Hussein’s Information Minister was trying to arrange uranium purchase. From the Washington Post:
It was Saddam Hussein’s information minister, Mohammed Saeed Sahhaf, often referred to in the Western press as “Baghdad Bob,” who approached an official of the African nation of Niger in 1999 to discuss trade — an overture the official saw as a possible effort to buy uranium.
That’s according to a new book Joseph C. Wilson IV . . . . Wilson wrote that he did not learn the identity of the Iraqi official until this January, when he talked again with his Niger source.
That knowledge has not altered Wilson’s much-expressed view that the Bush administration distorted intelligence on Iraq’s weapons capabilities to help make the case for going to war. . . .
Sahhaf’s role casts more light on an aspect of Wilson’s report to the CIA that was publicly disclosed last summer. . . . [CIA Director George J. Tenet’s statement in 2003] noted that Wilson had reported back to the CIA that a former Niger official told him that “in June 1999 a businessman approached him and insisted that the former official meet with an Iraqi delegation to discuss ‘expanding commercial relations’ between Iraq and Niger. The former official interpreted the overture as an attempt to discuss uranium sales.”
In his book, Wilson recounts his encounter with the unnamed Niger official in 2002, saying, he “hesitated and looked up to the sky as if plumbing the depths of his memory, then offered that perhaps the Iraqi might have wanted to talk about uranium.” Wilson did not get the Iraqi’s name in 2002, but he writes that he talked to his source again four months ago, and that the former official said he saw Sahhaf on television before the start of the war and recognized him as the person he talked to in 1999. . . .
Thanks to Nikita Demosthenes for the pointer.
Comments are closed.