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Coming Soon! From Common Courage Press Recent Stories July 15, 2003 Uri Avnery The Bi-National State: The Wolf Shall Dwell with the Lamb   July 14, 2003 Lisa Taraki Hot Days in Ramallah Walter Brasch Bush: the Pretend Captain SOA Watch Training Colombia's Killers in the US Dan Bacher Yurok Tribe Denounces Klamath River Salmon Killers Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity Intelligence Unglued Website of the Day Coalition for Democratic Rights and Civil Liberties July 12 / 13, 2003 Arthur Mitzman The Double Wall Before the Future Standard Schaefer The Coming Financial Reality: an Interview with Michael Hudson John Feffer A Fearful Symmetry: Washington and Pyongyang Ron Jacobs Shades of Gray in Iran Elaine Cassel Judicial Terrorism Against the Bill of Rights Tom Stephens Civil Liberties After 9/11 David Lindorff New White House Slogan: "Case Closed. Just Move On" Jason Leopold The Mini-War Against Iraq Prior to 9/11 Lee Sustar What's Behind the Crisis in Liberia? Mickey Z. AIDS Dissent and Africa Sam Hamod Semitic is a Language Group, Not a Race or Ethnic Group Ramzy Baroud Awaiting Justice on an Old Blanket Jeffrey St. Clair Savage Incongruities: the Photographic Life of Lee Miller Adam Engel Parable of the Lobbyist Robert Sanders A Review of Ralph Lopez's American Dream Poets' Basement Albert, Witherup, Guthrie   July 11, 2003 Conn Hallinan The Coin of Empire Tim Wise God Responds to Bush Mokhiber / Weissman The Two Faces of Bush in Africa Edward S. Herman Whitewashing Sandra Day O'Connor David Orr Coffeen-gate: What's Going on at the Sierra Club Foundation? David Lindorff An Iraq War & Occupation Glossary Website of the Day Dead Malls   July 10, 2003 Ron Jacobs Dealing with the Devil: the Bloody Profits of General Dynamics Sean Donahue Bush and the Paramillitaries: Coddling Terrorists in Colombia Yemi Toure Who Outted Bush in Afrika? Robert Jensen Politics and Sustainability: an Interview with Wes Jackson Ali Abunimah US Leaves Injured Iraqis Untreated Joanne Mariner Federal Courts, Not Military Commissions Website of the Day Electronic Iraq   July 9, 2003 David Lindorff Is the Media Finally Turning on Bush? David Krieger and Angela McCracken 10 Myths About Nuclear Weapons Mickey Z. Why Speak Out? Lee Sustar The Great Medicare Fraud John Chuckman The Worst Kind of Lie Gary Leupp "Pacifist" Japan and the Occupation of Iraq Website of the Day Hail to the Thief: Songs for the Bush Years   July 8, 2003 Elaine Cassel Bully on the Bench: the Pathological Dissents of Scalia Alan Maass Nights of Fire and Rage in Benton Harbor Chris Floyd Troubled Sleep: Getting Used to the American Gulag Linda S. Heard America's Kangaroo Justice Brian Cloughley They Tell Lies to Nodders Charles Sullivan Bush the Christian? Saul Landau The Intelligence Culture in the National Security Age Website of the Day Occupation Watch   July 7, 2003 William Blum The Anti-Empire Report Harvey Wasserman The Nuke with a Hole in Its Head Ramzy Baroud Peace for All the Wrong Reasons Simon Jones What Progressives Should Think About Iran Lesley McCulloch Fear, Pain and Shame in Aceh Uri Avnery The Draw Steve Perry Bush's Wars Web Log 7/3   July 4 / 6, 2003 Patrick Cockburn Dead on the Fourth of July Frederick Douglass What is Freedom to a Slave? Martha Honey Bush and Africa: Racism, Exploitation and Neglect Jeffrey St. Clair The Rat in the Grain: Amstutz and the Looting of Iraqi Agriculture Standard Schaefer Rule by Fed: Anyone But Greenspan in 2004 Lenni Brenner Jefferson is for Today Elaine Cassel Fucking Furious on the Fourth Ben Tripp How Free Are We? Wayne Madsen A Sad Independence Day John Stanton Happy Birthday, America! 227 Years of War Jim Lobe Bush's Surreal AIDS Appointment John Blair Return to Marble Hill: Indiana's Rusting Nuke Lisa Walsh Thomas Heavy Reckoning at Qaim David Vest Wake Up and Smell the Dynamite Adam Engel Queer as Grass Poets' Basement Christian, Witherup, Albert & St. Clair Website of the Weekend The Lipstick Librarian   July 3, 2003 Patrick W. Gavin The Meaning of Gettysburg Thomas W. Croft There Was a Reason They Called It the Casino Economy David Lindorff Outlawing Subversives: Hong Kong and the US John Chuckman Lessons from the American Revolution Jackson Thoreau New Far-Right Scheme: Impeach Supreme Court Justices Stan Goff "Bring 'Em On?": a Former Special Forces Soldier Responds to Bush's Invitation for Iraqis to Attack US Troops Steve Perry Bush's Wars Web Log 7/3 July 2, 2003 Diane Christian Good Killing and Bad Killing Richard Falk After Iraq, Does UN War Prevention Have a Future? Mokhiber / Weissman Bush Administration: Causing Repetitive Stress Justin Podur Uribe's Onslaught Across Colombia Reuven Kaviner Prosecuting Ben-Artzi, the Refusenik Steve Perry Bush's Wars Web Log 7/2 July 1, 2003 Sasan Fayamanesh Weapon of Choice: Nukes, Israel and Iran Elaine Cassel Sex and the Supreme Moralizer: Scalia and the Sodomy Cops Susan Block A Love Supreme: Our Assholes Belong to Ourselves Bill Glahn RIAA Watch: No, No Bono David Lindorff Weapons in Search of a Name Gary Leupp Occupation, Resistance and the Plight of the GIs Steve Perry Bush's Wars Web Log 7/1   June 30, 2003 Karyn Strickler The Do-Nothings: an Exposé of Progressive Politics in America Col. Dan Smith The Occupation of Iraq: Descending into the Quagmire Tim Wise Race and Destruction in Black and White Neve Gordon The Roadmap and the Wall Chris Floyd The Revelation of St. George: "God Told Me to Strike Saddam" Elaine Cassel Kentucky Woman Uri Avnery Hope in Dark Times Steve Perry Bush's Wars Web Log 6/30 Website of the Day Bush El Hombre   June 28 / 29, 2003 M. Shahid Alam Bernard Lewis: Scholarship or Sophistry? Jeffrey St. Clair Meet Steven Griles: Big Oil's Inside Man Laura Carlsen Democracy's Future: From the Polls or the Populace? Alan Maass You Call These Democrats an Alternative? C.Y. Gopinath Bush and Kindergarten Noah Leavitt Bush, the Death Penalty and International Law Joanne Mariner Rehnquist Family Values Ignacio Chapela Tenure, Censorship and Biotech at Berkeley Bob Scowcroft Bush's Squeeze on Organic Farmers Jon Brown Tom Delay: "I am the Government" Kam Zarrabi Keep Your Hands Off Iran, Please! Ron Jacobs Big Bill Broonzy's Conversation with the Blues Julie Hilden Fear Factor: Art, Terror and the First Amendment Adrien Rain Burke The Anarchists' Wedding Guide Adam Engel US Troops Outta Times Square Poets' Basement Witherup, Guthrie, Albert, Hamod   June 27, 2003 Jason Leopold CIA: Seven Months Prior to 9/11 Iraq Posed No Threat to US David Vest Supreme Silence: Bush's Bunker-Hunker David Lindorff The Catch and Release of "Comical Ali" Ray McGovern Cheney, Forgery and the CIA Steve Perry Bush's Wars Web Log 6/26 Website of the Day John Kerry, Teresa Heinz & Ken Lay: The Politics of Hypocrisy June 26, 2003 Sen. Robert Byrd The Road of Cover-Up is a Road to Ruin Jason Leopold Wolfowitz Instructed the CIA to Investigate Hans Blix Paul de Rooij Ambient Death in Palestine Chris Floyd Mass Graves and Burned Meat in Bush's New Iraq Elaine Cassel Wolfowitz as Lord High Executioner CounterPunch Wire Musicians Unite Against Sweatshops Sheldon Hull Squatting in Mansions Ben Tripp A Guide to Hating Almost Anyone Uri Avnery The Best Show in Town Steve Perry Bush's Wars Web Log 6/25 Website of the Day Ordinary Vistas: The Photographs of Kurt Nimmo   June 25, 2003 Bruce Jackson Buffalo Cops Wage War on Pedal Pushers Mickey Z. The New Dark Ages David Lindorff Indonesia's War on Journalists Dan Bacher Butterflies and Farmworkers Confront USDA and Riot Cops Adam Federman "Success is Not the Issue Here" Elaine Cassel "Ain't No Justice": Fed Judge Quits, Assails Sentencing Guidelines Bill Kauffman My America vs. the Empire Steve Perry Bush's Wars Web Log 6/25 Website of the Day You Are Being Watched: Elevator Moods   June 24, 2003 Elaine Cassel Supreme Indemnity Holocaust Denial at the High Court Roya Monajem A Message from Tehran: Is It Worth It to Risk One's Life? John Chuckman The Real Clash of Civilizations David Lindorff WMD Damage Control at the Times Steve Perry Bush's Wars Web Log 6/24   June 23, 2003 Marc Pritzke Washington Lied: an Interview with Ray McGovern Conn Hallinan The Consistency of Sharon Wayne Madsen Commercials, Disney & Amistad Edward Said The Meaning of Rachel Corrie Steve Perry Bush's Wars Web Log 6/23 June 21 / 22, 2003 Alexander Cockburn My Life as a Rabbi William A. Cook The Scourge of Hopelessness Standard Schaefer The Wages of Terror: an Interview with R.T. Naylor Ron Jacobs US Prisons as Strategic Hamlets Harry Browne The Pitstop Ploughshares Lawrence Magnuson WMD: The Most Dangerous Game Harold Gould Saddam and the WMD Mystery David Krieger 10 Reasons to Abolish Nuclear Weapons Avia Pasternak The Unholy Alliance in the Occupied Territories CounterPunch Summer Reading: Our Favorite Novels Todd Chretien Return to Sender: Todd Gitlin, the Duke of Condescension Maria Tomchick Danny Goldberg's Imaginary Kids Adam Engel The Fat Man in Little Boy Poets' Basement Guthrie, Albert & Hamod June 20, 2003 Walter Brasch Down on Our Knees Robert Meeropol The Son of the Rosenbergs on His Parents Death and Bush's America Russell Mokhiber and Robert Weissman Grannies and Baby Bells Norman Madarasz Pierre Bourgault: the Life of a Quebec Radical Gary Leupp Bush on "Revisionist Historians" Steve Perry Bush's Lies Marathon: the Finale   Hot Stories Wendell Berry Small Destructions Add Up CounterPunch Wire WMD: Who Said What When Cindy Corrie A Mother's Day Talk: the Daughter I Can't Hear From Elaine Cassel Civil Liberties Watch Michel Guerrin Embedded Photographer Says: "I Saw Marines Kill Civilians" Uzma Aslam Khan The Unbearably Grim Aftermath of War: What America Says Does Not Go Paul de Rooij Arrogant Propaganda Gore Vidal The Erosion of the American Dream Francis Boyle Impeach Bush: A Draft Resolution Click Here for More Stories.     Subscribe Online Search CounterPunch

July 15, 2003 CIA Warned White House Last October of Forgeries The Niger Uranium Debacle By JASON LEOPOLD The CIA successfully got the White House last October to omit references to Iraq's alleged attempts to purchase uranium from Niger because the agency concluded that the documents used to back up the allegations were forgeries, according to two Democratic members of the Senate's intelligence committee, both of whom were briefed by the CIA in classified hearings last year about the uranium allegations. But it still remains unclear how, after briefing the White House and the intelligence committee that the documents about Iraq's attempt to procure uranium from Niger wound up in President Bush's State of the Union address in January. Bush and his top White House advisers said last the CIA cleared week the erroneous information referenced in the State of the Union address. But White House officials did not disclose that the British intelligence documents Bush cited were known forgeries. The claims that Iraq tried to buy uranium from South Africa was a key point the Bush administration used in trying to sway the public to support a war against the country. George Tenet, director of the CIA, took responsibility Friday for allowing Bush to use the information in his State of the Union address in January. Still, Democrats and a handful of Republicans want a broader probe on pre-war intelligence information used by the White House to build a case for war against Iraq. British Prime Minister Tony Blair first mentioned the allegations last September about Iraq trying to obtain large quantities of uranium from a South African country just three hours before a Commons debate on whether Britain would use military force and back the United States in a war against Iraq. In an exclusive interview last week, the two Democratic U.S. Senators said the CIA tried to get Blair to remove the uranium reference from a dossier released by British intelligence officials because the documents used to support the allegations were "crude forgeries," the Senators said. The Senators said they could not speak "on the record" because the information the CIA shared with the intelligence committee is still considered classified. A spokesperson for Blair and the CIA would not return numerous calls for comment. These members said the Senate Intelligence Committee accused the CIA last September of withholding information the committee requested on U.S. military action in Iraq and that after the accusations were made publicly the CIA briefed the committee on the existence of the phony uranium documents an other intelligence information The British dossier, which said Iraq had sought large quantities of uranium from South Africa in an effort to jump start its nuclear weapons program, were quickly dismissed as forgeries last October in a private meeting in Vienna at the International Atomic Energy Agency, according to the head of the IAEA, Mohammed ElBaradei. The IAEA quickly realized that the documents handed over by the U.S. and British were phony after one letter purportedly signed by a Nigerian minister who had been out of office for 10 years. "The IAEA was able to review correspondence coming from various bodies of the Government of Niger, and to compare the form, format, contents and signatures of that correspondence with those of the alleged procurement-related documentation," ElBaradei said in a statement in March. "Based on thorough analysis, the IAEA has concluded, with the concurrence of outside experts, that these documents - which formed the basis for the reports of recent uranium transactions between Iraq and Niger - are in fact not authentic." The IAEA said the documents in the British dossier included a letter discussing the uranium deal supposedly signed by Niger President Tandja Mamadou. The IAEA described the signature as "childlike" and said that it clearly was not Mamadou's. Another document, written on paper from a 1980s military government in Niger, bears the date of October 2000 and the signature of a man who by then had not been foreign minister of Niger in 14 years. A U.S. intelligence official told CNN in March that the documents were passed on to the IAEA within days of being received last September with the comment, " 'We don't know the provenance of this information, but here it is.' " The IAEA had dismissed another erroneous report about Iraq's nuclear weapons program earlier in September. The IAEA said that a report cited by President Bush as evidence that Iraq in 1998 was "six months away" from developing a nuclear weapon did not exist. "There's never been a report like that issued from this agency," Mark Gwozdecky, the IAEA's chief spokesman, said in a Sept. 26 telephone interview with the Washington Times. In a Sept. 7 news conference with Prime Minister Blair, Bush said: "I would remind you that when the inspectors first went into Iraq and were denied - finally denied access [in 1998], a report came out of the Atomic - the IAEA that they were six months away from developing a weapon. The White House told the Washington Times that Bush was referring to an earlier IAEA report. "He's referring to 1991 there," said Deputy Press Secretary Scott McClellan. "In '91, there was a report saying that after the war they found out they were about six months away." But Gwozdecky said no such report was ever issued by the IAEA in 1991. The IAEA also took issue with a Sept. 9 report by the International Institute for Strategic Studies - cited by the Bush administration - that concludes Saddam "could build a nuclear bomb within months if he were able to obtain fissile material," the Washington Times reported "There is no evidence in our view that can be substantiated on Iraq's nuclear-weapons program. If anybody tells you they know the nuclear situation in Iraq right now, in the absence of four years of inspections, I would say that they're misleading you because there isn't solid evidence out there," Gwozdecky told the paper. "I don't know where they have determined that Iraq has retained this much weaponization capability because when we left in December '98 we had concluded that we had neutralized their nuclear-weapons program. We had confiscated their fissile material. We had destroyed all their key buildings and equipment," he said. Gwozdecky said there is no evidence about Saddam's nuclear capability right now - either through his organization, other agencies or any government. A few weeks later, on Sept. 25, 2002, just three hours before a crucial debate in the House of Commons on whether the British would support a U.S. led coalition to disarm Iraq by force, Blair publicly released a dossier, much of which was based on already available public information, but included the frightening claim that Iraq could launch a nuclear missile in 45 minutes and that the country sought 500 tons of Uranium from South Africa. Father of the House Tam Dalyell, MP for Linlithgow, slammed the cynical timing of the document's publication saying, "I now understand very clearly why the Government wanted to produce this report at 8a.m. on the morning of the debate, rather than subject it to the anvil of expert scrutiny by publishing it a week in advance." The White House said the findings in the British dossier were "frightening" and proved that Iraq was an imminent threat to its neighbors in the Middle East and to the U.S. But a day after the dossier was released, Aziz Pahad, South African Deputy Prime Minister of Foreign Affairs, dismissed the report as a fake. Pahad said the IAEA had already rejected the claims that Iraq could have obtained uranium from Africa to make nuclear weapons. "The agency (IAEA) had said there was no substance to the report. Four African countries produced uranium -- South Africa, Namibia, Niger and Gabon -- but South Africa was the only one capable of producing the enriched uranium for use in nuclear weapons," Pahad said in a Sept. 26, 2002 prepared statement. The IAEA also said in a statement in September 2002 that it is keeping an eye on stores of uranium that could be used for nuclear weapons in Africa­and they would know if any went missing. Indeed, in a report by UPI in October 2002, the news service said, "It seems unlikely, all the same, that the South African government has sold uranium to Iraq. (Former South African President) F.W. De Klerk, apprehensive about what might happen with South Africa's nuclear capabilities under an African National Congress government -- now the ruling party -- had made provision for tight and regular inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency, and the IAEA seems happy that its controls are adequate." But the British and top officials in the White House continued to harp on the uranium allegations, despite the fact that the IAEA had dismissed the documents as forgeries. When Iraq delivered its 12,000 page weapons report to the United Nations in December, the U.S. State Department released a fact sheet asking why hasn't Iraq accounted for uranium it tried to obtain from Niger. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld also highlighted Iraq's alleged uranium purchases from Africa during a Jan. 29 briefing with reporters and called for the U.N. to support the U.S. in the event of war. Paul Wolfowitz, the Deputy Secretary of Defense, said Jan. 23, in a speech before the Council of Foreign Relations in New York that Iraq's 12,000 page weapons report to the U.N. was unacceptable because "there is no mention of Iraqi efforts to procure uranium from abroad." The timing of the statements by Bush's top advisers was crucial because the U.N. was gearing up to hold a vote on whether to find Iraq in material breach of a U.N. resolution calling for the country to disarm, which if U.N. countries voted in favor of would have allowed the U.S. to start a war with Iraq with the full support of U.N. member countries. National Security Adviser Condoleeza Rice, in a Jan. 23, New York Times op-ed column headlined "Why We Know Iraq is Lying," accused Iraq of filing a "false declaration to the United Nations that amounts to a 12,200-page lie." "For example, the declaration fails to account for or explain Iraq's efforts to get uranium from abroad," Rice said in the column. Jason Leopold can be reached at: jasonleopold@hotmail.com Weekend Edition Features for July 12/13, 2003 Arthur Mitzman The Double Wall Before the Future Standard Schaefer The Coming Financial Reality: an Interview with Michael Hudson John Feffer A Fearful Symmetry: Washington and Pyongyang Ron Jacobs Shades of Gray in Iran Elaine Cassel Judicial Terrorism Against the Bill of Rights Tom Stephens Civil Liberties After 9/11 David Lindorff New White House Slogan: "Case Closed. Just Move On" Jason Leopold The Mini-War Against Iraq Prior to 9/11 Lee Sustar What's Behind the Crisis in Liberia? Mickey Z. AIDS Dissent and Africa Sam Hamod Semitic is a Language Group, Not a Race or Ethnic Group Ramzy Baroud Awaiting Justice on an Old Blanket Jeffrey St. Clair Savage Incongruities: the Photographic Life of Lee Miller Adam Engel Parable of the Lobbyist Robert Sanders A Review of Ralph Lopez's American Dream Poets' Basement Albert, Witherup, Guthrie   Keep CounterPunch Alive: Make a Tax-Deductible Donation Today Online! home / subscribe / about us / books / archives / search / links /