CIA EXPOSE NEW LIE IN BLAIR'S IRAQ DOSSIER
Jun 13 2003
By Mark Ellis, Foreign Editor
THE case for the war on Saddam suffered another hammer blow last night after claims that Iraq tried to buy nuclear weapons were exposed as a lie.
It emerged that the CIA had investigated reports that Iraqi agents attempted to buy uranium in Niger - and found them false.
But 11 months later George Bush used the story to build his case for war against Saddam Hussein.
And Tony Blair put it in his assessment, which was presented to Parliament in September.
The revelations are a major embarrassment to Mr Bush and Mr Blair after coalition forces failed to find any weapons of mass destruction at 87 prime sites in Iraq.
MPs this week condemned Mr Blair for presenting a second "dodgy dossier" of mixed secret intelligence and a student's thesis of 12-year-old information as fresh evidence of Saddam's weapons capability.
The two leaders made Iraq's nuclear arms programme a key plank in their case for war.
Mr Blair said in his crucial document, Iraq's Weapons of Mass Destruction in September, which included the alleged Niger incident: "What I believe the assessed intelligence has established beyond doubt is that Saddam has continued to produce chemical and biological weapons, that he continues in his efforts to develop nuclear weapons.''
And Mr Bush declared in his State of the Union address in January, that "the British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa". But a retired US ambassador was sent to the central African state in February 2002.
He reported back that alleged weapons documents may have been forged because the dates and names were wrong. Yesterday it emerged that he was so worried when he heard Britain's nuclear claims that he contacted the CIA. He was told that agents were looking into new information. He contacted the CIA and the State Department after Bush's speech but was told "not to worry".
CIA director George Tenet referred to the Niger case in a closed briefing to the Senate intelligence committee in September but did not say his own agency had investigated it.
Democrat senator Bob Graham, a former chairman of the intelligence select committee, said the case revealed "part of the the agency's standard operating procedure when it wants to advance the information that supported their position and bury that which didn't''.
US Congress will next week start hearings into claims that intelligence was exaggerated to justify war.
Democrat Henry Waxman said: "We must find out whether the CIA deceived the president or whether it is deceiving the public now to protect the president."
But the CIA last night rejected any blame for Mr Bush using false intelligence information.
Spokesman Bill Harlow said that documents supplied to congressional committees would show that the CIA "did not withhold information from appropriate officials" about Iraq's alleged Niger connection.
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