*** Special to The BRAD BLOG
*** by Libby/CIA Leak Trial Correspondent Margie Burns
With the jury still out, here in D.C., I had time to look through some court documents in the Libby case and came across an aspect of the “yellowcake” saga which has not yet been reported to my knowledge. I have emailed the Office of the Vice President (OVP) for a comment on this matter and will report back when, and if, I hear from them.
The documents filed in USA v. Libby reveal an arresting short chronology within that longer saga of the bogus Iraq-Niger uranium item, the Wilson trip to Niger and the outing of CIA agent Valerie Plame Wilson.
An apparently related document may shed new light on the publicly-known points reported so far…
I reported on Sunday about details revealed during the course of the trial which show — contrary to conventionally reported wisdom — that the OVP was working to discredit Ambassador Joe Wilson’s covert CIA operative wife, Valerie, well prior to the publication of his NY Times op-ed concerning his mission to Niger, on behalf of the CIA, and his confirmation that the Iraq-Niger uranium “yellowcake” story was false.
The question then, and now, is: What were the reasons for the Administration’s all-out efforts to discredit either a CIA operative working on WMD issues in the Middle-East, or her entire covert cover operation, Brewster-Jennings?
The document I came across, which had not been released previously with the other declassified documents related to the uranium boondoggle, may lead us towards connecting a dot or two in the matter.
An intel report in the case documents refers to a little-known point in Niger’s uranium trade. That point may well have helped the ball to begin rolling for the international backstage machinations — which seem to have begun a week later — in the known chronology of the “yellowcake” saga subsequently used by Bush, Cheney and others to help make the public case for war.
Here is the quick known chronology-within-a-story to set the stage, including links to the docs, all from defense exhibits in the Libby trial:
November 25, 2002…
A highly lurid item, given the context, one would think ““ that a “large quantity of uranium” was actually at the port, waiting to be shipped to Iraq ““ “in barrels,” no less.
(A footnote says: “CIA received this information from the US Navy through standard military/attaché channels, i.e. IIR-series reporting.” ““ IIR seems to mean ‘satellite.’)
[from DX64.7 (scroll down)]
Uranium being a notoriously heavy metal, there might be some queries arising from this story. Those must have been some barrels. And indeed, there was some follow-up:
January ?, 2003…: [a heavily ‘redacted’ exhibit]
This demurral was not entirely conclusive; further follow-up seems to have been called for. Sure enough:
February 10, 2003…
Cotton instead of uranium ““ what were the odds? ““ I actually picked cotton a couple of times, in my childhood, and I remember everybody and his brother saying how much it looked like uranium. (More seriously, even when I was in single digits I could see that doing it for fun is different from doing it for a living. Every day of this trial has made me personally more grateful that my late father was a printer, a genuinely productive human being as well as smart. But I digress.)
The congressional committee delving into Iraq pre-war intelligence ‘failings’ tried to rehabilitate this report, in my opinion unsuccessfully. Geiger counter or no Geiger counter, if “a large quantity” of uranium had been stored in those cotton bales, it would have been found ““ if it was seriously looked for. And if they had really thought it was there, they would have looked seriously.
But we haven’t gotten to the nub yet. We know indisputably now that Bush-Cheney were desperately engaged in a PR stunt of global reach. We know that they were more than willing to grasp at WMD straws ““ canvas-sided trailers for “mobile chem labs”; propulsion tubes alleged to be future “guided missiles”; a four-ton deal for uranium from a country that produced only three tons; etc.
But why Cotonou, Benin? In other words, who taught these parochial high-flyers that there was such a place as Benin, let alone its port of Cotonou? How is that the US Naval Criminal Investigation Service in Marseille, France suddenly reports, on November 25, 2002, that “two of its sources [are claiming] a large quantity of uranium was currently stored in barrels at the Port of Cotonou, Benin,” as referenced by the first intel memo quoted in the above chronology?
For that information, let’s back up a whole…week. Almost. To the document I found today which hadn’t previously been a part of the known chronology.
A week prior to the first report above, on November 19, 2002, hitting the desk of someone in the Pentagon, the OVP and/or the WH, is an intel briefing which references “the port of Cotonou, Benin” as a point of shipment for uranium out of Niger:
November 19, 2002…
“WP/Nuclear Weapons: Nigerian [sic] Denial of Uranium Yellowcake Sales to Rogue States”
…
Mai Manga stated that uranium from Niger’s mines is very tightly controlled and accounted for from the time it is mined until the time is [sic] loaded onto ships at the port of Cotonou, Benin. According to Mai Manga, even a kilogram of uranium would be noticed missing at the mines. On-site storage is limited and he said that each shipment of uranium is under Nigerien armed military escort from the time it leaves one of the two Nigerien mines until it is loaded on to a ship in Cotonou.
(To clarify: Mai Manga was one of two sources Wilson told CIA he wanted to talk to in Niger. Manga was Niger’s former Minister of Energy and Mines. He talked with Wilson and told him in detail that there had been no sales of Niger uranium outside the International Atomic Energy Agency.)
Did the WH lean on a military office in Marseilles to come up with the report, just a week later, referencing uranium in that Benin port? The ‘right kind’ of intelligence report? In a mini-version of the way they put the elbow on the entire CIA to produce intel they could use to make their public case for war against Iraq?
I have emailed questions to the Vice President’s office, asking about these reports. While I await a response, some thoughts…
- This report, from November 19, 2002, was included in the intel memo sent to Marc Grossman from the Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR), in the State Department, on June 10, 2003. The memo was titled “Niger/Iraq Uranium Story and Joe Wilson” and lays out what the INR calls “an extensive paper and electronic trail on the Niger/Iraq allegations,” including CIA notes from the February 2002 meeting which was the impetus for Wilson’s trip, identifying Wilson’s wife as a “CIA WMD managerial type and the wife of Amb. Joe Wilson.” Grossman, however, testified that he did not recall the section of the report containing the information about Mrs. Wilson.
- The other three reports were included in provisionally declassified material sent to the OVP by CIA on June 9, 2003.
The Iraqi government had nothing to process it with anyway.
Iran does have some capacity to process it, and even with that known and admitted they are not a threat until “mid next decade” (2015) at the earliest, according to congressional testimony by the DIA yesterday.
Bottom line is that a “mushroom cloud” fear talked about by the regime was fully bogus and known to be so by those who were using their brains for thinking back then. It is just that Bush, Rice, Cheney, and Rumsfeld were using their brains to propagandize with fear in order to start a war to steal oil and kill, kill, kill.
Hi Margie,
Nice to meet you on-line! Usually it’s on one of those cold stone benches in the courthouse hall. I had that same experience, picking cotton one day and noticing how similar in texture it is to uranium.
You said there were efforts to discredit Valerie before Wilson’s op-ed. Have you written about that in earlier posts that you could point me to?
Thanks, and see you today, or are you taking a chance and waiting until Monday to get to court?
Tom
Past time to arrest. Lukery says there will be information on Cheney’s ties with 911 financier next week.
WAIT A MINUTE ““ WHAT ABOUT SADDAM’S 500 TONS OF URANIUM?
It’s true, and extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof, and I provide my sources below. I hope that more people will become aware of these facts. The references are not hot linked, so you will have to cut and paste them onto a URL line.
First, an overview. These 500 tons were known to “insiders” since 1991, before Iraq War 1. The yellowcake was logged and documented by UN weapons inspectors, and even tagged by them. Furthermore, there have been numerous reports since 1991 that Saddam was trying to buy more yellowcake, even up to time of Iraq War 2, and his sons visited Niger to satisfy him, although this may have been a subterfuge on their part, to appease their father, since new shipments do not appear to have come from Niger to Iraq. However, it is probably those negotiations which make British intelligence certain that Iraq was trying to obtain yellowcake from Niger or the Congo up until Iraq War 2.
The story gains importance in light of four other context pieces. First, Saddam maintained a clear desire to have nuclear weapons, as witnessed by his constantly asking sons, aides, advisors, and generals about such weapons, and the preparations to produce them. Second, many parts and plans for nuclear weapons development were maintained, as physical components, hard copies of plans, and detailed information kept in the memories of Iraqi scientists and engineers. Third, given the very large stockpile of yellowcake, it seems impossible for the weapons inspectors to have fully and completely prevented the Iraqi’s from removing substantial amounts of it, either for clandestine use, or for sale to other states or organizations.
Fourth, this huge stockpile, held in plain view of inspectors, must have been very embarrassing for the US government. It meant that if Iraq were to expel the UN inspectors, Iraq could have nuclear weapons in as little as 18 months, as well as sell some to other states or organizations. Because the stockpile was known to the UN weapons inspectors, George Bush Sr. must also have known. Clinton must have known, and he frequently stated with certainty that Iraq had WMD, but why did he do nothing during his tenure? Lastly, Bush Jr. would have known about it, but this would have been difficult to disclose, especially after 9/11. If, after 9/11, Bush were to disclose that the US had known about the yellowcake (and other, more enriched uranium) for at least 13 years, with Iraq’s capability to transition at any time to building nuclear weapons, he could have been accused of the reckless endangerment of the entire western world. Bush Jr. has still has not disclosed his full knowledge of this, even though the main body of information is recorded in UN weapons inspector reports. After 9/11, Bush Jr. would know that Iraq had to be invaded because of the yellowcake, but it would still be awkward to explain publicly why he was so sure about the WMD.
After Iraq War 2 started, the media began talking about “no WMD”, and Bush could not rebut directly. Instead, it leaked out indirectly through several sources, including an awkward NY Times story. After the NYT story, plus several other revelations about Iraqi WMD, the MSM appeared to accept that Iraq, after all did have substantial amounts of WMD materials and capabilities, and these were a clear and present danger to the US. The MSM immediately stopped presenting “no WMD” reports. The public has still not realized the implications of these events. The key information about WMD became public, but in an awkward way, and Bush was off the hook about a possible “yellowcake scandal”. By 2006, the yellowcake had been recovered by the US military. Amazingly (to me), most people still seem to believe that Iraq had no WMD, and no WMD potential, prior to Iraq War 2!
REFERENCES
The 500 tons:
http://www.newsmax.com/archives...7/171214.shtml
NYT May, 2004:
“The repository, at Tuwaitha, a centerpiece of Saddam Hussein’s nuclear weapons program until it was largely shut down after the first Persian Gulf war in 1991, holds more than 500 tons of uranium…” as well as, “some 1.8 tons…classified as low-enriched uranium.” The latter could be enriched to make a single nuclear weapon.
More info at San Diego Union-Tribune:
http://72.14.205.104/search?q=c...ient=firefox-a
And:
http://www.americanthinker.com/...of_yellow.html
IAEA Records:
http://www.iaea.org/Publication...raq/event.html
Iraqi weapons planning:
http://tks.nationalreview.com/p...QzZDczZWU5N2Y=
Quotations from IAEA reports:
October 4, 1991:”Dr. Blix reported that the sixth IAEA inspection team had obtained conclusive documentary evidence that the Government of Iraq had a programme for developing nuclear weapons. The IAEA inspection team obtained this information from classified Iraqi papers, some of which had already been translated and analysed. These documents revealed that Iraq’s nuclear weapons programme was supported by a broad-based international procurement effort.”
Nov 11-18, 1991: “Iraqi authorities went to great lengths to prevent the discovery of procurement data. Most procurement related information had been removed and presumably destroyed, the IAEA eighth inspection team reported. Even so, examination of data collected by the inspection teams firmly identified the manufacturers of most equipment used or intended for use in Iraqi efforts to establish a centrifuge production and operation capability.”
Source:
http://www.iaea.org/Publication...raq/event.html
This program was never abandoned after 1991.
Stockpiled weapons development parts and plans:
http://www.newsmax.com/archives...7/171214.shtml
Other Iraqi WMD:
http://politicscentral.com/audi...MDs_083106.pdf