Niger Intelligence Came From Forged Docs

ByABC News
July 15, 2003, 7:21 AM

July 15 -- The most sophisticated intelligence operation in the world was fooled by a low-level diplomat from Africa, intelligence sources told ABCNEWS.

For nearly a week, the Bush administration has been trying to explain how it came to pass that President Bush, in his State of the Union speech, erroneously claimed that Saddam Hussein was trying to get uranium in Africa.

The president said Monday the main thrust of his case for the Iraq war is, and was, accurate. "The speeches I have given were backed by good intelligence," he said. "And I am absolutely convinced today, like I was convinced when I gave the speeches, that Saddam Hussein developed a program of weapons of mass destruction."

President Bush's claim about Saddam Hussein's seeking uranium from Africa was just one part of his case for war, albeit a very important one.

However, the intelligence debacle grew out of a scam when an underpaid African diplomat who was stationed in Rome created bogus documents, which he then sold to the Italian secret service, sources said.

The Italians officially deny the sale, but intelligence sources told ABCNEWS the fake documents were produced in late 2001 in Rome, in a building that houses the tiny embassy of Niger.

The diplomat, who now has been recalled to Niger, sold the forged documents to the military branch of the Italian secret service for what sources say was a few thousand dollars.

"There had been reports circulating about Niger's sale of uranium to Iraq in the l980s and I think this diplomat apparently saw an opportunity to make some money by feeding into the current controversy about Iraq's program of weapons of mass destruction," said counterterrorism expert Vince Cannistraro, an ABCNEWS consultant.

Niger's ambassador to Italy denied the story today in Rome. She said that no one from the country's diplomatic corps had created any fabrication, and she said that Niger's president Mamadou Tandja met with Bush last week to tell him that.