three, two, one, bang. And we have Trinity. This is just a test of the new entry system, which is less efficient at termination than the A-bomb.
Posted by tempus at February 20, 2006 07:24 AMEriposte, who if anyone, is receiving your research information?
Posted by Judith at February 20, 2006 08:11 AMeriposte, great post, as usual. I remember digging up articles in the Nigerien news a couple years ago, when the Wilson op ed came out, about there being sales in the '80s and dismissed the more recent claims of sales as trying to conflate the old agreements with newer attempts to purchase. Kinda like using old intelligence from '98 to say that Saddam has WMDs now.
What I think you're saying is that rumors about old uranium sales disguised as more recent ones were already floating around before 9-11? Well, we knew the bushies had been looking for an excuse to invade long before the bloodless coup in 2000. It's not surprising, given their methods of drumming up war after 9-11 were exactly the same, that they'd stick with assuming the proles wouldn't notice the time discrepancies once they were scared enough. I doubt there were forgeries before 9-11, but I'll bet there was a market for some sort of "smoking gun" documents afterward, given the almost immediate drumbeat for Iraq was finally becoming evident by Jan. '02.
All this to say, I think you may be right that the 500 tons figure came from the two shipments in '81 (the original "200" being an approximation); I think the figure was meant to be misleading, so that if anyone on tv said "500 tons," - whether they discussed the amount Saddam already had under seal or the amount he supposedly was trying to buy - would be conflated in the public's mind and translated as "Saddam has yellowcake/mushroom cloud imminent." And, if anyone bothered to google the claim, they'd find articles about Nigerien sales to Iraq; sure, they'd be 20 years old, but they'd "prove" Saddam had done it before, there were multiple shipments, it's likely he would do it again.
I think your questions 1 and 2 are the most important - but would add: "Was there any new reporting, or was it rehashing of old intel a la 'Saddam gassed his own people?'" When that angle didn't seem to get the proles scared enough, they had to drum up the forgeries and present them as "proof."
I'll bet if we just find out who was referencing these reports, we'll get the answers to the other questions right away.
Posted by iamcoyote at February 20, 2006 08:21 AMJudith, at least 2-3 reporters on the uranium issue are aware of my work. I have reason to believe that one or two people in the Senate and House are also probably aware of it.
As always, wonderful scholarship. I don't make a lot of comments to your posts because it takes a while to digest the information. It also seems a bit rude -kind of like talking during a good movie- to jump in and blather on if I can't come up to the quality of your discourse. So, I always appreciate your efforts even if you don't hear much from phidipideslandia about your efforts.
Posted by phidipides at February 20, 2006 09:08 AMIamcoyote...
Are you able to spare some time to do a little bit of sleuthing on this matter in the next couple or so days?
Thanks...
Posted by eriposte at February 20, 2006 09:21 AMI'll see if I can find those articles, and my old files from '03, they may be on a different computer. I went poking around back then to see what I could find out. I'll let you know what I find.
Posted by iamcoyote at February 20, 2006 09:26 AMIamcoyote,
If you have time, send me an email. The research I am thinking of is different than what you think it is. :-)
Posted by eriposte at February 20, 2006 09:38 AMSounds like fun! Done.
Posted by iamcoyote at February 20, 2006 10:03 AMeriposte, what phid said. (i am sick of writing that!) your work is greatly appreciated by us otherwise blabbermouths.
you'll never get a hundred comment thread
cause your badass scholarship kills trolls dead
phidipides is right of course, except it takes me about 3 weeks to digest the material.
Posted by bbtb at February 20, 2006 10:32 AMWhen can I buy the book?
Posted by space at February 20, 2006 12:02 PMI remember digging up articles in the Nigerien news a couple years ago, when the Wilson op ed came out, about there being sales in the '80s and dismissed the more recent claims of sales as trying to conflate the old agreements with newer attempts to purchase. Kinda like using old intelligence from '98 to say that Saddam has WMDs now.
iamcoyote's not the only one. The peerless Glen Rangwala also initially tagged the Niger nonsense the same way: see e.g. here, here, here and here. I think he might be worth contacting, as he will likely have more knowledge and references re: the original Niger purchase attempt.
I find many of your speculations quite plausible (a couple of them have occurred to me too).
Posted by KM at February 20, 2006 12:57 PMeR,
I'm not so sure the evidence indicates the Spring/Summer 2001 uranium rumours implicated Iraq directly. According to the LAT article, the CIA was also hearing that the uranium might have gone to "Syria, Lybia, China or North Korea."
If someone had made the rumour up to get a war with Iraq going, I'd have thought they'd be more specific about it.
It may be that the Niger forgery cabal heard the rumour too (or knew someone in the IC who had) and, post-9/11, based the forgeries on it.
Posted by FMJ at February 20, 2006 01:10 PMeR,
BTW, if you want to get a hold of Niger and Iraq's 1981 uranium deal documents, you could try emailing Melissa Fleming, the Press Officer at the IAEA. The IAEA had access to all of Niger and Iraq's uranium contracts. (I emailed her a while back but never got a reply. Maybe you'll have more luck though.)
Posted by FMJ at February 20, 2006 01:28 PMFMJ,
Regarding the "...or Syria or Libya...etc." hold on for my next post on this later this week (to give you a sense for why it may still have been about Iraq ultimately, here's an early look at one possibility). I agree that it may not have been exclusively about Iraq, but the point here is that it potentially implicated Iraq and should therefore have been included in the SSCI Report and discussed thoroughly.
Posted by eriposte at February 20, 2006 01:50 PMKM,
I did take a look at Rangwala's excellent work, but the bulk of it is related to other claims and not the uranium claim. Of course, he does cite the 1981-82 uranium purchases briefly.
Posted by eriposte at February 20, 2006 02:08 PMeR,
I agree with you it would have been great if SSCI had discussed the uranium rumors in its report. In fact the first sentence of the Niger section reads, "Reporting on a possible yellowcake sales agreement between Niger and Iraq first came to the attention of..."
So SSCI is once again misleading. There may have been reporting on missing Nigerien uranium or Iraq seeking uranium from Niger but SSCI picks up the story only with the reporting of the sales agreement. Frustrating, isn't it?
Posted by FMJ at February 21, 2006 12:26 AMBTW, thanks for the Newsweek link. I hadn't thought of that.
Posted by FMJ at February 21, 2006 12:28 AMSorry, eR, my comment was confusing. I cited the links only to show that Rangwala had had the same inclination as iamcoyote and that he had at various points drawn attention to the 1981-2 purchase attempts. I realise he says almost nothing about them -- I was suggesting that it might be worth contacting him because he may well have more information about the purchase attempts (as well as about any possible documents purportedly referencing those attempts) and because his reasons for thinking the 2002-3 Niger case really referred to those attempts might be interesting.
Posted by KM at February 21, 2006 11:26 AM