Use of the Evidence by U.S. Officials

The evidence that Iraq sought to purchase uranium from an African country was first revealed by the British government on September 24, 2002, when Prime Minister Tony Blair released a 50-page report on Iraqi efforts to acquire weapons of mass destruction. As the New York Times reported in a front-page article, one of the two "chief new elements" in the report was the claim that Iraq had "sought to acquire uranium in Africa that could be used to make nuclear weapons."

This evidence subsequently became a significant part of the U.S. case against Iraq. On December 7, Iraq filed its weapons declaration with the United Nations Security Council. The U.S. response relied heavily on the evidence that Iraq had sought to obtain uranium from Africa.

For example, this is how the New York Times began its front-page article on December 13 describing the U.S. response:

American intelligence agencies have reached a preliminary conclusion that Iraq's 12,000 page declaration of its weapons program fails to account for chemical and biological agents missing when inspectors left Iraq four years ago, American officials and United Nations diplomats said today.

In addition, Iraq's declaration on its nuclear program, they say, leaves open a host of questions. Among them is why Iraq was seeking to buy uranium in Africa in recent years

The official U.S. response was provided on December 19, when Secretary of State Colin Powell appeared before the Security Council. As the Los Angeles Times reported, "A one‑page State Department fact sheet... lists what Washington considers the key omissions and deceptions in Baghdad's Dec. 7 weapons declaration." One of the eight "key omissions and deceptions" was the failure to explain Iraq's attempts to purchase uranium from an African country.

Specifically, the State Department fact sheet contains the following points under the heading "Nuclear Weapons": "The Declaration ignores efforts to procure uranium from Niger. Why is the Iraqi regime hiding their uranium procurement?" A copy of this fact sheet is enclosed with this letter.

The Iraqi efforts to obtain uranium from Africa were deemed significant enough to be included in your State of the Union address to Congress. You stated: "The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa." As the Washington Post reported the next day, "the president seemed quite specific as he ticked off the allegations last night, including the news that Iraq had secured uranium from Africa for the purpose of making nuclear bombs."

A day later, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld told reporters at a news briefing that Iraq "recently was discovered seeking significant quantities of uranium from Africa."

Knowledge of the Unreliability of the Evidence

The world first learned that the evidence linking Iraq to attempts to purchase uranium from Africa was forged from the Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Mohamed El Baradei. On March 7, Director El Baradei reported to the U.N. Security Council:

Based on thorough analysis, the IAEA has concluded, with the concurrence of outside experts, that these documents-which formed the basis for reports of recent uranium transactions between Iraq and Niger-are in fact not authentic. We have therefore concluded that these specific allegations are unfounded.

Recent accounts in the news media have provided additional details. According to the Washington Post, the faked evidence included "a series of letters between Iraqi agents and officials in the central African nation of Niger." The article stated that the forgers "made relatively crude errors that eventually gave them away -including names and titles that did not match up with the individuals who held office at the time the letters were purportedly written." CNN reported:

one of the documents purports to be a letter signed by Tandjia Mamadou, the president of Niger, talking about the uranium deal with Iraq. On it [is] a childlike signature that is clearly not his. Another, written on paper from a 1980s military government in Niger, bears the date of October 2000 and the signature of a man who by then had not been foreign minister of Niger for 14 years.

U.S. intelligence officials had doubts about the veracity of the evidence long before Director El Baradei's report. The Los Angeles Times reported on March 15 that "the CIA first heard allegations that Iraq was seeking uranium from Niger in late 2001" when "the existence of the documents was reported to [the CIA] second-or third-hand." The Los Angeles Times quotes one CIA official as saying: "We included that in some of our reporting, although it was all caveated because we had concerns about the accuracy of that information." The Washington Post reported on March 13: "The CIA... had questions about 'whether they were accurate,' said one intelligence official, and it decided not to include them in its file on Iraq's program to procure weapons of mass destruction."

There have been suggestions by some Administration officials that there may be other evidence besides the forged documents that shows Iraq tried to obtain uranium from an African country. For instance, CIA officials recently stated that "U.S. concerns regarding a possible uranium agreement between Niger and Iraq were not based solely on the documents which are now known to be fraudulent." The CIA provided this other information to the IAEA along with the forged documents. After reviewing this complete body of evidence, the IAEA stated: "we have found to date no evidence or plausible indication of the revival of a nuclear weapons programme in Iraq. Ultimately, the IAEA concluded that "these specific allegations are unfounded."

Questions

These facts raise troubling questions. It appears that at the same time that you, Secretary Rumsfeld, and State Department officials were citing Iraq's efforts to obtain uranium from Africa as a crucial part of the case against Iraq, U.S. intelligence officials regarded this very same evidence as unreliable. If true, this is deeply disturbing: it would mean that your Administration asked the U.N. Security Council, the Congress, and the American people to rely on information that your own experts knew was not credible.

Your statement to Congress during the State of the Union, in particular, raises a host of questions. The statement is worded in a way that suggests it was carefully crafted to be both literally true and deliberately misleading at the same time. The statement itself -"The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa" -may be technically accurate, since this appears to be the British position. But given what the CIA knew at the time, the implication you intended -that there was credible evidence that Iraq sought uranium from Africa -was simply false.

To date, the White House has avoided explaining why the Administration relied on this forged evidence in building its case against Iraq. The first Administration response, which was provided to the Washington Post, was "we fell for it." But this is no longer credible in light of the information from the CIA. Your spokesman, Ari Fleischer, was asked about this issue at a White House news briefing on March 14, but as the following transcript reveals, he claimed ignorance and avoided the question:

Q: Ari, as the president said in his State of the Union address, the British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa. And since then, the IAEA said that those were forged documents-

Mr. Fleischer: I'm sorry, whose statement was that?

Q: The President, in his State of the Union address. Since then, the IAEA has said those were forged documents. Was the administration aware of any doubts about these documents, the authenticity of the documents, from any government agency or department before it was submitted to the IAEA?

Mr. Fleisher: These are matters that are always reviewed with an eye toward the various information that comes in and is analyzed by a variety of different people. The President's concerns about Iraq come from multiple places, involving multiple threats that Iraq can possess, and these are matters that remain discussed.

Thank you [end of briefing].

Plainly, more explanation is needed. I urge you to provide to me and to the relevant committees of Congress a full accounting of what you knew about the reliability of the evidence linking Iraq to uranium in Africa, when you knew this, and why you and senior officials in the Administration presented the evidence to the U.N. Security Council, the Congress, and the American people without disclosing the doubts of the CIA. In particular, I urge you to address:

1. Whether CIA officials communicated their doubts about the credibility of the forged evidence to other Administration officials, including officials in the Department of State, the Department of Defense, the National Security Council, and the White House;

2. Whether the CIA had any input into the "Fact Sheet" distributed by the State Department on December 19, 2002; and

3. Whether the CIA reviewed your statement in the State of the Union address regarding Iraq's attempts to obtain uranium from Africa and, if so, what the CIA said about the statement.

Given the urgency of the situation, I would appreciate an expeditious response to these questions.

Sincerely,

Henry A. Waxman
Ranking Minority Member