FBI probes fake papers on Iraq

Investigation eyes possible role of foreign intelligence service

By Dana Priest and Susan Schmidt

THE WASHINGTON POST

WASHINGTON, March 13 — The FBI is looking into the forgery of a key piece of evidence linking Iraq to a nuclear weapons program, including the possibility that a foreign government is using a deception campaign to foster support for military action against Iraq.

“IT’S SOMETHING we’re just beginning to look at,” a senior law enforcement official said yesterday. Officials are trying to determine whether the documents were forged to try to influence U.S. policy, or whether they may have been created as part of a disinformation campaign directed by a foreign intelligence service.

“We’re looking at it from a preliminary stage as to what it’s all about,” he said.

The FBI has not yet opened a formal investigation because it is unclear whether the bureau has jurisdiction over the matter.

The phony documents — a series of letters between Iraqi and Niger officials showing Iraq’s interest in equipment that could be used to make nuclear weapons — came to British and U.S. intelligence officials from a third country. The identity of the third country could not be learned yesterday.

The forgery came to light last week during a highly publicized and contentious United Nations meeting. Mohamed ElBaradei, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), told the Security Council on March 7 that U.N. and independent experts had decided that the documents were “not authentic.”

ElBaradei’s disclosure, and his rejection of three other key claims that U.S. intelligence officials have cited to support allegations about Iraq’s nuclear ambitions, struck a powerful blow to the Bush administration’s argument on the matter.

To the contrary, ElBaradei told the council, “we have to date found no evidence or plausible indications of the revival of a nuclear program in Iraq.”

The CIA, which had also obtained the documents, had questions about “whether they were accurate,” said one intelligence official, and it decided not to include them in its file on Iraq’s program to procure weapons of mass destruction.

FBI DELVES IN

The FBI has jurisdiction over counterintelligence operations by foreign governments against the United States. Because the documents were delivered to the United States, the bureau would most likely try to determine whether the foreign government knew the documents were forged or whether it, too, was deceived.

Iraq pursued an aggressive nuclear weapons program during the 1970s and 1980s. It launched a crash program to build a nuclear bomb in 1990 after it invaded Kuwait. Allied bombing during the Persian Gulf War in 1991 damaged Iraq’s nuclear infrastructure. The country’s known stocks of nuclear fuel and equipment were removed or destroyed during the U.N. inspections after the war.

But Iraq never surrendered the blueprints for its nuclear program, and it kept teams of scientists employed after U.N. inspectors were forced to leave in 1998.

What foreign country has been clamoring for the U.S. to bomb its neighbors for months now?

What Middle East country has the longest, bloodiest history of state terrorism?

What Middle East country has been officially at war with its arab neighbors for decades?

What foreign country has been investigated by the FBI in connection to 9-11, and the results have been classified?

What foreign country warned its nationals and had advance knowledge of 9-11, had spies assist and document the attacks on the WTC, and whose spies were expelled from the U.S. following 9-11?

What foreign country is in violation of 3 times the number of U.N. resolutions on Iraq?

What foreign country would MOST BENEFIT from a war on Iraq?

well that doesn't sound like the Simple Simon i know....

but anyway you left off one:

which country in the Middle East has nuclear weapons?

You have disappointed me, for the past two evenings I have read most of your post and found them to be on the mark. But this last on is way off. The rumors about the Israelis having advanced knowledge and warning their people to get out of the Twin Towers has been found time and again to be bogus. Anyone can publish their made up facts on the web. It's our job to separate fiction from fact. We can disagree, but don't spread someone else hate mongering.

"It's our job to separate fiction from fact."

This from someone who quoted a fox opinion poll not moments earlier.

Skinner, thank you btw for not surrounding your idiocy with idiotic html... the two together were almost more than i could bear. (maybe thats the next psyop attack... the dreaded "frontpage" attack)

Speaking of idiocy, skinner, i would be absolutely fucking amazed if that was actually simon. It sounds way too human.

Please, you dimwitted leather-necked ass-kissing troll fart. That isn't Simon.

the same thought at the same time!

We better take a poll!!

Late Breaking Development brought to you by the good, Honist(c) "People" at FOX!

Public Opinion Poll:

Number of flag burning liberal commies that think Skinner is a swell guy*:

873

Number that think he should take his war and shove it up his no-html-skillz-having nazi ass**:

0

* - Changed "currently wearing ladies underwear" to "a swell guy"

** This information might not actually be "True"

Skinner, I did not post that crap above. Some charming person has taken to lifting my Nick to discredit me. It happens here. Bush Admirer was routinely abused in this fashion.

Simple, I was in doubt, your post on Pro War . . . seemed to be the true person. Who thinks clearly and with true logic. You have to figure on ultra left wing message board there would be a character assassin.

I don't get it exactly, but you and other folk proclaiming right-wing status are here posting and chatting away. When it comes to claiming responsibility for the Indymedia site, and the contributions that are made, you label it as ultra-left, epithet, blah, etc, blah, blah.

A fundamental flaw that I see in your condescending judgments are that you et al., are allowed (like anyone) to participate in all your glory, "right-wing" --or whatever you want to call your input. Minus lame-ass html, and the standard unconstitutional stuff like death threats, it is a free-for-all at indymedia.

If you aren't part of this free and independent space where individual's can come and present positions, if you don't take responsibility, if you aren't contributing and admitting that your input matters, then why stay and participate? Why continue to come back and take the time hashing out what you really need to say?

Contrary to your assumptions and belief, you are welcome here.

Don't you think you'd be 86'd by now, if this was a close-minded forum?

What you decide to do is entirely up to you. You want to disrupt, fuck with some stupid idea? That behavior is allowed here as long as you don't overstep the invisible line. (don't ask me, I've never seen it.)

If you want to cause mayhem; seize the forum with corrupt html until it has to be rebuilt; instigate spam wars, bait people so you can attack them with the intent of causing so much chaos that the forum is abandoned and deemed useless --then you are doing yourself a disservice, because, like it or not, you are part of this forum.

There are very few forums that allow this much online freedom and you know it. So, go ahead and denounce the forum while simultaneously using it for your own advantage. It is a destructive love relationship that is about power and control, neither of which you acquire when you condemn the tool that you yourself use.