this is a writing of Pat Lang from Larry Johnson’s site. I find this so interesting in its implications.
see his story below.
Niger Mischief
Homage to Waugh.
All this business about who leaked what to whom is refocusing attention on the question of the validity of the “information” that was the basis for our determination to go to war in Iraq.
Any casual observer of the present scene in that poor country must see that two years after the intervention Iraq has become a major theater of the War on Terror. Was it before the invasion? I think not and my conclusion is based on an understanding of the methods that Arab governments traditionally use in dealing with armed foreign political actors, namely that they try to placate those they can and try to destroy those they can’t. This does not lead me to the maximalist conclusion held by the Bush Administration and its AEI, Heritage and other allies. That conclusion seeming to be that Saddam was an ally of al-Qa’ida in all but name.
This leads to a need to “review the bidding” on what happened along the road to war. To that end, and from a certain self-serving desire to be read, I comment to the reader my article “Drinking the Koolaid,” published in Middle East Policy a couple of years ago. You can find it on their website in the archive.
Among the various items brought to mind by present history is the question of the Niger Document. This was the paper which turned up in the hands of Italian intelligence which purports to establish Saddam’s drive to buy semi-refined Uranium ore in Niger. This document seems to be well established as a forgery planted on the Italians. Was the US government involved? I know of nothing at this point that would demonstrate that.
The newsmedia have worked on this story for years now and several have well documented the result. A major TV news magazine hired me last year to help them look for those who knew the truth in this matter. They succeeded. A national wire service did the same thing without my help and has the result. The same is true of two other national news publications.
It is very clear now that this ducument was forged by a couple of the shadowy ex-government characters who dwell in the environs of Washington and was planted in Italy on the basis of the personal contacts of one of them with the intention of influencing the debate over Iraq in this country. How do I know that? Well, I just do in the way that intelligence officers learn things. Good sources, multiple sources, first person accounts, probabilities, that is how one learns things. Could I swear to it in court? No. Intelligence conclusions are not things that can be sworn to in court.
Nevertheless, one must ask why the newsmedia are sitting on this story. The answer seems simple. “Carrots and Sticks, carrots and sticks.” Work it out.
Pat Lang