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Politics : DON'T START THE WAR -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: BubbaFred who wrote (18031)	3/9/2003 11:53:05 AM
From: BubbaFred	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 25898

Forensic Experts Uncovered Forgery on Iraq, an Inspector Says By FELICITY BARRINGER NITED NATIONS, March 8 — The forgery in a document that purported to show Iraq trying to buy uranium from Niger was discovered by forensic experts, the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency said today. Dr. Mohamed ElBaradei, the agency's executive director, said the experts found anomalies in the signatures, the letterhead and the format of the document. He told the Security Council on Friday that the forgery had been compared with authentic documents provided by Niger. In an interview today, he said that any number of groups would have had an interest in planting the document, which he said came to him from several sources. It was quoted in a report from British intelligence services last year as Britain and the United States sought to build their case for disarming Iraq. Advertisement Asked whose interest the forgery served, he said: "I'm sure there's a lot of people who would be delighted to malign Iraq." "It could range from Iraqi dissidents to all sorts of other sources," he added. But he said the incident was just a "blip." "In no way do we want to belittle the importance of intelligence," he said. "People have tried to make a big fuss that this document has been forged. "The intelligence we need we get from different sources. Some sources are reliable, some sources are less reliable. Some sources have political agendas of their own." Dr. ElBaradei, who told the Security Council on Friday that he did not have evidence that Iraq has a continuing program to develop nuclear weapons, said today that he needed more time and more intelligence information to reach a firm conclusion. "We have been getting increasing intelligence information in the last three to four weeks," he said. "Some of it is actionable," and produces immediate visits to suspect sites. "Other things we cannot act on," he added, like a telephone conversation by a person that had been intercepted and taped. Documents and other intelligence about specifics like the tolerances of industrial tubing are examined by experts, which in the case of the tubing is a group that counts Britons, Americans and Germans among its members, he said. Dr. ElBaradei made clear that while the inspection process would continue to need updated intelligence, particularly satellite photography, inspectors could not be passive recipients of information and that something akin to police work was required to reach conclusions. nytimes.com