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2002 U.S. Intelligence Assessment Shows Doubts on Sale of Uranium from Niger to Iraq
U.S. State Department analysts in 2002 concluded that various obstacles made it “unlikely” that Baghdad had obtained uranium from Niger before the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, the New York Times reported today (see GSN, Dec. 5, 2005). A recently declassified memo states that the sale would have required “25 hard-to-conceal 10-ton tractor-trailers” to leave Niger and travel 1,000 miles across at least one international border. Diplomatic and economic hurdles also existed, according to the memo. Doubts about the Niger-Iraq connection were raised one year before President George W. Bush cited the sale in his 2003 State of the Union address as one of the reason to go to war against Iraq. Coalition forces since the invasion have found no indications that Iraq had existing nuclear programs or other ongoing WMD efforts prior to the invasion. News reports, along with the Robb-Silberman report last year on U.S. intelligence failures on Iraq, have mentioned doubts about the intelligence surrounding the sale. However, this is the first time the actual intelligence assessment has been seen. The White House would not comment on the memo. “This matter was examined fully by the bipartisan Silberman-Robb commission, and the president acted on their broad recommendations to reform our intelligence apparatus,” said National Security Council spokesman Frederick Jones. The State Department conducted several reviews in early 2002 of intelligence indicating that Iraq was trying to secure uranium ore for its suspected nuclear program. U.S. Gen. Carlton Fulford Jr. went to Niger to investigate the claims and came back with doubts. The CIA sent former ambassador Joseph Wilson to look into the matter, and he returned with doubts as well. Since then, Wilson has become an outspoken critic of the Bush administration. However, the review obtained by the conservative legal organization Judicial Watch produced more widespread doubts. It found that Niger was “probably not planning to sell uranium to Iraq” because France controlled the uranium trade and could stop a sale. It also discounted intelligence that a sales agreement was reached between Niger and Iraq in 2000, finding that Niger’s president, Mamadou Tandja, would not risk losing foreign aid from the United States and other nations. The memo also found that Niger could not have transported 500 tons of uranium. “Moving such a quantity secretly over such a distance would be very difficult, particularly because the French would be indisposed to approve or cloak this arrangement,” according to the memo. Judicial Watch investigations director Chris Farrell said the State Department memo was “a very strong, well-thought-out argument that looks at the whole playing field in Niger, and it makes a compelling case for why the uranium sale was so unlikely.” A Bush administration official would not say whether the president saw the document before the 2003 State of the Union address. The official added: “The White House is not an intelligence-gathering operation. The president based his remarks in the State of the Union address on the intelligence that was presented to him by the intelligence community and cleared by the intelligence community. The president has said the intelligence was wrong, and we have reorganized our intelligence agencies so we can do better in the future.” Wilson said he did not recall reviewing the memo but said it raises questions about the White House’s insistence that Iraq was trying to buy uranium. “All the people understood that there was documentary evidence” that the intelligence was wrong, he said (Eric Lichtblau, New York Times, Jan. 18).
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