Oops...

[khaosworks]

ElBaradei: Proof Iraq Imported Uranium Was Fake

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - The head of the U.N. nuclear agency said on Friday that the documents backing U.S. and British allegations that Iraq had attempted to import uranium from Niger were "not authentic."

"Based on thorough analysis, the IAEA has concluded ... that these documents, which formed the basis for the reports of recent uranium transactions between Iraq and Niger, are in fact not authentic," International Atomic Energy Agency chief Mohamed ElBaradei said in a report to the U.N. Security Council.

"We have therefore concluded that these specific allegations are unfounded," he said.

Britain and the United States alleged Iraq had attempted to revive a nuclear weapons program that was neutralized by the United Nations before U.N. inspectors left Baghdad in December 1998 on the eve of a U.S.-British bombing raid.

The claim Iraq had attempted to import the uranium was vital to the U.S. accusation, since it would not have needed the uranium for anything other than an atomic weapons program.

Maybe it was another cut and paste job...

Comments

[sdelmonte]

The very fact that Iraq was seemingly caught trying to get uranium, and couldn't, was already a good reason to keep the inspections going, as far I was concerned.

So I now expect someone in BushLand to claim that Iraq deliberately faked the documents to throw the UN off the trail.

I keep trying to do the math, so to speak. I want it to all add up to something one way or the other, and all I get is ambiguous numbers. It's too much to simply say "leave Iraq alone" but far too little to make a case that war is needed.

I am certain, though, that North Korea has uranium and plutonium. But we aren't threatening them right now, are we? Not that I think we should, but that's not the point.