Posted on 07/13/2003 5:14:06 PM PDT by Pokey78
The French secret service is believed to have refused to allow MI6 to give the Americans "credible" intelligence showing that Iraq was trying to buy uranium ore from Niger, US intelligence sources said yesterday.
MI6 had more than one "different and credible" piece of intelligence to show that Iraq was attempting to buy the ore, known as yellowcake, British officials insisted. But it was given to them by at least one and possibly two intelligence services and, under the rules governing cooperation, it could not be shared with anyone else without the originator's permission.
US intelligence sources believe that the most likely source of the MI6 intelligence was the French secret service, the DGSE. Niger is a former French colony and its uranium mines are run by a French company that comes under the control of the French Atomic Energy Commission.
A further factor in the refusal to hand over the information might have been concern that the US administration's willingness to publicise intelligence might lead to sources being inadvertently disclosed.
US sources also point out that the French government was vehemently opposed to the war with Iraq and so suggest that it would have been instinctively against the idea of passing on the intelligence.
British sources yesterday dismissed suggestions of a row between MI6 and the CIA on the issue. However, they admitted being surprised that George Tenet, the CIA director, had apologised to President George W Bush for allowing him to cite the British government and its claim that Saddam had sought to acquire uranium from Africa in his State of the Union speech last October.
The apology follows the International Atomic Energy Authority's dismissal of documents given to it by the CIA, which purported to prove the link, as fakes.
Those documents have been widely identified with last September's British dossier on Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, which said Saddam Hussein was trying to buy uranium ore from an unnamed country in Africa.
British officials admitted that the country was Niger but insisted that the intelligence behind it was genuine and had nothing to do with the fake documents. It was convincing and they were sticking with it, the officials said.
They dismissed a report from a former US diplomat who was sent to Niger to investigate the claims and rejected them. "He seems to have asked a few people if it was true and when they said 'no' he accepted it all," one official said. "We see no reason at all to change our assessment."
The fake documents were not behind that assessment and were not seen by MI6 until after they were denounced by the IAEA. If MI6 had seen them earlier, it would have immediately advised the Americans that they were fakes.
There had been a number of reports in America in particular suggesting that the fake documents - which came from another intelligence source - were passed on via MI6, the officials said. But this was not true.
"What they can't accuse MI6 of doing is passing anything on this to the CIA because it didn't have the fake documents and it was not allowed to pass on the intelligence it did have to anyone else."
If I may offer a thought that enforces Jim's position while perhaps answering your question, Imal.
Those you list, Imal, are part of the second tier, the operatives. Those you wonder about, the masters behind the scenes pulling the strings, are the secular Gods of the left and their ideology, their religion. They are not people, they are ideas. All come together under that big tent. All pursue the same goals, use the same methods, and think the same way. Their only outward commonality is their hatred of America but their true master is the religion of secular control.
We all know their predilection to projection, casting their own evil onto others. That was what was happening in the invention by Hillary, et al., of the vast right wing conspiracy. They are consumed with their vast left wing conspiracy so they reflexively see the mirror image in their environment.
They are the embodiment of the worst of man in his natural state. As Jim said, they are the anti-Christ, but they are also anti-goodness of man in his natural state. (Man is both good and bad in his natural state.)
I contrast that to man's spiritual state, also a natural state but one that transcends the physical. There has been much speculation as to why the Arab world, and much of the rest of the world for that matter, hates us. It is not because of our power, our material success, or our form of government. It is our values! Our values are diametrically opposed to theirs. We value freedom, we value God, we value moral and ethical behavior. We hold up a mirror into which they must gaze. That is like holding the cross up to a vampire.
I know this needs to be fleshed out but it is getting too long for this thread already so I will stop.
I don't think Pat Buchanan fits this description. I just think his anger and ambition have led him into the useful idiot role.
It hasn't been the same since 1963.
IRAQ: A Question Of Trust - The CIA's Tenet takes the fall for a flawed claim......
They have been practicing this for a couple of years now -- thread after thread -- and they will shift it into overdrive over the next year and a half.
Hold on to your freeping hat.
The anti-Republican/anti-Bush paleocon/paleolibertarian/buchananite/rockwellian/anarchist movement has combined with the Democrat/French/German/Iraq pro-terror axis.
And nice tag line, sir.
I've seen Browne's were published in Pravda.
You can start here for Ron Paul and his immediate post 911 blame America leftist ranting.
aka Terrence McAuliffe?
I think there are real people pulling the strings of the International Socialists, and I want to know just who the hell these people are.
As Keyser Soze so aptly put it, "The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn't exist."
In this case, I think there is more than one devil involved, and I think it is well past time we flushed these scoundrels out of the shadows.
I was going to comment on your very good references, but I stumbled across this page, on a website you have mentioned. If someone wants to be shocked and appalled, all they need to do is read this web page.
It appears to be an official IAEA document, which has many details of Iraq's purchases of uranium, and how it was processed, and how much is missing. I particularly noted this minor purchase:
The yellowcake procured from Portugal was supplied in two batches. Batch 1, received on 20 June 1980, consisted of 429 drums containing 138,098 kg of yellowcake and batch two, received as three consignments over the period from 17 May 1982 through 20 June 1982, consisted of 487 drums containing 148,348 kg yellow cake.
http://www.iraqwatch.org/un/IAEA/s-1997-779-att-1.htm
(138,098 + 148,348) X 2.2 = 630,181 Pounds / 2000 = 3151+ TONS /20 = ~158 semi truck loads (standard 18 wheelers)
Over half a million pounds of Uranium, and that is just ONE buy. They also bought MUCH more, from other sources, including enriched uranium.
What does a country with thousands of oil wells need with all of that? Nothing good.
DG
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