Part 3 >> Also on October 11, 2002, the U.S. Embassy in Rome reported to State
Department headquarters that it had acquired photocopies of documents on a purported uranium
deal between Iraq and Niger from an Italian journalist. The cable said that the embassy had
passed the documents to the CIA'5
The embassy faxed the documents to the
State Department's Bureau of Nonproliferation (NP) on October 15, 2002, which passed a copy
of the documents to INR.
(U) Immediately after receiving the documents, the INR Iraq nuclear analyst e-mailed IC
colleagues offering to provide the documents at a previously planned meeting of the Nuclear
Interdiction Action Group (NIAG) the following day. The analyst, apparently already suspicious
of the validity of the documents noted in his e-mail, "you'll note that it bears a funky Emb. of
Niger stamp (to make it look official, I guess)."
(U) The INR Iraq nuclear analyst told Committee staff that the thing that stood out
immediately about the documents was that a companion document - a document included with
the Niger documents that did not relate to uranium - mentioned some type of military campaign
against major world powers. The members of the alleged military campaign included both Iraq
and Iran, and was, according to the documents, being orchestrated through the Nigerien Embassy
in Rome, which all struck the analyst as "completely implausible." Because the stamp on this
document matched the stamp on the uranium document, the analyst thought that all of the
documents were likely suspect. The analyst was unaware at the time of any formatting problems
with the documents or inconsistencies with the names or dates.
(U) On October 16, 2002, INR made copies of the documents available at the NIAG
meeting for attendees, including representatives from the CIA, DIA, DOE and NSA. Because the
analyst who offered to provide the documents was on leave, the office's senior analyst provided
the documents. She cannot recall how she made the documents available, but analysts from
several agencies, including the DIA, NSA and DOE, did pick up copies at that meeting. None of
the four CIA representatives recall picking up the documents, however, during the CIA Inspector
General's investigation of this issue, copies of the documents were found in the DO's CPD vault.
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It appears that a CPD representative did pick up the documents at the NIAG meeting, but after
returning to the office, filed them without any further distribution.
The CIA told the Committee its analysts did not seek to obtain copies of the
documents because they believed that the foreign government service reporting was verbatim text
and did not think it would advance the story on the alleged uranium deal. One analyst noted that,
at the time, the CIA was preparing its case ^ ^ ^ ^ H on reconstitution and since the uranium
reporting was not significant to their argument, getting the documents was not a priority.
(U) On November 22, 2002, during a meeting with State Department officials, the French
Ministry of Foreign Affairs Director for Nonproliferation said that France had information on an
Iraqi attempt to buy uranium from Niger. He said that France had determined that no uranium
had been shipped, but France believed the reporting was true that Iraq had made a procurement
attempt for uranium from Niger.
^ ^ ^ ^ On November 25, 2002, The Naval |
^ ^ H H issued a very brief report {Alleged Storage of Uranium Destined for Iraq HHI^^^I^^Ii^^lllHll^^^mi that a large quantity of uranium from Niger was
being stored in a warehouse in Cotonou, Benin. The uranium was reportedly sold to Iraq by
Niger's President. The report provided the name and telephone numbers for the individual, a
West African businessman, who was responsible for coordinating the alleged uranium
transaction and indicated that he was willing to provide information about the transaction. CIA's
DO told Committee staff that the businessman has never been contacted and the DO has not
made an effort to determine whether this individual had any useful information. The DO told
Committee staff that they saw no reason to contact him and noted that "no one even thought to
do that." The Defense Humint Service (DHS) and the Navy also told Committee staff that they
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did not try to contact the businessman. The Navy told the Committee that because they were not
further tasked regarding their report, they did not pursue the matter further. The DHS told
Committee staff that because the DHS examined the warehouse on December 17, 2002 and saw
only what appeared to be bales of cotton in the warehouse, they did not see a reason to contact
the businessman. The report on the DHS's findings was not published until February 10, 2003.
(Seepage 68)
(U) On December 17, 2002, WINPAC analysts produced a paper, U.S. Analysis of Iraq's
Declaration, 7 December 2002. The paper reviewed Iraq's "Currently Accurate, Full and
Complete Disclosure" to the UN of its WMD programs and made only two points regarding the
nuclear program - one noted Iraq's failure to explain its procurement of aluminum tubes the IC
assessed could be used in a nuclear program, and the other noted that the declaration "does not
acknowledge efforts to procure uranium from Niger, one of the points addressed in the U.K.
Dossier." An e-mail from the INR Iraq nuclear analyst to a DOE analyst on December 23, 2002
indicated that the analyst was surprised that INR's well known alternative views on both the
aluminum tubes and the uranium information were not included in the points before they were
transmitted to the NSC. The DOE analyst commented in an e-mail response to INR that, "it is
most disturbing that WINPAC is essentially directing foreign policy in this matter. There are
some very strong points to be made in respect to Iraq's arrogant non-compliance with UN
sanctions. However, when individuals attempt to convert those "strong statements" into the
"knock out" punch, the Administration will ultimately look foolish - i.e. the tubes and Niger!"
H. The Fact Sheet
(U) On December 18, 2002, the Department of State's Assistant Secretary for the Bureau
of Public Affairs (PA) asked the Under Secretary for Arms Control and International Security to
help develop a response to Iraq's December 7, 2002 declaration to the UN. PA also contacted
the State Department Bureau of Nonproliferation (NP) directly. The fact sheet was to be
published after Ambassador John Negroponte delivered a speech to the UNSC the following
morning, and after the Secretary of State held a press conference shortly thereafter.
(U) Later the same day, an NP special assistant prepared a draft of the fact sheet based on
an existing copy of Negroponte's speech and sent the draft to the Director of WINPAC at the
CIA for coordination. In a phone conversation with an NP special assistant, the WINPAC
Director made a few edits, but did not change the reference to Iraq's procurement of uranium
from Niger. The suggested edits were outlined in a State Department e-mail and show no
comments regarding the Niger uranium information.
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(U) Separately, the NSC staff coordinated the Negroponte speech directly with the
WINPAC Director and he recommended that "Niger" be replaced with "Africa" in the speech.
At 11:28 a.m. on the morning of December 19, 2002, NP e-mailed its draft fact sheet
to several offices in the State Department, including INR's Office of Analysis for Strategic,
Proliferation, and Military Issues (SPM). NP sent the e-mail to the senior analyst in the office
and did not indicate that there was a response deadline for comments. At 12:20 p.m. the senior
analyst passed the fact sheet to three other analysts to solicit comments. At 1:12 p.m. the ^ ^ H
Iraq nuclear analyst in SPM sent comments to NP requesting that the word "reported" be added
before "efforts" in the sentence, "the declaration ignores efforts to procure uranium from Niger."
The e-mail added "as you know, INR assesses this reporting as dubious. Policymakers are
entitled to leave out the word 'reported,' but the INR/SPM would not sign off on such a move."
The INR's comments did not reach NP before the fact sheet had already been forwarded to the
Office of Public Affairs. NP did not try to retrieve the document from PA to make the INR's
recommended change.
(U) At about the same time, the action officer for Iraq in the State Department's Office of
United Nations Political Affairs (IO/UNP) responded to NP that the draft fact sheet needed to be
vetted with WINPAC because some items in the Negroponte speech had been changed. NP,
aware that the fact sheet had already been cleared with WINPAC but unaware that WINPAC had
told the NSC the prior evening to change the "Niger" reference to "Africa," told IO/UNP that the
fact sheet was consistent with the speech. Later that afternoon, IO/UNP responded to NP's email,
saying "didn't we pull 'from Niger' from Negroponte's comments at IC request?" By that
time, the fact sheet had already been posted to the State Department web page. The fact sheet
said Iraq's declaration, "ignores efforts to procure uranium from Niger."
(U) According to the State Department Inspector General, shortly after the fact sheet was
posted, NP drafted a cable to all embassies which included the fact sheet, Ambassador
Negroponte's speech, and Secretary Powell's public remarks. By this time, aware that the Niger
reference in the Negroponte speech had been changed, NP changed the text of the fact sheet that
was included in the cable to "abroad" instead of "Niger." None of the text was ever changed to
qualify the uranium information as "reported" as recommended by INR.
(U) On December 24, 2002, the Nigerien Prime Minister declared publicly that Niger had
not sold uranium to Iraq and had not been approached since he took office in 2000. Niger's
President and Minister of Mines also denied the sale. These comments were passed in a State
Department cable on December 27, 2002, which noted that the remarks were in response to
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questions from local press after the State Department released its fact sheet noting Iraq's
declaration to the UNSC "ignores efforts to procure uranium from Niger."
On January 6, 2003, |
the head of IAEA/INVO, Jacques Baute, requested information on the alleged Iraq-Niger
uranium deal mentioned in the Department of State's fact sheet.
(U) On January 13, 2003, the INR Iraq nuclear analyst sent an e-mail to several IC
analysts outlining his reasoning why, "the uranium purchase agreement probably is a hoax." He
indicated that one of the documents that purported to be an agreement for a joint military
campaign, including both Iraq and Iran, was so ridiculous that it was "clearly a forgery."
Because this document had the same alleged stamps for the Nigerien Embassy in Rome as the
uranium documents, the analyst concluded "that the uranium purchase agreement probably is a
forgery." When the CIA analyst received the e-mail, he realized that WINP AC did not have
copies of the documents and requested copies from INR. CIA received copies of the foreign
language documents on January 16, 2003.
(U) Two CIA Iraq WINP AC analysts told Committee staff that after looking at the
documents, they did notice some inconsistencies. One of the analysts told Committee staff, "it
was not immediately apparent, it was not jumping out at us that the documents were forgeries."
The CIA then sent the documents to the State Department for translation.
On January 15, 2003, thirteen days before the State of the Union address,
WINP AC provided comments on a White House paper, A Grave and Gathering Danger, saying
"better to generalize first bullet as follows: Sought uranium from Africa to feed the enrichment
process." WINP AC had submitted identical language when it commented on the same paper in
October. The paper was never published.
On January 17, 2003, eleven days before the State of the Union address,
WINP AC published a current intelligence paper {Request for Evidence of Iraq's Nuclear
Weapons Program Other Than the Aluminum Tube Procurement Effort, SPWR011703-01) in
response to a request from the Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff for information, other than the
aluminum tubes, that showed Iraq was reconstituting its nuclear program. Regarding uranium
acquisition, the paper said, "fragmentary reporting on Iraqi attempts to procure uranium from
various countries in Africa in the past several years is another sign of reconstitution. Iraq has no
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legitimate use for uranium." The information on uranium acquisition attempts was one ^ H
streams of intelligence provided to show Iraq was reconstituting its nuclear program.
(U) WINPAC analysts told Committee staff that, even though they were still in the
process of analyzing the documents, their analytic position had not changed, so they believed it
would have been premature to publish concerns about the documents without having investigated
those concerns for themselves. One analyst said that if he were presenting CIA's best evidence
on reconstitution he would not have included the uranium information, but when asked what else
we had besides the tubes, he "ratcheted" down the threshold of what was appropriate to include.
He also indicated that the reference in the paper about efforts to acquire uranium from Africa
were broader than the alleged Niger contract in that it included the reports on Iraqi attempts to
acquire uranium from Somalia and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
(U) Other WINPAC analysts told Committee staff that by January, they had come to
believe that if Iraq was in fact attempting to acquire uranium from Africa, it would bolster their
argument that Iraq was reconstituting its nuclear weapons program because Iraq had no other use
for uranium. Most of the other elements of the reconstitution case, the tubes, magnets, machine
tools and balancing machines, were all dual-use materials, while for Iraq, uranium had only one
potential use - a nuclear weapons program.
(U) On January 20, 2003, the President submitted a report to Congress on Iraq's
noncompliance with UNSC resolutions. The report stated that Iraq had failed to include in its
declaration "attempts to acquire uranium and the means to enrich it." The CIA and the White
House have told Committee staff that the IC did not coordinate on this draft. In a written
response to a question from Committee staff, the Department of State said that their usual role
was to prepare the pre-decisional drafts of this periodic report. Their draft, which was provided
to the NSC on December 9, 2002, did not include the language contained in the final draft on
Iraq's failure to declare "attempts to acquire uranium and the means to enrich it. The CIA
Inspector General told Committee staff the text for the report had been drawn from WINPAC's
assessment of Iraq's UNSC declaration.
(U) On January 24, 2003, in response to a request from the NSC for additional details
regarding IC input to "the case for Saddam possessing weapons of mass destruction," the NIO for
Strategic and Nuclear Programs faxed a packet of background information to the NSC. The fax
contained the information from the October 2002 NIE on Iraq's vigorous attempts to procure
uranium ore and yellowcake from Niger and other countries in Africa. The information was used
to prepare for Secretary Powell's presentation of intelligence to the UN in February 2003.
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