65,398
edits
Changes
no edit summary
[[Seymour M. Hersh]] [http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/?030331fa_fact1 wrote] in the March 24, 2003, ''The New Yorker'' Magazine:
:"Then the story fell apart. On March 7th, Mohamed ElBaradei, the director-general of the [[International Atomic Energy Agency]], in Vienna, told the [[U.N. Security Council]] that the documents involving the Niger-Iraq uranium sale were fakes. 'The I.A.E.A. has concluded, with the concurrence of outside experts, that these documents . . . are in fact not authentic,' ElBaradei said."
:"One senior I.A.E.A. official went further. He told [Hersh], 'These documents are so bad that I cannot imagine that they came from a serious intelligence agency. It depresses me, given the low quality of the documents, that it was not stopped. At the level it reached, I would have expected more checking.'"
:The [[Bush administration]] has failed to provide adequate explanation for this situation, and the national media has failed to pursue the matter.
On March 14, 2003, Senator [[John D. RockefellerIV]] asked the [[FBI]] to investigate the origin of the documents. Rockefeller expressed concern that the forgeries "may be part of a larger deception campaign aimed at manipulating public opinion and foreign policy regarding Iraq."
"If ... you want one piece to bring you fully up to date on the Niger forgery flap, check out [http://www.sundayherald.com/print35264 Neil Mackay's "Niger and Iraq: the war's biggest lie?" in the ''Glasgow Sunday Herald''] ("One senior western diplomat told the Sunday Herald: 'There were more than 20 anomalies in the Niger documents -- it is staggering any intelligence service could have believed they were genuine for a moment.'"). --[http://www.nationinstitute.org/tomdispatch/index.mhtml?pid=815 TomDispatch.com, July 2003].