The source of the forgeries now appears to be France. I'll try and track down some links and add to the article. Sdaconsulting 18:32, 21 Sep 2004 (UTC)
It looks according to the linked articles (La Repubblica, reported by Carlo Bonini and Giuseppe d'Avanzo and the Huffington Post) that 1) Rocco Martino, former Italian Intelligence agent, was likely the forger; 2) Rocco Martino, a female Embassy of Niger employee, and Zakaria Yaou Maiga (another Embassy of Niger employee) stole the materials needed for the forgery in a simulated burglary; 3) this was done with the collaboration of (and likely instigation by) Antonio Nucera, an Italian Intelligence official; 4) Italian Intelligence was pressured by Stephen Hadley to produce inculpatory material against Iraq; 5) Italian Intelligence provided the forged documents; and 6) when the Bush Administration began to use the forged documents as the basis for threatening Iraq, Italian Intelligence and a Berlusconi-controlled newspaper were complicit in covering-up the known falsity of the documents. I'm not saying these are facts, but they certainly seem to be what has been reported. I think this reporting deserves more attention and clarity in this article. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2006/04/08/nigerian-embassy-employee_n_18749.html http://www.repubblica.it/2005/j/sezioni/esteri/iraq69/sismicia/sismicia.html translated here: http://nuralcubicle.blogspot.com/2005/10/berlusconi-behind-fake-yellowcake.html Jensiverson ( talk) 15:22, 16 December 2007 (UTC)
But probably an acceptable one? The article treats "the yellowcake forgery" as an accepted term, like "Teapot Dome."
"Teapot Dome" gets over 25,000 Google hits. "Yellowcake Forgery" in quotes gets less than 200. Without quotes, over 5,000. Clearly a neologism, but I can't think of an alternative . . . artifact of current event driven article . . . Chris vLS 18:19, 28 Dec 2004 (UTC)
It disagrees with most everything in here. [1]
Try the section called "Niger"? It's conclusive findings are on pages 72-83. They disagree with most everything in here. :-) Really.
Batvette
03:58, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
The October 2002 National Intelligence Esmtimate concluded that "the claims of Iraqi pursuit of natural uranium in Africa are, in INR's assessment, highly dubious." Does anybody disagree that the October NIE sheds some light on this issue? Macuna03macuna03
Several of us have asked for some specification of what's supposedly inaccurate. We get no answer, but the tag keeps getting applied. It's extremely unhelpful for people to question an article's accuracy, and put the tag on, without setting forth the alleged inaccuracy on the talk page. I'm refraining from removing the tag because I hope to avoid an edit war, but I will remove it unless there's some good-faith effort to move the discussion forward. JamesMLane 8 July 2005 06:32 (UTC)
I have just completed a revision because there were multiple errors and omissions.
1. In Bush’s state of the union address, his sixteen words were “The British Government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa.” Some have taken this to refer to the false documents. However the statement credits the British Government which did not have the false documents but did have evidence of the attempt to buy uranium including confirmation from Iraqi officials. This information is available in the Butler report. 2. Colin Powell’s speech does not mention the yellowcake documents. I have searched the entire transcript of his speech before the UN for the words “Niger” and “yellowcake” and neither appear. In addition, the US Report on PreWar Intelligence (page 68) also says Powell did not use the claim in his speech. 3. The Butler Report describes the sixteen words Pres Bush spoke in the state of the union address as “well founded.” 4. A separate report by the US Senate Intelligence Committee said July 7 that the US also had similar information from “a number of intelligence reports,” a fact that was classified at the time Bush spoke. 5. Ironically, former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, who later called Bush’s 16 words a “lie”, supplied information that the Central Intelligence Agency took as confirmation that Iraq may indeed have been seeking uranium from Niger. 6. Both the US and British investigations make clear that some forged Italian documents, exposed as fakes soon after Bush spoke, were not the basis for the British intelligence Bush cited, or the CIA's conclusion that Iraq was trying to get uranium. The Butler report made the following conclusions on page 139: a. It is accepted by all parties that Iraqi officials visited Niger in 1999. b. The British Government had intelligence from several different sources indicating that this visit was for the purpose of acquiring uranium. Since uranium constitutes almost three-quarters of Niger’s exports, the intelligence was credible. c. The evidence was not conclusive that Iraq actually purchased, as opposed to having sought, uranium and the British Government did not claim this. d. The forged documents were not available to the British Government at the time its assessment was made, and so the fact of the forgery does not undermine it. RonCram
RonCram's dscription is as factual as it gets, as for this: "we do not assume that governments with a vested interest in defending their policies always tell the truth." The results of official government inquiries cannot be automatically called suspect merely because their conclusions support policy you disagree with.
For some reason, my earlier discussion of errors and omissions was moved to the bottom of the screen. I am not certain why that happened.
In the present revision, the author claims the forged documents were forged by the CIA under direction from the Bush Administration. This is certainly a biased comment as the investigation is still going on.
In addition, the new revision has no mention of the controversy that surrounds the claim the forged documents were the basis Bush's statement in the State of the Union Address. Bush clearly credits the British Government for this information and the Butler Report claims they did not know about the forged documents at that time. The British information was based on other sources including Iraqi officials. This shows bias and needs to be revised. RonCram
Thank you for answering my earlier question.
1. There is no truth to the statement that Pres Bush asserted a link between Saddam and African terrorist groups based on British intelligence. Uranium is a well-mnitored export of Niger. According to the Butler Report, Saddam was attempting to purchase uranium surreptitiously through the Niger government and did come to terms on the deal in 2002, although there is no proof the deal actually went through.
2. The Downing Street memos are themselves unable to be authenticated. They were "retyped" by the reporter to excise certain names. The originals were destroyed. There is no way to check the veracity of the Downing Street memos. This should be noted.
3. The Senate has asked the FBI to investigate who produced the forgeries, not the CIA. News reports so far have pointed the finger at someone working for France. I have posted an external link.
4. Is there any evidence to support the claim by critics that the CIA was directed to produce the forgeries? If so, a link would be helpful to readers. If not, the lack of support should be noted.
Other clarifications are also needed but I haven't the time at the moment. RonCram
I added a note on the Michael Ledeen page about what is mentioned here, but it keeps getting reverted. Do people here think the Cannistraro implications are worth mentioning on the Ledeen page? Please add your voice there. Thanks -- csloat 05:25, 20 July 2005 (UTC)
Yes--it makes sense there. Tchoupitoulas 17:37, 20 July 2005 (UTC)
A key point made by the Butler Report was that British government didn't have the forged documents until after Bush's speech, so the forged documents couldn't have played any role in the British intelligence report that Bush cited. It appears that this was more weasel-wording to cover up the pack of lies used to try to justify the war. The British government didn't have the documents themselves, but did have a summary of the documents, and used it as one source in making the report cited. [3] This is another illustration that we shouldn't just report what's in a government document as if it were fact, at least in circumstances like this. JamesMLane 03:58, 24 July 2005 (UTC)
Most of the information in this story deals with the general issue of Iraq & Niger uranium. Clearly this connection was being investigated by early 2002. Powell & Tenet testified in September 2002 about it. However, the forgeries per se were not received by the US until October 2002, according to the article. The link James provides just above states that the US had received a written summary of the documents from Italian intelligence "more than six months" previous to March 2003. So, the question is what role did the forgeries themselves play in the more general pattern of using unreliable intelligence. The timeline of their use is unclear. I think perhaps this article should be moved to "Niger uranium" to emphasize the broader intelligence issues, which most of the article addresses anyway. For example, the Butler report says these documents weren't used by UK intelligence (but see James above). However, the intelligence that the UK did admittedly use was also clearly quite weak.
Comments? Derex 16:03, 4 October 2005 (UTC)
It is clear from the sixteen words Bush spoke that he was relying on British intelligence for his information, not documents the British government was not aware of. The overall tenor of the article was wrong. According to the Butler Report Saddam had men trying to buy uranium in Africa at the time Joe Wilson was there trying to build a case that it never happened. RonCram 14:19, 28 October 2005 (UTC)
Gentlemen, some clarification is in order. Mirror Vax seems to think the Brits relied on the U.S. for the intelligence. Not true. They did confer with US intelligence to verify what they had learned and that is when the information exchange took place - after Britain already had information from multiple sources. Nescio finds it suspicious that two separate intelligence agencies would make the same mistake. The proper explanation is there is no mistake. The Yellowcake documents were forged but the reports about Iraq aeeking uranium came from multiple sources. Iraq sought uranium from both Niger and the Republic of Congo. Here are some conclusions from the Butler Report (which is not altogether supportive of other intelligence findings on WMD in Iraq) which are found on pages 122-125:
494. There was further and separate intelligence that in 1999 the Iraqi regime had also made inquiries about the purchase of uranium ore in the Democratic Republic of Congo. In this case, there was some evidence that by 2002 an agreement for a sale had been reached.
499. We conclude that, on the basis of the intelligence assessments at the time, covering both Niger and the Democratic Republic of Congo, the statements on Iraqi attempts to buy uranium from Africa in the Government’s dossier, and by the Prime Minister in the House of Commons, were well-founded. By extension, we conclude also that the statement in President Bush’s State of the Union Address of 28 January 2003 that: "The British Government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa" was well-founded.
503. From our examination of the intelligence and other material on Iraqi attempts to buy uranium from Africa, we have concluded that:
I hope this clears up any misunderstanding about Bush relying on the forged documents when he made his State of the Union address. RonCram 22:01, 28 October 2005 (UTC)
Evidently this theory that the Niger documents were the source of the claim is difficult for you to give up. The documents were "among the sources" used. That is true. When intelligence comes in from a ally, leaders like to have it confirmed by their own intelligence agencies. The forged documents were used as confirmation. At the time of the speech, not everyone in the intelligence community knew about the British intelligence and some of them were skeptial of the Niger documents. Like you, people inside the CIA (including Plame and Wilson) thought these documents were the only source. On that point, they were in error.
As the Butler Report makes clear, the British did not know about the forged documents. They had multiple sources for the intelligence as can been seen by the fact Saddam did not just seek uranium from Niger. He also sought it from the Congo. The article you linked to by Landay and Strobel bears a withering defect in that it does not discuss the Butler Report at all. If they had, they would have had answers they would rather not report.
Regarding #2 above, the only hints on the British intelligence that I know of are found in the Butler Report. As you probably know, intelligence agencies do not like to publish their sources.
Regarding #3, Bush referred to the British claim because they had multiple sources that were highly credible and the Niger documents were not identified as forgeries at the time of the State of the Union message (Jan 2003). Some in the intelligence community were skeptical of the documents, but that is not the same as the IAEA conclusion. Remember, much of British intelligence on WMDs in Iraq was shot down by the Butler Report but the claim of Saddam seeking uranium in Africa survived with flying colors (or colours as the British would say).
Regarding #4, withdrawing the claim after the documents were declared forgeries was the prudent thing to do. The IAEA declared them forgeries in March, 2003. A review of intelligence is always required after such a finding. At this point in time, I believe most people in the Bush Administration believe the British intelligence is correct and that our own CIA got it wrong.
Regarding #5, the UK did not find the intelligence agencies at fault with regard to Saddam seeking uranium in Africa.
I would suggest you read Able Danger to learn more about the intelligence community and the failures and turf battles that go on. The CIA would not support the Able Danger project because they did not want them to steal their thunder. I hope the culture at the CIA is changing under Porter Goss. Any CIA official who would put US citizens in danger over a turf battle deserves a special place in hell. RonCram 14:10, 30 October 2005 (UTC)
It has been a while since I have visited this page. There seem to be a few things I need to clear up. First, if Saddam was seeking uranium in Niger, we did not know at the time that he did not obtain it there. The French control the mines and could have sold. Also, Saddam could have found uranium elsewhere in Africa. He was known to have sought it in the Congo as well and we do not know how many other places he may sought it. Second, my comment about a "special place in hell" for CIA people referred to those who would not cooperate with the Able Danger team to stop al Qaeda because they wanted to get the credit. That is a ridiculous position to take and I stand by my comment. Third, I fully support the FBI investigation into the forgery of these documents. People who try to influence foreign policy by misinformation and forged documents should be prosecuted. I think it is entirely too early to be pointing fingers at any individual yet. But perhaps I am not as well informed on the subject. For the time being, I will wait to see what the investigation uncovers. In the meantime I continue to hold my position that the forged documents had no bearing on Bush's State of the Union message. The Butler Report made that clear. For some reason, that discredited claim continues to be made. RonCram 16:45, 3 December 2005 (UTC)
Why was it prudent to retract the uranium claim if that claim was entirely correct!!!!! Please explain. There either was or was no evidence of SH seeking uranium. Your position is that he did, so why retract that statement???????-- Nomen Nescio 16:41, 5 December 2005 (UTC)
Since the Butler report fails to show any evidence for their claim there were other sources for the uranium claim this needs to be mentioned. It opens the possibility for a mistake being made, if not worse.-- Nomen Nescio 10:36, 5 December 2005 (UTC)
By removing the remark that the Butler report did not advance evidence of its conclusion 161.215.18.51 and 64.12.116.13 are possibly guilty of vandalism. If the deleted statement is incorrect please explain. If you keep continuing your unwarranted edits without discussion I will ask an Admin to intervene!-- Nomen Nescio 10:11, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
The source of the forgeries now appears to be France. I'll try and track down some links and add to the article. Sdaconsulting 18:32, 21 Sep 2004 (UTC)
It looks according to the linked articles (La Repubblica, reported by Carlo Bonini and Giuseppe d'Avanzo and the Huffington Post) that 1) Rocco Martino, former Italian Intelligence agent, was likely the forger; 2) Rocco Martino, a female Embassy of Niger employee, and Zakaria Yaou Maiga (another Embassy of Niger employee) stole the materials needed for the forgery in a simulated burglary; 3) this was done with the collaboration of (and likely instigation by) Antonio Nucera, an Italian Intelligence official; 4) Italian Intelligence was pressured by Stephen Hadley to produce inculpatory material against Iraq; 5) Italian Intelligence provided the forged documents; and 6) when the Bush Administration began to use the forged documents as the basis for threatening Iraq, Italian Intelligence and a Berlusconi-controlled newspaper were complicit in covering-up the known falsity of the documents. I'm not saying these are facts, but they certainly seem to be what has been reported. I think this reporting deserves more attention and clarity in this article. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2006/04/08/nigerian-embassy-employee_n_18749.html http://www.repubblica.it/2005/j/sezioni/esteri/iraq69/sismicia/sismicia.html translated here: http://nuralcubicle.blogspot.com/2005/10/berlusconi-behind-fake-yellowcake.html Jensiverson ( talk) 15:22, 16 December 2007 (UTC)
But probably an acceptable one? The article treats "the yellowcake forgery" as an accepted term, like "Teapot Dome."
"Teapot Dome" gets over 25,000 Google hits. "Yellowcake Forgery" in quotes gets less than 200. Without quotes, over 5,000. Clearly a neologism, but I can't think of an alternative . . . artifact of current event driven article . . . Chris vLS 18:19, 28 Dec 2004 (UTC)
It disagrees with most everything in here. [1]
Try the section called "Niger"? It's conclusive findings are on pages 72-83. They disagree with most everything in here. :-) Really.
Batvette
03:58, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
The October 2002 National Intelligence Esmtimate concluded that "the claims of Iraqi pursuit of natural uranium in Africa are, in INR's assessment, highly dubious." Does anybody disagree that the October NIE sheds some light on this issue? Macuna03macuna03
Several of us have asked for some specification of what's supposedly inaccurate. We get no answer, but the tag keeps getting applied. It's extremely unhelpful for people to question an article's accuracy, and put the tag on, without setting forth the alleged inaccuracy on the talk page. I'm refraining from removing the tag because I hope to avoid an edit war, but I will remove it unless there's some good-faith effort to move the discussion forward. JamesMLane 8 July 2005 06:32 (UTC)
I have just completed a revision because there were multiple errors and omissions.
1. In Bush’s state of the union address, his sixteen words were “The British Government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa.” Some have taken this to refer to the false documents. However the statement credits the British Government which did not have the false documents but did have evidence of the attempt to buy uranium including confirmation from Iraqi officials. This information is available in the Butler report. 2. Colin Powell’s speech does not mention the yellowcake documents. I have searched the entire transcript of his speech before the UN for the words “Niger” and “yellowcake” and neither appear. In addition, the US Report on PreWar Intelligence (page 68) also says Powell did not use the claim in his speech. 3. The Butler Report describes the sixteen words Pres Bush spoke in the state of the union address as “well founded.” 4. A separate report by the US Senate Intelligence Committee said July 7 that the US also had similar information from “a number of intelligence reports,” a fact that was classified at the time Bush spoke. 5. Ironically, former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, who later called Bush’s 16 words a “lie”, supplied information that the Central Intelligence Agency took as confirmation that Iraq may indeed have been seeking uranium from Niger. 6. Both the US and British investigations make clear that some forged Italian documents, exposed as fakes soon after Bush spoke, were not the basis for the British intelligence Bush cited, or the CIA's conclusion that Iraq was trying to get uranium. The Butler report made the following conclusions on page 139: a. It is accepted by all parties that Iraqi officials visited Niger in 1999. b. The British Government had intelligence from several different sources indicating that this visit was for the purpose of acquiring uranium. Since uranium constitutes almost three-quarters of Niger’s exports, the intelligence was credible. c. The evidence was not conclusive that Iraq actually purchased, as opposed to having sought, uranium and the British Government did not claim this. d. The forged documents were not available to the British Government at the time its assessment was made, and so the fact of the forgery does not undermine it. RonCram
RonCram's dscription is as factual as it gets, as for this: "we do not assume that governments with a vested interest in defending their policies always tell the truth." The results of official government inquiries cannot be automatically called suspect merely because their conclusions support policy you disagree with.
For some reason, my earlier discussion of errors and omissions was moved to the bottom of the screen. I am not certain why that happened.
In the present revision, the author claims the forged documents were forged by the CIA under direction from the Bush Administration. This is certainly a biased comment as the investigation is still going on.
In addition, the new revision has no mention of the controversy that surrounds the claim the forged documents were the basis Bush's statement in the State of the Union Address. Bush clearly credits the British Government for this information and the Butler Report claims they did not know about the forged documents at that time. The British information was based on other sources including Iraqi officials. This shows bias and needs to be revised. RonCram
Thank you for answering my earlier question.
1. There is no truth to the statement that Pres Bush asserted a link between Saddam and African terrorist groups based on British intelligence. Uranium is a well-mnitored export of Niger. According to the Butler Report, Saddam was attempting to purchase uranium surreptitiously through the Niger government and did come to terms on the deal in 2002, although there is no proof the deal actually went through.
2. The Downing Street memos are themselves unable to be authenticated. They were "retyped" by the reporter to excise certain names. The originals were destroyed. There is no way to check the veracity of the Downing Street memos. This should be noted.
3. The Senate has asked the FBI to investigate who produced the forgeries, not the CIA. News reports so far have pointed the finger at someone working for France. I have posted an external link.
4. Is there any evidence to support the claim by critics that the CIA was directed to produce the forgeries? If so, a link would be helpful to readers. If not, the lack of support should be noted.
Other clarifications are also needed but I haven't the time at the moment. RonCram
I added a note on the Michael Ledeen page about what is mentioned here, but it keeps getting reverted. Do people here think the Cannistraro implications are worth mentioning on the Ledeen page? Please add your voice there. Thanks -- csloat 05:25, 20 July 2005 (UTC)
Yes--it makes sense there. Tchoupitoulas 17:37, 20 July 2005 (UTC)
A key point made by the Butler Report was that British government didn't have the forged documents until after Bush's speech, so the forged documents couldn't have played any role in the British intelligence report that Bush cited. It appears that this was more weasel-wording to cover up the pack of lies used to try to justify the war. The British government didn't have the documents themselves, but did have a summary of the documents, and used it as one source in making the report cited. [3] This is another illustration that we shouldn't just report what's in a government document as if it were fact, at least in circumstances like this. JamesMLane 03:58, 24 July 2005 (UTC)
Most of the information in this story deals with the general issue of Iraq & Niger uranium. Clearly this connection was being investigated by early 2002. Powell & Tenet testified in September 2002 about it. However, the forgeries per se were not received by the US until October 2002, according to the article. The link James provides just above states that the US had received a written summary of the documents from Italian intelligence "more than six months" previous to March 2003. So, the question is what role did the forgeries themselves play in the more general pattern of using unreliable intelligence. The timeline of their use is unclear. I think perhaps this article should be moved to "Niger uranium" to emphasize the broader intelligence issues, which most of the article addresses anyway. For example, the Butler report says these documents weren't used by UK intelligence (but see James above). However, the intelligence that the UK did admittedly use was also clearly quite weak.
Comments? Derex 16:03, 4 October 2005 (UTC)
It is clear from the sixteen words Bush spoke that he was relying on British intelligence for his information, not documents the British government was not aware of. The overall tenor of the article was wrong. According to the Butler Report Saddam had men trying to buy uranium in Africa at the time Joe Wilson was there trying to build a case that it never happened. RonCram 14:19, 28 October 2005 (UTC)
Gentlemen, some clarification is in order. Mirror Vax seems to think the Brits relied on the U.S. for the intelligence. Not true. They did confer with US intelligence to verify what they had learned and that is when the information exchange took place - after Britain already had information from multiple sources. Nescio finds it suspicious that two separate intelligence agencies would make the same mistake. The proper explanation is there is no mistake. The Yellowcake documents were forged but the reports about Iraq aeeking uranium came from multiple sources. Iraq sought uranium from both Niger and the Republic of Congo. Here are some conclusions from the Butler Report (which is not altogether supportive of other intelligence findings on WMD in Iraq) which are found on pages 122-125:
494. There was further and separate intelligence that in 1999 the Iraqi regime had also made inquiries about the purchase of uranium ore in the Democratic Republic of Congo. In this case, there was some evidence that by 2002 an agreement for a sale had been reached.
499. We conclude that, on the basis of the intelligence assessments at the time, covering both Niger and the Democratic Republic of Congo, the statements on Iraqi attempts to buy uranium from Africa in the Government’s dossier, and by the Prime Minister in the House of Commons, were well-founded. By extension, we conclude also that the statement in President Bush’s State of the Union Address of 28 January 2003 that: "The British Government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa" was well-founded.
503. From our examination of the intelligence and other material on Iraqi attempts to buy uranium from Africa, we have concluded that:
I hope this clears up any misunderstanding about Bush relying on the forged documents when he made his State of the Union address. RonCram 22:01, 28 October 2005 (UTC)
Evidently this theory that the Niger documents were the source of the claim is difficult for you to give up. The documents were "among the sources" used. That is true. When intelligence comes in from a ally, leaders like to have it confirmed by their own intelligence agencies. The forged documents were used as confirmation. At the time of the speech, not everyone in the intelligence community knew about the British intelligence and some of them were skeptial of the Niger documents. Like you, people inside the CIA (including Plame and Wilson) thought these documents were the only source. On that point, they were in error.
As the Butler Report makes clear, the British did not know about the forged documents. They had multiple sources for the intelligence as can been seen by the fact Saddam did not just seek uranium from Niger. He also sought it from the Congo. The article you linked to by Landay and Strobel bears a withering defect in that it does not discuss the Butler Report at all. If they had, they would have had answers they would rather not report.
Regarding #2 above, the only hints on the British intelligence that I know of are found in the Butler Report. As you probably know, intelligence agencies do not like to publish their sources.
Regarding #3, Bush referred to the British claim because they had multiple sources that were highly credible and the Niger documents were not identified as forgeries at the time of the State of the Union message (Jan 2003). Some in the intelligence community were skeptical of the documents, but that is not the same as the IAEA conclusion. Remember, much of British intelligence on WMDs in Iraq was shot down by the Butler Report but the claim of Saddam seeking uranium in Africa survived with flying colors (or colours as the British would say).
Regarding #4, withdrawing the claim after the documents were declared forgeries was the prudent thing to do. The IAEA declared them forgeries in March, 2003. A review of intelligence is always required after such a finding. At this point in time, I believe most people in the Bush Administration believe the British intelligence is correct and that our own CIA got it wrong.
Regarding #5, the UK did not find the intelligence agencies at fault with regard to Saddam seeking uranium in Africa.
I would suggest you read Able Danger to learn more about the intelligence community and the failures and turf battles that go on. The CIA would not support the Able Danger project because they did not want them to steal their thunder. I hope the culture at the CIA is changing under Porter Goss. Any CIA official who would put US citizens in danger over a turf battle deserves a special place in hell. RonCram 14:10, 30 October 2005 (UTC)
It has been a while since I have visited this page. There seem to be a few things I need to clear up. First, if Saddam was seeking uranium in Niger, we did not know at the time that he did not obtain it there. The French control the mines and could have sold. Also, Saddam could have found uranium elsewhere in Africa. He was known to have sought it in the Congo as well and we do not know how many other places he may sought it. Second, my comment about a "special place in hell" for CIA people referred to those who would not cooperate with the Able Danger team to stop al Qaeda because they wanted to get the credit. That is a ridiculous position to take and I stand by my comment. Third, I fully support the FBI investigation into the forgery of these documents. People who try to influence foreign policy by misinformation and forged documents should be prosecuted. I think it is entirely too early to be pointing fingers at any individual yet. But perhaps I am not as well informed on the subject. For the time being, I will wait to see what the investigation uncovers. In the meantime I continue to hold my position that the forged documents had no bearing on Bush's State of the Union message. The Butler Report made that clear. For some reason, that discredited claim continues to be made. RonCram 16:45, 3 December 2005 (UTC)
Why was it prudent to retract the uranium claim if that claim was entirely correct!!!!! Please explain. There either was or was no evidence of SH seeking uranium. Your position is that he did, so why retract that statement???????-- Nomen Nescio 16:41, 5 December 2005 (UTC)
Since the Butler report fails to show any evidence for their claim there were other sources for the uranium claim this needs to be mentioned. It opens the possibility for a mistake being made, if not worse.-- Nomen Nescio 10:36, 5 December 2005 (UTC)
By removing the remark that the Butler report did not advance evidence of its conclusion 161.215.18.51 and 64.12.116.13 are possibly guilty of vandalism. If the deleted statement is incorrect please explain. If you keep continuing your unwarranted edits without discussion I will ask an Admin to intervene!-- Nomen Nescio 10:11, 7 December 2005 (UTC)