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One Questionable Source Does Not a Lie Make
06/12/2003

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) (which has consistently been on my referrer logs for the past few months for some reason) has returned to Iraq:

Outside Baghdad, UN International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) experts launched Saturday their two-week assessment of whether refined uranium ore had been looted from the Tuwaitha plant.

Residents near the plant in Tuwaitha told AFP that looters had emptied out barrels of unknown chemicals and then resold the barrels to unsuspecting people. The barrels were apparently washed in the Tigris river and used to store water and food.

The result may have left entire villages and towns contaminated with radiation.

Meanwhile (same link), sources from within Iraq are admitting to WMD programs:

As the debate on the credibility of intelligence reports on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction continued to rage in the West, London's Sunday Times quoted a top Iraqi security official as saying Saddam's intelligence agencies ran a network of secret cells that carried out chemical and biological research but produced no weapons.

The paper said a general who procured supplies for the program through an international network of front companies had told it that laboratories were hidden in basements in houses around Baghdad.

Meanwhile the Washington Post is writing suggestively that the CIA may have downplayed pre-war doubts about a specific finding that the Ba'athists had been seeking (ahem — see above) uranium:

Armed with information purportedly showing that Iraqi officials had been seeking to buy uranium in Niger one or two years earlier, the CIA in early February 2002 dispatched a retired U.S. ambassador to the country to investigate the claims, according to the senior U.S. officials and the former government official, who is familiar with the event. The sources spoke on condition of anonymity and on condition that the name of the former ambassador not be disclosed.

During his trip, the CIA's envoy spoke with the president of Niger and other Niger officials mentioned as being involved in the Iraqi effort, some of whose signatures purportedly appeared on the documents.

After returning to the United States, the envoy reported to the CIA that the uranium-purchase story was false, the sources said. Among the envoy's conclusions was that the documents may have been forged because the "dates were wrong and the names were wrong," the former U.S. government official said.

However, the CIA did not include details of the former ambassador's report and his identity as the source, which would have added to the credibility of his findings, in its intelligence reports that were shared with other government agencies. Instead, the CIA only said that Niger government officials had denied the attempted deal had taken place, a senior administration said.

Here is yet another anonymous analyst, quoted before the above specifics are offered (to tell us how to feel about what we are about to find out, presumably):

However, a senior CIA analyst said the case "is indicative of larger problems" involving the handling of intelligence about Iraq's alleged chemical, biological and nuclear weapons programs and its links to al Qaeda, which the administration cited as justification for war. "Information not consistent with the administration agenda was discarded and information that was [consistent] was not seriously scrutinized," the analyst said.

Well, I'll see your anonymous source and raise you another, this one quoted after the specifics (to tell us how the "other side" is spinning the damning information, presumably):

"This gent made a visit to the region and chatted up his friends," a senior intelligence official said, describing the agency's view of the mission. "He relayed back to us that they said it was not true and that he believed them."

I'm not a professional journalist or anything, but amid all of the quotations from anonymous sources and too-visible politicians, the Post might have found room to include a sentence conveying the fact that Iraq did indeed have uranium, whether purchased from Niger at the specific time in dispute or not.

Posted by Justin Katz @ 01:47 PM EST