraq uranium documents that were not in the list of 17 (+1) pages provided to the U.S. Embassy by Burba on October 9, 2002. It is possible (indeed, likely) that among these documents was the "Wissam al-Zahawie/uranium/July 6, 2000" forgery (probably the "Accord").
3.7 The Bush administration/CIA clearly gave the impression in the SSCI Report that they first saw the documents in the forged Niger dossier only after Elisabetta Burba provided copies to the U.S. embassy in Rome, and that they did not have any other source who supplied them the Niger forgeries. Yet, the facts laid out in this section make it clear that the Bush administration/CIA must have received at least one or more of the forged Niger documents through a different entity - other than Burba.
NOTE: The CIA acknowledged in the Senate (SSCI) Report (page 37) that on February 5, 2002 (prior to former Amb. Joseph Wilson's trip to Niger) they received from a foreign intelligence service (SISMI) the "verbatim text" of the uranium sale "Accord". (They did not state whether they received a copy of the forgery.)
4. Conclusions
Based on the facts laid out in my previous posts and this one, there is solid evidence now that the CIA and INR had in their possession one or more of the Niger uranium forgeries which they did not receive from Panorama reporter Elisabetta Burba in October 2002. This fact is inconsistent with the impression left by the Bush administration/CIA in the SSCI Report that they did not have any other source who supplied them the Niger forgeries. Rather, the facts show that the Bush administration/CIA must have received at least one or more of the forged Niger documents through a different entity - other than Burba.
This calls for a more thorough investigation into the origin and dissemination of the Niger forgeries and into the details on when and how the Bush administration obtained copies (or originals) of one or more of the documents in the forged Niger dossier.
UPDATE 2/22/06: Some words were updated for cosmetic reasons and a link was updated.