LAT: French warned US in 2001 & 2002 about bogus Niger Uranium claims

This is new. Significantly, the report says that the investigation by the French of the French-controlled Niger Uranium mines WAS REQUESTED BY THE USA.

So Joseph Wilson's report wasn't the only requested report that was ignored. One more reason for the Bushies to hate the French!

was when the Italian gov. denied involvement. But the story blew over in a day or two.


......Before speaking with The Times last week, Chouet had told part of his story to La Repubblica, a Rome newspaper, prompting Italian investigators to resume their inquiry and seek Chouet's testimony.

In the U.S., the FBI recently reopened its inquiry into the documents in part because it had won access to new information.

Wilson, the former U.S. ambassador sent to Niger by the CIA to investigate the allegations, said he believed that his trip was inspired by the forged documents. He said the briefing he received at the CIA referred to a sales agreement between Iraq and Niger that sounded like the forged documents.

Bush attributed the African uranium information to British intelligence in his 2003 address: "The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa."

building up and up - they had the truth from all directions and they chose the lie.

It's blood for oil as we always believed.

corruption and greed.

I hope others see this story too.

http://www.counterpunch.org/leupp11092005.html

........January 28: President Bush asserts that "the British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa" during his State of the Union address.

January 29: Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld states in a press briefing that Iraq "recently was discovered seeking significant quantities of uranium from Africa."

January 29: IAEA head Mohamed ElBaradei tells Washington Post: "Niger denied , Iraq denied it, and we haven't seen any contracts." Also discounts the aluminum tubes claim.

.............

February 5. Cheney staff insists he "link Iraq directly to the 9/11 terrorist attacks on New York and Washington" and include the allegation that Mohammed Atta had met in Prague with an Iraqi intelligence officer in 2001. Powell's staff rejects much of the content of the drafted speech.
At one point, Powell reportedly says, "I'm not reading this. This is bullshit."........

why isn't this in LBN? This is yet another bombshell at bushco.

And with 5 votes necessary for real visibility, I'm trying for it in this forum.

If the rules allowed, I would post a heads-up post in LBN, but it would be locked immediately. Let's hope that it gets the 5 votes here and that it is seen.

Need one more

And now I'm off until late today. :hi:

was too busy munching on "Freedom Fries" to notice.

In addition to the French, there were also 2 other Americans, including a Marine Lt. General, that were ignored as well.

and the rest of the crew deliberately LIED us into this war. It seems no matter what evidence is revealed they still get a pass.

Here’s the piece that ‘60 Minutes’ killed for its report on the Bush Guard documents

By Michael Isikoff and Mark Hosenball
Newsweek
Updated: 5:24 p.m. ET Sept. 22, 2004


Sept. 22 - In its rush to air its now discredited story about President George W. Bush’s National Guard service, CBS bumped another sensitive piece slated for the same “60 Minutes” broadcast: a half-hour segment about how the U.S. government was snookered by forged documents purporting to show Iraqi efforts to purchase uranium from Niger.

The journalistic juggling at CBS provides an ironic counterpoint to the furor over apparently bogus documents involving Bush’s National Guard service. One unexpected consequence of the network’s decision was to wipe out a chance—at least for the moment—for greater public scrutiny of a more consequential forgery that played a role in building the Bush administration’s case to invade Iraq.

A team of “60 Minutes” correspondents and consulting reporters spent more than six months investigating the Niger uranium documents fraud, CBS sources tell NEWSWEEK. The group landed the first ever on-camera interview with Elisabetta Burba, the Italian journalist who first obtained the phony documents, as well as her elusive source, Rocco Martino, a mysterious Roman businessman with longstanding ties to European intelligence agencies.

Although the edited piece never ended up identifying Martino by name, the story, narrated by “60 Minutes” correspondent Ed Bradley, asked tough questions about how the White House came to embrace the fraudulent documents and why administration officials chose to include a 16-word reference to the questionable uranium purchase in President Bush’s 2003 State of the Union speech.

But just hours before the piece was set to air on the evening of Sept. 8, the reporters and producers on the CBS team were stunned to learn the story was being scrapped to make room for a seemingly sensational story about new documents showing that Bush ignored a direct order to take a flight physical while serving in the National Guard more than 30 years ago.



http://msnbc.msn.com/id/6073449/site/newsweek/

phone call from the WH.

evidence proving that the Bush Administration LIED about the WMDs. So far, relatively few have seen it.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x1979837
thread title (12/11 LBN): French Told CIA of Bogus Intelligence

This story needs much more exposure. When this thread also falls off the Greatest page, it should be reposted in GD or GD-P, with links to these two earlier threads. Perhaps there will be a story update by then.

when I read it in the paper yesterday. The US owes France a big apology. They have been the butt of jokes for months, & the Right just hates them. They tried to warn us that the Niger info was false! And yet, we treat them like crap. I doubt that the Right-wingers will ever apologize, though. They never can admit a mistake. Stupid, arrogant jerks.

Tammy

did warn about the Niger documents and also kept the secret abouit that warning all this time when it would have embarrassed the Bush Administration.

The Bushies are turning to Eastern Europe for their playmates these days. That's where the secret CIA prisons are, and that's where they'll be doing deals if they can. They can rule there without pesky interference over so-called "international law."