eRiposte at the LeftCoaster points us to a new
report from the UK publication
"Private Eye" that suggests that the U.S. Government KNEW that the Niger Yellowcake forgeries were fake but nevertheless tried to hide that fact from international weapons inspectors.
Private Eye has obtained a full set of the Niger forgeries which the US State Department used to back up their claim that Saddam was building nuclear weapons. One describes a fantastic collaboration of `outlaw' nations that would be barely credible in an Austin Powers movie.
[snip]
When the US State Department finally gave international weapons inspectors its "evidence" that Saddam was trying to buy uranium from the African State of Niger in 2003, they held back the one document even their own analysts knew was "funky" and "clearly a forgery". Experts at the International Atomic Energy Agency quickly discovered that all the papers were fake, but they did this by spotting errors that had slipped passed the State Department and CIA: The fact that the US government handed over the whole bundle of what became known as the "Niger Forgeries" except the one paper they recognised as a hoax suggests they were trying to pass off documents they knew were phoney as the real thing.
Now why on earth would the US hold back the one document which was most obviously a forgery? A logical conclusion would be that they knew that the document would be immediately identified as a forgery and thus undercut the case for war.
If true, this fact makes the case for consciousness of guilt. It is further evidence that the WMD case for war was not made upon mistakes and errors of judgment, but rather upon deliberate lies.
Hat tip Fire Dog Lake, where I first noticed this story.