Fake uranium docs from Italy

2003-07-18 08:26

Washington - A private source gave the US embassy in Rome forged documents detailing alleged Iraqi attempts to acquire uranium from Niger, a senior state department official said on Thursday.

"In October 2002, we acquired these documents in Rome from a private source, a non-governmental source and they were immediately shared with all the appropriate agencies," the official said.

"The embassy shared them with all the relevant agencies at post and they were then shared again when they got back to Washington," the official told reporters on condition of anonymity.

The official would not confirm reports in the Italian press that the documents had been given to the embassy by a foreign journalist.

Italy's leading newspaper Corriere della Serra said the journalist was "very probably Italian" as Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini denied that Rome had any hand in passing the documents on to the United States.

Italy has found itself at the center of an international row over the now-discredited information.

In particular, questions have been raised over the role of Italy's military intelligence services SISMI, after widespread reports that it was the origin of the fake documents.

The US FBI said on Thursday it had opened an investigation into the origin of the false documents. "We do have an investigation. It's a pending matter," Federal Bureau of Investigation spokesperson Ed Cogswell said.

The documents, which the Italian newspaper La Repubblica has now published, were used by the state department two months after they were obtained in a fact sheet pointing out omissions in Iraq's prewar declaration to the United Nations on its weapons programmes.

The Niger allegations then became part of the US campaign to convince the world community that Iraq was still pursuing a nuclear weapons program, but were dropped after the CIA and other intelligence agencies in Washington cast doubt on their veracity.

Mohamed ElBaradei, the head of the UN's International Atomic Energy Agency revealed publicly in March that the documents had been forged.

State department spokesperson Richard Boucher admitted earlier this week that the inclusion of the Niger allegation in the December 19 fact sheet had been a mistake given the questions about the authenticity of the documents received by the Rome embassy.

On Thursday, Boucher declined to comment on the source of the documents or say where they had been turned over to the United States but confirmed that they had been obtained in October 2002.

But he stressed that there was unrelated intelligence predating the acquisition of the Rome documents that indicated Iraq was trying to purchase uranium from Africa generally and Niger specifically.

"There was information prior to this (of) allegations that Niger might have sold uranium to Iraq," Boucher said.

"While the idea that Niger sold uranium to Iraq has been classified as false or highly dubious or many other things there had been reports that Iraq had was out seeking to purchase uranium there and in other places in Africa," he said.

- AFX