03Jan04-Don Sellar-Who forged the Niger uranium papers?
DON SELLAR
"The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa. Our intelligence sources tell us that he has attempted to purchase high-strength aluminum tubes suitable for nuclear weapons production." — U.S. President George W. Bush, State of the Union address, Jan. 28, 2003.
Of all the news stories the Star published in 2003, the disputed tale of an Iraqi quest for nuclear weapons ranks as the most perplexing.
True, the provocative allegation Bush levelled against Saddam last January on the brink of war lies in tatters. But the whole story hasn't been told. There are big gaps for good journalists to fill.
Let's start at the beginning.
On Dec. 20, 2002, the Star ran an Associated Press item in which the U.S. State Department declared Iraq had failed to say in a weapons declaration that it tried to buy uranium in Niger.
Earlier, British intelligence had accused Saddam of trying to buy "significant'' amounts of uranium in Africa, but the U.S. State Department was first to name Niger, a largely Muslim nation whose leading export is uranium.
Soon, other news reports said authorities in Niger had confirmed they'd rebuffed an attempt 20 years earlier.
Then, on Jan. 28, Bush repeated the allegation in his State of the Union speech. It would come back to bite him when evidence of Weapons of Mass Destruction failed to materialize.
On March 8, Mohamed ElBaradei of the International Atomic Energy Agency told the U.N. Security Council his inspectors had found no evidence to back U.S. and British claims.
ElBaradei, head of the Vienna-based U.N. body, said its inspectors had concluded that suspicious items in Iraq (including the high-strength aluminum tubes Bush cited) were unsuitable for enriching uranium and making weapons-grade nuclear material.
Not only did ElBaradei dismiss charges that Iraq was shopping for uranium in Africa, he said his agency had examined documents that turned out to be "in fact not authentic."
In other words, forgeries.
On June 12, nearly two months after Saddam's regime collapsed, Star readers were treated to an intriguing dispatch by the Washington Post's Walter Pincus. He reported a CIA-run mission to Niger in early 2002 had debunked the shopping-for-uranium story.
Inexplicably, the CIA hadn't told the White House. So the fabricated story lived on, bolstering the U.S. case for war even after major combat ended.
In July, former U.S. diplomat Joseph Wilson revealed he was the "unnamed former envoy" who had travelled to Niger. While there, he'd concluded it was "highly doubtful that any such transaction had ever taken place."
Much controversy ensued. Suffice it to say, White House credibility took hits all summer. As late as September, Vice-President Dick Cheney stoutly contended on TV that the uranium allegation had been "revalidated."
Regardless, two big questions remain unanswered: Who forged the papers, and why? Theories abound. The most intriguing came from veteran journalist Seymour M. Hersh, in the Oct. 27 New Yorker. But he didn't name an informant who told him a few disgruntled ex-CIA spooks had drafted the fake papers to get back at Cheney.
Was Hersh right? Journalism is supposed to be a search for truth. Yet there are few signs the story is being pursued with vigour. An ombud's wish for 2004.
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ombud@thestar.ca
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