CIA? MI6? KGB? Mossad? The French SDECE?

French Secret Service de Documentation Extérieure et de Contre-Espionnage. SDECE.

Can you help me?

On Feb. 7, 2003, Sec. Colin Powell gave a speech to the UN Security Council explaining why the US wanted a UN Resolution authorizing any action up to and including military action against Saddam Hussein and Iraq. During the course of his speech - I believe made under compulsion by Geo W - Sec. Powell offered some papers he said were proof that Saddam had attempted to buy yellow cake uranium ore from Niger. Sec. Powell attributed the papers to a reliable foreign intelligence source.

I assume without knowing that “yellow cake” is high grade uranium ore which is easy to enrich into weapons grade uranium. That attempt to buy such ore, was in turn proof Saddam had a secret on-going nuclear program to make a nuclear WMD. 3-5% is for power plants, 70% or more is for bombs. Ordinary pitchblende ore is 99.7% U238, and .3% is U235, the good stuff. The bomb game is how to get the .3% ore into 70% material. Centrifuge seems to be the answer.

The very next day, the head of the IAEA, a UN agency that monitors atomic energy facilities around the world, but whose name escapes me, declared the papers were forgeries. A couple days later, someone either at the State Department or at the White House concurred that indeed, the papers were forged. Now from that time to this, I have heard no more about those papers. No one seems to have the slightest interest in who forged those papers. We did learn from the Brits that it was MI6 that sent the papers to the United States but MI6 invoked secrecy in refusing to identify their source. MI6 said they had forwarded the papers but their cover letter did not express an opinion as to the authenticity of the papers.

So who forged the papers? We can scratch Sec. Powell. He is an honorable man. He would not indulge in that level of play. I believe we can eliminate Saddam as it could not conceivably serve any interest he or Iraq might have. In the same vein, we can eliminate Niger. If Niger had done it, the papers would not be forgeries. They would be legitimate. We can eliminate Niger. So now, Powell is out, Saddam is out and niger is out. We can eliminate MI6. They have already stated they received the papers from another source. MI6 has refused to identify that source. The MI6 cover letter disclaimed any opinion on the authenticity of the papers. That eliminates MI6.

So who’s left? Well, it’s elementary, Watson, when you look for the perpetrator of a crime, you begin with the beneficiaries. Uh oh! That puts me squarely into the Oval Office. Well Geo W is not known for being a reader, and I have not seen any of his writings. I’m pretty sure Geo W could not forge a check, let alone technical papers about yellow cake uranium. Although I do not doubt for one second he would have done this if he could have, we’ll have to eliminate Geo W as the forger. VP Cheney next comes to mind. Slick enough and cocky enough to do a trick like this, but he’s too busy counting his share of Halliburton cost overruns to get into forgery.

That leaves only the CIA. Geo Tenant would not have done this on his own authority. Like Colin Powell, he too, is a man of honor. Not as in a Sicilian, but as in a good public servant. So what’s going down on the forged Niger yellow cake papers? Geo W orders Geo Tenant to “prepare” papers to bolster Geo W’s claim that Saddam is trying to build an atom bomb. Geo Tenant dutifully has his experts make such a forgery. To give the Agency cover, they send it to their friends at MI6 who may “owe” them one. MI6 won’t play the game all the way, but they hold the papers, then send them back via ordinary channels with their cover letter mentioned above. The papers sans the cover letter go to Colin Powell who is assured the papers came from a reliable source. Off the record, it is told to Powell they came from MI6. Off the record. Powell buys into it. Honest people tend to do that.

So who forged the Niger yellow cake documents?



[edit on 6/26/2006 by donwhite]

this may shed some light on what you are after

Center for Cooperative Research

Italian information peddler Rocco Martino agrees to pay Laura Montini, an employee at the Niger embassy in Rome, the sum of £350 per month in exchange for any documents that might shed light on rumours that “rogue states” are trying to acquire uranium from Niger (see Between 1999 and 2000). Martino wants to sell the documents to the French who are investigating the rumours. France is concerned about the security of a French consortium that controls Niger’s only two uranium mines. Martino has reportedly been on French intelligence’s payroll since 1999 (see (After June 1999 or July 1999)). Martino learned of Montini through his friend Antonio Nucera, deputy chief of the SISMI center in Viale Pasteur in Rome (see Early 2000). Up until this point, Montini, age 60, has been working as an informant for Italian intelligence. She goes by the name “La Signora.” [Marshall, 11/10/2005; La Repubblica (Rome), 10/24/2005; Sunday Times (London), 8/1/2004; Sunday Times (London), 4/9/2006; Financial Times, 8/2/2004; Vanity Fair, 7/2006, pp. 150] One of the first documents she gives to Martino is one relating to Wissam al-Zahawie’s 1999 visit to Niger (see February 1999). Martino reportedly passes the document on to the French. [Sunday Times (London), 4/9/2006] Over the next several months, La Signora reportedly provides Martino with numerous documents—a “codebook,” a dossier including a mixture of fake and genuine documents, and then finally, a purported agreement between Niger and Iraq on the sale of 500 tons of uranium oxide, also known as “yellowcake.” [Marshall, 11/10/2005]
People and organizations involved: Antonio Nucera, Laura Montini, Rocco Martino
~~
Official stamps and letterhead stolen from the Niger embassy in Rome (see January 2, 2001) are used to fabricate a set of forged documents implicating Iraq in an attempt to purchase 500 tons of uranium oxide, also known as “yellowcake,” from Niger. [La Repubblica (Rome), 10/24/2005; Talking Points Memo, 10/31/2003; New Yorker, 10/27/2003; Agence France-Presse, 7/19/2003; Reuters, 7/19/2003 Sources: Unnamed Senior US intelligence officials] Material taken from real Italian intelligence (SISMI) documents from the 1980s concerning Iraq’s yellowcake purchases from Niger during that period are also incorporated into the set of forged documents. [La Repubblica (Rome), 10/24/2005; San Francisco Chronicle, 10/30/2005] But it is not clear who exactly is responsible for the forgeries.

[edit on 26/6/2006 by Sauron]

Sticky finger sorry double post

[edit on 26/6/2006 by Sauron]

posted by Sauron

This may shed some light on what you are after

Center for Cooperative Research
Italian information peddler Rocco Martino agrees to pay Laura Montini, an employee at the Niger embassy in Rome, the sum of £350 per month in exchange for any documents that might shed light on rumors that “rogue states” are trying to acquire uranium from Niger.

Martino wants to sell the documents to the French who are investigating the rumors. France is concerned about the security of a French consortium that controls Niger’s two uranium mines. Martino has reportedly been on French intelligence’s payroll since 1999. Up until this point, Montini has been working as an informant for Italian intelligence.

La Signora provides Martino with numerous documents, a “codebook,” a dossier including a mixture of fake and genuine documents, and finally, a purported agreement between Niger and Iraq on the sale of 500 tons of uranium oxide, also known as “yellowcake.”

Official stamps and letterhead stolen from the Niger embassy in Rome are used to fabricate a set of forged documents implicating Iraq in an attempt to purchase 500 tons of uranium oxide, also known as “yellowcake,” from Niger. Sources: Unnamed Senior US intelligence officials . . it is not clear who exactly is responsible for the forgeries. [Edited by Don W]

Thanks, Sauron. I had not seen this. You say you already posted this long ago? I have only been posting here since early 2006. I never have been good at using the search feature. I did not mean to duplicate your work or to start my own thread on top of yours.

Google on “CRC” did not produce any group dealing with this material. Is that a sub-group? I noticed many very good and reliable publications have stories about this issue. I mean, probably about “yellow cake” but probably not on forgery. I don’t care about yellow cake, but I do care about forgery. There is one oblique reference above to a “Senior US Intel official” without knowing who first offered that description, it is not worth a lot.

It is not beyond the range of possibility the CIA or another person “working” for the CIA - like Martino above, or Ms Montini - either sold the stolen letterheads on which a CIA professional did the forgeries as I suggested earlier, or the thief did the forgeries and put them off on the CIA as genuine. I would hope the latter is not the case because that would not speak well of the US that some stuff from a poor mid-African country and a private operator could dupe the supposedly unlimited budget infinite resource CIA.



[edit on 6/26/2006 by donwhite]

Sorry, no I have not posted it before. I screwed the post up and now fixed it.
I had read somewhere on the net that Iraq would not need to import yellow cake because uranium can be found throughout Iraq. Though I have never researched it to verify if this is true or not.

[edit on 26/6/2006 by Sauron]