Uranium from Africa: How "Bought" Became "Sought" - Part 2-3: U.S. uranium reporting in March 2002
by eriposte
This is the next part of a series (see Introduction, Part 1, Part 2, Part 2-1, Part 2-2) examining the origins of the "bought" v. "sought" semantics of the uranium from Africa allegation. There are two key questions that I try to answer in Part 2 and its sub-parts:
(a) Was the US IC describing "intel" alleging a uranium purchase as "intel" pointing to an attempt to purchase (seek) uranium?
(b) Did the intelligence cited by the U.S. IC on uranium and Niger, prior to the IC's receipt of the Niger forgeries, support the claim that Iraq had only sought uranium from Niger?
This part focuses on known U.S. IC reporting from March 2002 described in the SSCI Report (note that all emphasis in quoted portions is mine).
1. March 1, 2002
This was the date of one of the INR memos - as the SSCI Report notes (page 42):
On March 1, 2002, INR published an intelligence assessment, Niger: Sale of Uranium to Iraq Is Unlikely. The INR analyst who drafted the assessment told Committee staff that he had been told that the piece was in response to interest from the Vice President's office in the alleged Iraq-Niger uranium deal.
You can see that the emphasis in the INR report was on the uranium purchase deal. That said, the report also discussed the issue of possible negotiations (or "seeking uranium") having begun in 1999 but in the specific context of a uranium purchase accord. I have commented on this memo at some length before, but let me reproduce an observation I made in my previous post:
I have also discussed earlier how the Al-Zahawi trip was falsely linked to uranium in the Niger forgeries and how the Zahawi-uranium link was mentioned in the 2/5/02 CIA intel report. One thing to keep in mind is that Al-Zahawi met Niger's President at that time - Bare Mainassara - who was assassinated barely two months later (in April 1999). So, a careful reading of this March 1, 2002, INR memo suggests that it was partly trying to address the Zahawi-uranium allegation:
34. A CORRUPT FORMER PRESIDENT MAY HAVE NEGOTIATED WITH IRAQ. [REDACTED] AT THAT TIME NIGER WAS RULED BY PRESIDENT BARE MAINASSARA, AN UNSOPHISTICATED AND VENAL INDIVIDUAL WHO WOULD NOT HAVE BEEN ABOVE TRYING TO SELL URANIUM TO A ROGUE STATE. BUT BARE'S PRESIDENTIAL GUARD KILLED HIM IN APRIL 1999. THE JUNTA THAT GOVERNED NIGER FOR THE NEXT NINE MONTHS RELINQUISHED POWER TO TANDJA'S FREELY ELECTED GOVERNMENT IN DECEMBER 1999. THE JUNTA THAT GOVERNED NIGER FOR THE NEXT NINE MONTHS RELINQUISHED POWER TO TANDJA'S FREELY ELECTED GOVERNMENT IN DECEMBER 1999.
35. TANDJA NOT LIKELY TO RISK AID FOR SHORT-TERM GAIN. THE REPORT FURTHER STATES THAT NIGER AND IRAQ SIGNED THE SALES AGREEMENT IN JULY 2000, WITH FULL SUPPORT FROM TANDJA (AND FOLLOWING AN INTERNAL LEGAL REVIEW). IN VIEW OF TANDJA'S [REDACTED] RELUCTANCE TO DO ANYTHING THAT MIGHT ENDANGER RELATIONS WITH WESTERN AID DONORS, IT IS IMPROBABLE ANY SUCH AGREEMENT WAS SIGNED WITH HIS KNOWLEDGE. NIGER IS DEPENDENT ON FOREIGN ASSISTANCE -- NOT ONLY FOR DEVELOPMENT AID, BUT ALSO FOR FINANCING MUCH OF THE DAY-TO-DAY OPERATIONS OF THE GOVERNMENT. A PAYOFF FROM IRAQ OF $50 MILLION OR EVEN $100 MILLION WOULD NOT MAKE UP FOR WHAT WOULD BE LOST IF THE DONOR COMMUNITY TURNED OFF THE TAPS TO NIGER. [REDACTED]
The key inference from the above passages was well summarized by Emptywheel (emphasis mine):
...INR found the claim that Tandja would be involved in this unbelievable, and therefore questioned the notion of a deal started in 1999 and consummated in 2000.
In other words, this memo was discussing the intel as having to do with Iraq having sought and bought uranium - and the memo actually stated that this allegation was not credible. This interpretation is confirmed by a careful reading of the SSCI Report's description of the CIA DO's reports (see Part 2-1 and Part 2-2 of this series). Considering that the March 1, 2002 INR memo argued against the likelihood that Iraq had recently sought and bought uranium from Niger, it cannot be used in support of a claim that Iraq had only sought uranium from Niger.
2. March 8, 2002
This was the date of the CIA's intel report based on former Ambassador Joseph Wilson's trip (page 43):
The intelligence report based on the former ambassador's trip was disseminated on March 8, 2002.
Of course, contrary to right-wing talking points, Wilson's trip did not "support" the uranium allegation (in fact, if you read his reporting carefully, it made a pretty strong case that the allegation that Iraq had sought and/or bought uranium from Niger was baseless). As the SSCI Report noted (page 46):
(U) IC analysts had a fairly consistent response to the intelligence report based on the former ambassador's trip in that no one believed it added a great deal of new information to the Iraq-Niger uranium story. An INR analyst said when he saw the report he believed that it corroborated the INR's position, but said that the "report could be read in different ways." He said the report was credible, but did not give it a lot of attention because he was busy with other things.
(U) DIA and CIA analysts said that when they saw the intelligence report they did not believe that it supplied much new information and did not think that it clarified the story on the alleged Iraq-Niger uranium deal. They did not find Nigerien denials that they had discussed uranium sales with Iraq as very surprising because they had no expectation that Niger would admit to such an agreement if it did exist. The analysts did, however, find it interesting that the former Nigerien Prime Minister said an Iraqi delegation had visited Niger for what he believed was to discuss uranium sales.
(U) Because CIA analysts did not believe that the report added any new information to clarify the issue, they did not use the report to produce any further analytical products or highlight the report for policymakers. For the same reason, CIA's briefer did not brief the Vice President on the report, despite the Vice President's previous questions about the issue.
This is exactly what George Tenet also pointed out in his spin-statement in July 2003:
Because this report, in our view, did not resolve whether Iraq was or was not seeking uranium from abroad, it was given a normal and wide distribution, but we did not brief it to the President, Vice-President or other senior Administration officials.
The bottom line is that the March 8, 2002 CIA report on Wilson's trip was not (and cannot be) considered credible evidence for the claim that Iraq had sought uranium from Niger. Both CIA and DIA analysts directly confirmed this to the SSCI. It should therefore not be a surprise that Wilson's trip was not used in the NIE as being part of the basis for the uranium allegation. It was also not used in the British White paper (especially since the CIA evidently did not discuss Wilson's trip with the UK at that time). In other words, the Bush administration's (mis)use of the Wilson trip in summer 2003 was purely aimed at fabricating a fake, after-the-fact justification for the false uranium claim.
3. March 25, 2002
This was the date of CIA DO's third intel report based on the SISMI reporting (page 47):
On March 25, 2002, the DO issued a third and final intelligence report from the same "[foreign] government service." The report said that the 2000 agreement by Niger to provide uranium to Iraq specified that 500 tons of uranium per year would be delivered in [DELETED].
As is obvious from the sentence above, this report discussed the alleged uranium purchase contract. Hence, this March 25, 2002 CIA DO report cannot be used to support a claim that Iraq had only sought uranium from Niger.