Hans Blix has released an interview to the Italian daily, la Repubblica, on the Niger yellowcake canard. Hans Blix was head of the UN Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission (Unmovic) during the crucial period leading up to the invasion of Iraq. The report, published on December 10th, is signed by Carlo Bonini and Giuseppe D’Avanzo.
It isn’t the first time Hans Blix has expressed himself on the Niger forgeries. In a 2004 interview with Jim Lehrer Blix characterized the Niger affair as scandalous:
HANS BLIX: There are two, there are three monumental. The first one I mentioned, this was the alleged contract between Iraq and Niger on the import of raw uranium. Both the CIA and British intelligence had had that for months. It was referred to by President Bush in the State of the Union message in 2003. And the IAEA was asking to get it and they got it fairly late I think in February 2003. And it took them only a day to establish that this was a forgery. Now, I think with the intelligence agency with all their labs and their techniques, that was monumental that they had not discovered this.
In fact also, we know now that Ambassador Wilson of the U.S. had been to Niger and he had also expressed the view that this was not real. The other one was the British news of something that turned out to be a research essay by an Iraqi student at a university, and this was presented as something new, some new evidence. They had to pull it back eventually. So I think there were things that really were, in my view, rather scandalous.
Snip
JIM LEHRER: Scandalous. That’s a serious word. Scandalous in what way?
HANS BLIX: Well, I refer to the uranium contract, the yellow cake. Isn’t it scandalous if something that the IAEA takes a day to see is a forgery can sit around the laboratories and intelligence agencies for months without their discovering it?
It was Jacques Baute who had figured out the Niger dossier was false within a matter of hours after getting them on February 4th 2003, a day before Powell’s trumped-up test-tube speech to the UN Security Council. Baute could not believe the US and the UK were going on such feeble and contrived evidence.
“The Selling of the Iraq War: The First Casualty”
By John B. Judis and Spencer Ackerman New Republic June 30, 2003
There has been a lot of rightwing ink thrown around on the fact that David Albright knew in advance what El Baradei would then declare officially on March 7th, 2003. Between February 4th and March 7th, the IAEA did a thorough job of verification and interviewing possible protagonists and witnesses. This however does not exclude the initial tentative conclusions which obviously made the rounds. Some pundits have accused Baute of telling Albright in advance, but that remains to be proven.
In the Repubblica interview Hans Blix makes some fairly strong statements:
Blix then makes sort shrift of Bush’s assertion that the information came from the English.
Just as in the Lehrer interview, Blix has no doubts about the administration’s prior knowledge of the falsity of the Niger case. Nor does he have any doubts that the English intelligence is based on the Italian documents.
You assert that the Americans are using the English as a cover for the Niger uranium. This would mean that the English had the same information contained in the Italian documents.
HANS BLIX: “That’s correct. The English had the same information contained in the Italian documents.”
However, the English maintain that their conclusions on Niger are based on evidence from different intelligence sources and acquired elsewhere.
HANS BLIX: “This statement by the English, as of today, remains nothing more than a simple affirmation. It is not based on any evidence that would warrant one to say “here’s different proof on the Niger uranium.” London has never come forth with these “other proofs.” Besides, the fact that the English had the same information contained in the Italian documents is demonstrated by the simple circumstance that they have never denied it. Simply because they could not deny it.”
It’s worth noting that all UN member states have the obligation to turn over all documentary evidence they possess concerning possible illegal traffic of fissionable material to the IAEA. How often nations fill their obligations is another question, but when a nation goes public with an accusation as England and the U.S. did, they have little choice but to comply. Both nations hedged and gravely retarded turning over the documentation despite repeated and public requests. As it appears in this interview the IAEA had already got wind of the dossier by the autumn of 2002 and Baute was already pressing them to turn over evidence before El Baradei went public with his request after Powell’s December 19th accusations.
The fact that the two nations did not turn over other evidence is simply because they had no other evidence.
But let’s continue with the Repubblica interview and see what Blix has to say on recent developments in the case.
HANS BLIX: “I was informed by the offices of the IAEA in Vienna in the autumn of 2002, even if I don’t recall the exact date. However, I remember perfectly well my reaction. I thought it was absolute rubbish. We knew precisely that Iraq had large reserves of yellowcake accumulated over the years and above all we knew that [Iraq] was not able to enrich it. So this Niger story made no sense logically.”
In what terms were you informed?
HANS BLIX: “In sufficiently precise terms. I was told that the Aiea had heard from the Americans about the existence of a contract for the supply of yellowcake to Iraq by Niger: and it was added that Jacques Baute was trying without success to obtain those documents in order to evaluate them.”
Do you remember if Italy was ever mentioned in the communiqué?
HANS BLIX: “There was no reference to Italy. That the documents originated in Rome only came out in the spring of 2003 after they had been declared false by the IAEA.”
Have you made any conjectures on the origins and the responsibility for the operation of the falsification and dissemination of the documents?
HANS BLIX: “I stick to proven facts. It’s a fact that the documents originated in Rome and were put together there. It’s a fact that an Italian distributed them. For whom? For what reason? With whose complicity? These are all questions that still await an answer and for which different hypotheses have been formulated. But one thing is certain: this story admits only two possibilities.”
Which?
HANS BLIX: “If it’s a scam to make some money, seeing as this story starts in Rome and ends in Washington via London, that means it’s possible to fool some of the best equipped Western intelligences on the planet. Therefore, we find ourselves in front of amateurish secret services. Which is not good news. If, on the contrary, it was a [deliberate] forgery, then that means someone acted with malicious intent. In that case we have to find out who this person is, since this story cost [us] a war.”
The Italian government and intelligence accuses France of being behind the manipulation.
Blix laughs. “I don’t know the details of this hypothesis, but I frankly see a smoke screen. I think that often the intelligence services dis-inform rather than inform. And this could be the case. One thing is certain.”
What?
HANS BLIX: “Here nobody wants to put intentions on trial with hindsight. Because when the responsibility for Nigergate is discussed, one refers to an essential circumstance, which not surprisingly everyone forgets or pretends to forget. On March 7th, 2003, the day El Baradei declared that the Italian documents concerning yellowcake were false, the war had not yet started. It still could have been stopped. Why didn’t anyone do it? Why did the nations that now recognize publicly la falseness of the “proof” did not at the time publicly denounce what was going on? The Nigergate scandal- and let me stress the word `scandal’- is precisely that. It’s scandalous that nothing was done after March 7th. Besides, in that period, no one seemed disposed to doubt that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. And those who did paid the price.”
Let’s go back to what you call the “Nigergate scandal.” What do you think about the fact that the story has yet to find those answers that you mentioned before?
HANS BLIX: “I’ll suggest two considerations. The first: how will it be possible from now on to believe the United States when it cries wolf? How will it be possible to take for genuine intelligence information that gave that sort of proof in the Iraq affair? Take an example. Let’s say U.S. intelligence has seized a computer that proves the Iranian nuclear program is not for civil use. Well, I don’t know if that information is trustworthy or not. And I ask myself: how can I trust [them]?”
And the second consideration?
HANS BLIX: “Nigergate demonstrates the politicization of intelligence. We’ve been told that on the eve of the war, the western information services told the national governments what those governments wanted to hear. And this had disastrous effects, both before and after. Because if you make a mistaken diagnosis you can be sure that the therapy is going to be totally off mark. And that is exactly what happened in Iraq.”
First posted at Eurotrib by de Gondi.