- WASHINGTON (AFP) - A former
US ambassador hired by the Central Intelligence Agency to probe whether
Iraq acquired uranium for its nuclear weapons program from Niger says he
believes the US government twisted some prewar intelligence to exaggerate
the threat posed by Baghdad.
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- "Based on my experience with the administration
in the months leading up to the war, I have little choice but to conclude
that some of the intelligence related to Iraq's nuclear weapons program
was twisted to exaggerate the Iraqi threat," Joseph Wilson, an international
business consultant who served as Washington's ambassador to Gabon from
1992 to 1995, wrote in an opinion piece published Sunday in the New York
Times.
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- Wilson, a career diplomat who served in the US foreign
service from 1976 to 1998, was asked by the CIA to investigate reports
that Niger in the 1990's sold Baghdad processed uranium that could be used
to make nuclear weapons.
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- Wilson, who traveled to Niger in February 2002 concluded
after spending eight days talking to dozens of people there that "it
was highly doubtful that any such transaction had ever taken place."
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- Wilson said he presented his findings to the US ambassador
to Niger, the CIA and the State Department African Affairs Bureau.
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- "Though I did not file a written report, there should
be at least four documents in the United States government archives confirming
my mission," he said. "While I have not seen any of these reports,
I have spent enough time in government to know that this is standard operating
procedure."
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- Wilson said he was surprised when, in December, the State
Department published a fact sheet mentioning the Niger sale, and in January,
President George W. Bush repeated the charges that Iraq tried to buy uranium
from Africa.
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- "If my information was deemed inaccurate, I understand
(though I would be very interested to know why.) If, however, the information
was ignored because it did not fit certain preconceptions about Iraq, then
a legitimate argument can be made that we went to war under false pretenses,"
Wilson wrote.
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- Niger's two uranium mines are run by French, Spanish,
Japanese, German and Nigerian interests, Wilson wrote.
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- "If the government wanted to remove uranium from
a mine, it would have to notify the consortium, which in turn is strictly
monitored by the International Atomic Energy Agency.
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- "In short, there's simply too much oversight over
too small an industry for a sale to have transpired," he said.
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- The chairman of the US Senate's Armed Services Committee
later said Wilson's allegations were among many issues being reviewed by
US lawmakers considering whether US prewar intelligence about Iraq's weapons
program was manipulated or misinterpreted.
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- "All I can tell you right now is ... it is being
... objectively reviewed by the Senate in the Intelligence Committee,"
Senator John Warner told NBC television's "Meet the Press" program.
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