The British case was not based on the forged memos. (In spite of the press' best efforts- coached on by people like Ambassador Wilson- to make it seem so.)
So was there really no deal between Saddam and Niger in buying low-grade uranium from them???
The US didn't say there was a deal concluded, though some intel we had received indicated the deal had been concluded, though the intel only indicated the uranium made it as far as Niger's neighbor, Benin. Benin is where uranium from Niger goes to be shipped abroad. You will note that Bush's speech only said the UK had intel that Iraq had sought uranium in Africa. He didn't say Iraq bought uranium, only that it sought it. Even so, this is a concern because one of our arguments for war against Iraq was that it intended to reconstitute its weapons programs the moment sanctions were lifted and the inspectors had given up.
Anyway, our intel we had that indicated Iraq's uranium was sent to Niger mentioned its destination being a warehouse in Benin. The Navy received this intel from a human source, not from any documents. It in turn passed the intel on to the CIA, along with contact information to reach the source for followup. Problem is, for whatever reasons, the CIA never followed up, never contacted the source. Even the much touted award-winning investigator Joseph Wilson didn't contact the source...
This Benin intel predates the forged documents and does not relate to them nor do they relate to it. It may be good intel or maybe it wasn't- either way, no followup occured.
Iraq has worked with Libya in the past on WMD (Libya has it share of Iraqi engineers, BTW... ). It is possible that Iraq may have purchased uranium and had it delivered to Niger in order to avoid the inspector's eyes. We do know that Libya did acquire uranium from Niger, and this is in spite of Wilson's claims that the security was too good for uranium to be smuggled. So why couldn't Iraq obtain it if Libya could? And is it possible that Iraq obtained the uranium, Libya took delivery, and both countries engaged in joint research and processing of it in Libya, out of the eyesight of the UN? Thee are reports that it did that.