I wonder if they redacted the 250X2 information because 1) the 500 tons was more incendiary, 2) the 500 tons resonated with a fact that a FEW people knew--that Iraq had 500 tons of yellowcake ALREADY under IAEA seal and 3) it would reveal the difficult balance the forgers were trying to achieve between claiming a large amount (500 tons) while making it plausible that amount could get out while eluding French attention ("only" 250 tons at a time).
Anyway, I've long suspected that one of the reasons Wilson implied he had proven these documents to be forgeries (in the Kristof and Pincus pieces) is because of the way the alleged deals reflected no awareness of the three changes of government that occured during the alleged deal. Even in this country, we can move from one to another government without scrapping or revealing the plans and dirty secrets of the first government. That's got to be more true when going from dictatorship to civilian rule. Yet we're to believe three governments went along with the Iraq deal?
Posted by emptywheel at January 20, 2006 09:14 AMOT:
Ann,
sorry I didn't get back to your request yesterday (the twins seem to have it the terrible 2's a week early *8^) ). Here is the link to the archive of the comments from WaPo Howell dust up:
Posted by Simp at January 20, 2006 09:36 AMSimp, thatnks for posting that link. As i suspected there was no "hate speech." I didn't even find any profanity. Those Republican shills are so sensitive.
Posted by ann at January 20, 2006 02:25 PMEmptywheel,
The Government change issue is certainly an important angle to this whole thing....
Posted by eriposte at January 20, 2006 06:24 PMDoes Niger Doc 6 address the objections raised in the INR assessment?
Doc 6 is the coded letter. None of the information it contains appears in either the Oct or Feb Sismi reports. It reads:
A government representative [from Iraq] has concluded his visit with his Nigerien colleague. Negotiations are underway and look very promising.
...Contact re-established.
INR pointed out that although Bare might have begun negotiations he was assassinated in Apr 1999. So Doc 6 establishes that the negotiations for uranium had to start over with Tandja.
It's necessary that you keep in close contact with the ambassador in Rome concerning the transportation of metal 551.91 [sic- 551.81 in original]. The authorization for overflight arrived too late. Our government has decided to send the merchandise secretly by sea under the Gabon banner and tranship in international waters. Very good work done together with the personal emissary of the Iraqi president.
INR also argued the difficulty of secretly transporting 500 tonnes of uranium over to Niger's nearest port. But Doc 6 makes this a non-issue: the uranium is already at the port. Niger is preparing to send the uranium "by sea under the Gabon banner".
Any thoughts?
Posted by FMJ at January 21, 2006 01:30 AMFMJ,
>> Does Niger Doc 6 address the objections raised in the INR assessment?
It's not clear that it does. For one thing, it is dated July 2001. This is a year later than the alleged State Court approval of the Niger deal.
Second, even if Niger was to ship this by sea, they would still have had to transport the 250x2 = 500 tons by land to the port since Niger is landlocked.
Posted by eriposte at January 21, 2006 09:05 AM