Reports reopen debate on Iraq's uranium quest

By Richard W. Stevenson and David Johnston
The New York Times

Joseph Wilson investigated in Niger in 2002.

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A year ago, the White House and CIA acknowledged that President Bush's claim was based on flawed evidence, an admission that opened Bush to a torrent of criticism about the credibility and reliability of the intelligence he used to justify toppling Saddam Hussein.

One of the reports was released Wednesday by a British commission reviewing the intelligence used by Prime Minister Tony Blair in making the case for war. The report stood by the British intelligence assessments that were the foundation for Bush's statement. Though it did not explain in any detail how or why it judged the intelligence to be sound, the report concluded that the assertions by Bush and Blair about Iraq's attempts to acquire "yellow-cake" uranium were "well founded" at the time.

Some of the Niger evidence involved what later were deemed to be forged documents. But the British report, echoing news stories of a year ago, said that the Brits claimed other, unspecified intelligence that Iraq had been pursuing uranium in Africa.

The other report came from the Senate Intelligence Committee. It generally found extensive problems with the prewar intelligence assessments about Iraq's weapons programs and in particular documented a long chain of problems in the way the intelligence agencies dealt with suspicions about Iraq's interest in acquiring uranium.

But it also contained some information that tended to bolster the view that Iraq had tried to acquire uranium from Niger and possibly one or two other African nations.

It cited a statement by a French official to the State Department in late 2002 that France, which managed Niger's two uranium mines and at the time was resisting Bush's efforts to make an urgent case for war, "believed the reporting was true that Iraq had made a procurement attempt for uranium from Niger." Neither the British nor Senate report found evidence that Iraq actually had bought any uranium.

The new reports had new information about one of the White House's chief critics over the issue, Joseph Wilson, a former ambassador sent to Niger in 2002 to investigate whether Iraq had tried to buy uranium there.

Among other things, the report pointed out that Wilson's official account to the CIA noted that a former prime minister of Niger had told him that he had been approached in 1999 about meeting with an Iraqi delegation interested in "expanding commercial relations" between Niger and Iraq.

The former prime minister told Wilson that he interpreted the approach to mean the Iraqis were interested in acquiring a form of uranium. Wilson has said, however, that specific discussion of uranium never happened.

The White House response to the reports has been muted. "I think those reports speak for themselves on that issue," said Scott McClellan, Bush's spokesman.
 
Administration officials said they were not crowing about the reports, for a variety of reasons. For one thing, they said, both reports were highly critical of most of the prewar intelligence developed by both Britain and the United States, and to embrace one aspect of the reports would make it more difficult to dispute other findings.

In addition, they said, the internal finger-pointing over who had been to blame for the inclusion of the claim in the State of the Union address had left so much bad feeling, especially among the White House, the CIA and the State Department, that there was little appetite for reopening the subject.

Still, White House officials were quietly pleased to be able to claim even limited vindication.

There may be more revelations to come. The British and American reports contained still-classified information about Iraq's dealings with Niger.

Information from The Seattle Times archives is included in this report.