Niger, uranium, Bush and The State of the Union speech

Remember Bush's State of the Union speech wherein Niger was accused of supplying "yellow cake" unranium to, amoung others, Iraq? After some letters were forged and supplied to the IAEA the whole idea was thrown out. Except the British sood by their intelligence.

Now, from Belgravia Dispatch reporting on an article in the Financial Times. via Cori Dauber

To be sure, as the FT article reminds us, some documents that detailed alleged uranium transfers as between Niger and Iraq have indeed proved fraudulent.

So why then, now many months out, is British intelligence still sticking by the story, despite the embarrassing forgeries?

Here's why:

However, European intelligence officers have now revealed that three years before the fake documents became public, human and electronic intelligence sources from a number of countries picked up repeated discussion of an illicit trade in uranium from Niger. One of the customers discussed by the traders was Iraq.

These intelligence officials now say the forged documents appear to have been part of a "scam", and the actual intelligence showing discussion of uranium supply has been ignored.

There's more, lots more.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------