URANIUM-GATE TIMELINE….I’m a little confused about something. Remember those forged documents showing that Saddam Hussein had tried to buy uranium yellowcake from Niger? Here’s a quick timeline:
February 2002: The CIA has the documents in house and sends Joseph Wilson to Niger to investigate. He reports back that the allegations seem unlikely.
October 2002: The CIA writes a National Intelligence Estimate stating that “the claims of Iraqi pursuit of natural uranium in Africa are, in I.N.R.’s assessment, highly dubious.”
March 2003: The International Atomic Energy Agency reports that the documents are crude forgeries. Colin Powell says it’s news to him: “It was the information that we had. We provided it. If that information is inaccurate, fine.”
So here’s what I’m confused about: did Colin Powell really believe the documents were genuine when they were handed over to the IAEA? Did anyone?
The story we’re being told is that everyone thought the documents were genuine until March, when the IAEA discredited them. But if that’s the case, then why did the CIA’s October 2002 report say that the uranium claims were “highly dubious”? And why didn’t Powell mention them in his UN speech in February? If those documents were for real, surely they were enough of a smoking gun that the CIA would have considered the uranium allegations credible, right?
Can anyone help me out here?
