Fake Iraq documents 'embarrassing' for U.S.

Post-9/11 Era Forum

Intelligence documents that U.S. and British governments said were strong evidence that Iraq was developing nuclear weapons have been dismissed as forgeries by U.N. weapons inspectors.

The documents, given to International Atomic Energy Agency Director General Mohamed ElBaradei, indicated that Iraq might have tried to buy 500 tons of uranium from Niger, but the agency said they were "obvious" fakes.

U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell referred to the documents directly in his presentation to the U.N. Security council outlining the Bush administration's case against Iraq.

"I'm sure the FBI and CIA must be mortified by this because it is extremely embarrassing to them," former CIA official Ray Close said.

Responding to questions about the documents from lawmakers, Powell said, "It was provided in good faith to the inspectors and our agency received it in good faith, not participating ... in any way in any falsification activities."

"It was the information that we had. We provided it. If that information is inaccurate, fine," Powell said on NBC's "Meet the Press" last Sunday.

"We don't believe that all the issues surrounding nuclear weapons have been resolved [in Iraq]," he said.

How were forgeries missed?
But the discovery raises questions such as why the apparent forgeries were given to inspectors and why U.S. and British intelligence agents did not recognize that they were not authentic.

Sources said that one of the documents was a letter discussing the uranium deal supposedly signed by Niger President Tandja Mamadou. The sources described the signature as "childlike" and said that it clearly was not Mamadou's.

Another, written on paper from a 1980s military government in Niger, bears the date of October 2000 and the signature of a man who by then had not been foreign minister of Niger in 14 years, sources said.

"The IAEA has concluded, with the concurrence of outside experts that these documents -- which formed the basis for the reports of recent uranium transactions between Iraq and Niger -- are not in fact authentic," ElBaradei said in his March 7 presentation to the U.N. Security Council.

Close said the CIA should have known better.

"They have tremendously sophisticated and experienced people in their technical services division, who wouldn't allow a forgery like this to get by," Close said. "I mean it's just mystifying to me. I can't understand it."

A U.S. intelligence official said that the documents were passed on to the International Atomic Energy Agency within days of being received with the comment, " 'We don't know the provenance of this information, but here it is.' "

If a mistake was made, a U.S. official suggested, it was more likely due to incompetence not malice.

"That's a convenient explanation, but it doesn't satisfy me," Close said. "Incompetence I have not seen in those agencies. I've seen plenty of malice, but I've never seen incompetence."

Who made the forgeries?
But the question remains -- who is responsible for the apparent forgeries?

Experts said the suspects include the intelligence services of Iraq's neighbors, other pro-war nations, Iraqi opposition groups or simply con men.

Most rule out the United States, Great Britain or Israel because they said those countries' intelligence services would have been able to make much more convincing forgeries if they had chosen to do so.

President Bush even highlighted the documents in his State of the Union address on January 28.

"The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa," Bush said.

U.S. officials said that the assertion by the president and British government was also based on additional evidence of Iraqi efforts to obtain uranium from another African country. But officials would not say which nation and a knowledgable U.S. official said that there was not much to that evidence either.

Source: CNN

this one was proven false, now we need to ask ourself about the others.

even more when thousands of deaths come as a result.

I posted a message about these false documents the other day but nobody believed me. They always want "proof". These documents are just a string in a giant web of lies by the Bush administration.

Yes and the Neo-Nazi skin heads rampage, destroy, hurt, kill, etc. etc. etc. many people on a routine basis.

Nice group of folks that reside in Europe huh...=P

Yeah, we have our problems...we are the root of all evil in this world.

As I've already said in several posts...lets just bring home all the American military forces abroad and keep em home.

If someone invades another...welp...let someone else deal with it...its not our problem...since we are soooo evil. We shoulda never went to Vietnam, WWII, Gulf War 1....shoulda just stayed out of eveyrone elses business. Pull outta NATO, SHAPE, and even the UN...hell move the UN HQ to France...they have all the proper and good ideas.

No one bothers the US with their "political and economical" problems, we don't bother anyone else....draft up some trade agreements and thats about it.

That should make quite a few folks happy.

And at the same time - let's pull out all foreign aid. Keep the money in the family - that should make them happy, too. (right?)

Lord knows there is plenty of money coming in from elsewhere.

:wink:

Not suprised at all

everything in this push for war is a lie

wasn't colin powels dosier plagerized at his UN speech also

THIS ADMINISTRATION WAS CREATED BY LIES (bush stole the election)

what do you expect?

Bush is about to lie again this week, if he doesn't get a 2nd resolution

"ITS TIME TO SHOW YOUR CARDS"
****ing lying bastard
"WAR IS MY LAST OPTION"
lying sack of ****

NY times did an article recently on all the times GWB has lied to the american people

which makes me wonder, why so many people trust him