Add this one to the Pile of Pre-War Lie evidence, 1998 IAEA Iraq Report

[Up2Late]

<http://www.iaea.org/worldatom/Programmes/ActionTeam/nwp2.html#achieve>

Fact Sheet: Iraq's Nuclear Weapon Programme

(clip)

II - Assessment of Iraq's past nuclear programme
As of 16 December 1998, the following assessment could be made of Iraq's clandestine programme:

There were no indications to suggest that Iraq was successful in its attempt to produce nuclear weapons. Iraq's explanation of its progress towards the finalisation of a workable design for its nuclear weapons was considered to be consistent with the resources and time scale indicated by the available programme documentation.

Iraq was at, or close to, the threshold of success in such areas as the production of HEU through the EMIS process, the production and pilot cascading of single-cylinder sub-critical gas centrifuge machines, and the fabrication of the explosive package for a nuclear weapon

There were no indications to suggest that Iraq had produced more than a few grams of weapons-grade nuclear material through its indigenous processes.

There were no indications that Iraq otherwise clandestinely acquired weapons-usable material

All the safeguarded research reactor fuel was verified and fully accounted for by the IAEA and removed from Iraq.

There were no indications that there remains in Iraq any physical capability for the production of amounts of weapons-usable nuclear material of any practical significance.

<http://www.iaea.org/worldatom/Programmes/ActionTeam/nwp2.html#achieve>
(more at link above)

[tocqueville]

1. everything stands here

http://www.nti.org/e_research/profiles/Iraq/Nuclear/2121_3291.html

it shows :

Late 1984
By this time, Iraq is self-sufficient in uranium ore.
—"Iraq's Weapons of Mass Destruction: The Assessment of the British Government," 24 September 2002, <http://www.pm.gov.uk/files/pdf/iraqdossier.pdf>.

so no need to go an buy some in Niger 1998, under sanctions

[Up2Late]

3. Thanks for the links, do you know if anyone ever reliesed...

...on the internet, the fake Italian Intelligence document that */Blair based their bogus evidence on?

I'd really like to see a copy of that letter.

[tocqueville]

4. I have seen copies of it yes

google articles from "La Republicca"

[libertypirate]

2. It gets better... Pay attention to the dates....

*EPF403 02/10/00
Transcript: Pentagon Spokesman's Regular Briefing, Feb. 10
(Iraq/WMD, computer hacking/DOD counter-measures, N.Korea/missiles) (4360)


Q: Can we stay on Iraq?

Q: Sure. Go ahead.

ADM. QUIGLEY: David?

...

Q: So one would think that you might be leaning a little more forward at this point with your level of concern -- not that the U.S. is about to go bomb the Iraqis -- but that your level of concern, I would think, would be going up right now?

ADM. QUIGLEY: Well, we've been concerned for some time, John. But again, I must say that we have no evidence to support that the Iraqis are specifically reconstituting a WMD capability.

Its past actions, its reconstituting or reconstruction and repair of buildings, all circumstantial and historical, if you will, none of which makes us feel very comfortable. But I would be remiss if I said that we could point to specific evidence of a reconstruction of that capability.

Q: So you are talking about intelligence, then. While the professor says they're building a large underground facility that may be doing offensive viruses, growing offensive viruses, you seem to be indicating that you don't have that because you have no evidence to support that they're reconstituting weapons of mass destruction.

ADM. QUIGLEY: Correct.

And some other past favorites of mine...


24 February 2001
Secretary Colin Powell gives press remarks in Cairo, Egypt

In his speech, he says, “He has not developed a significant capability with respect to weapons of mass destruction. He is unable to project
conventional power against his neighbors.”
“Powell ‘01: WMDs Not ‘Significant,’”
http://miawmdwtfw.blogspot.com/2001/02/secretary-colin-powell-gives-press.html
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/09/28/iraq/printable575469.shtml

And the

29 July 2001
Condoleezza Rice Interview with Larry King

Condoleezza Rice is interviewed and she says, “We are able to keep
arms from . His military forces have not been rebuilt."

[Up2Late]

5. kick n/t

:kick:

[Up2Late]

6. This might need a new thread, could be BIG!

(I know UPI doesn't get much attention here anymore, with the Moonie's thing and all, but their is some good stuff in this Editorial!)

<http://www.upi.com/InternationalIntelligence/view.php?StoryID=20051023-104217-9679r>

10/24/2005 8:57:00 AM -0400

Walker's World: Bush at bay

By MARTIN WALKER
UPI Editor

WASHINGTON, Oct. 23 (UPI) -- The CIA leak inquiry that threatens senior White House aides has now widened to include the forgery of documents on African uranium that started the investigation, according to NAT0 intelligence sources. This suggests the inquiry by special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald into the leaking of the identity of undercover CIA officer Valerie Plame has now widened to embrace part of the broader question about the way the Iraq war was justified by the Bush administration....

(clip)

...The second is that NATO sources have confirmed to United Press International that Fitzgerald's team of investigators has sought and obtained documentation on the forgeries from the Italian government. Fitzgerald's team has been given the full, and as yet unpublished report of the Italian parliamentary inquiry into the affair, which started when an Italian journalist obtained documents that appeared to show officials of the government of Niger helping to supply the Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein with Yellowcake uranium. This claim, which made its way into President Bush's State of the Union address in January, 2003, was based on falsified documents from Niger and was later withdrawn by the White House...

(clip)

...But by then Elisabetta Burba, a journalist for the Italian magazine Panorama (owned by Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi) had been contacted by a "security consultant" named Rocco Martoni, offering to sell documents that "proved" Iraq was obtaining uranium in Niger for $10,000. Rather than pay the money, Burba's editor passed photocopies of the documents to the U.S. Embassy, which forwarded them to Washington, where the forgery was later detected. Signatures were false, and the government ministers and officials who had signed them were no longer in office on the dates on which the documents were supposedly written.

The letterheads and official seals that appeared to authenticate the documents apparently came from a burglary at the Niger Embassy in Rome in 2001....

(clip)

...There is one line of inquiry with an American connection that Fitzgerald would have found it difficult to ignore. This is the claim that a mid-ranking Pentagon official, Larry Franklin, held talks with some Italian intelligence and defense officials in Rome in late 2001. Franklin has since been arrested on charges of passing classified information to staff of the pro-Israel lobby group, the American-Israel Public Affairs Committee. Franklin has reportedly reached a plea bargain with his prosecutor, Paul McNulty, and it would be odd if McNulty and Fitzgerald had not conferred to see if their inquiries connected....

<http://www.upi.com/InternationalIntelligence/view.php?StoryID=20051023-104217-9679r>
(more at link above)