VS vervalst bewijs - en de pers doet aan zelfcensuur

[Herman Beun]

REPLY TO: D66 at nic.surfnet.nl

      Ik ben een paar dagen in Tsjechië geweest en weet dus niet precies of
onderstaand verhaal in de Nederlandse pers de aandacht heeft gekregen die
het verdient. Ik vrees van niet, want ik heb nog niets kunnen vinden. Op
CNN, dat ik de wel de hele week heb kunnen volgen, heb ik het niet gezien.
In Duitsland is het voorpagina-nieuws - en terecht.


      (bron: FT)
      Niger documents fake, says ElBaradei
      By Stephen Fidler in Washington
      Published: March 7 2003 19:52 | Last Updated: March 7 2003 19:52


      US and British claims that Iraq tried to buy uranium from Niger - an
important component of their assertion that Iraq has revived its efforts to
produce nuclear weapons - relied on fake documents, the chief nuclear
weapons inspector said on Friday.

      Mohamed ElBaradei (pictured), director-general of the International
Atomic Energy Agency, said the documents that formed the basis for the
allegations - that between 1999 and 2001 Niger and Iraq concluded an
agreement over the sale of uranium - were not authentic. "We have therefore
concluded that these specific allegations were unfounded."






      Mr ElBaradei's presentation before the UN Security Council also cast
doubt on the rest of the evidence that the US and UK have made public to
back claims that Iraq tried to revive its nuclear weapons programme after
1998. "After three months of intrusive inspections, we have to date found no
evidence or plausible indication of the revival of a nuclear weapons
programme in Iraq," he said.

      But Colin Powell, US secretary of state, reminded the Security Council
that in 1991 the IAEA had been just days away from determining that Iraq did
not have a nuclear programme. "We soon found out otherwise," he said.

      According to officials, the fake documents provided by western
intelligence agencies consisted of a small amount of correspondence between
government officials in the two countries. After comparing the letters with
official documents of the Niger government, the agency soon discovered the
forgery. Some signatures, names and letterheads, for example, did not match.

      The allegation about the uranium purchase first surfaced in a UK
government dossier published on September 24 last year about Iraq's alleged
weapons programmes, though it did not name Niger. Niger was first named when
the US State Department elaborated on the allegations on December 19.

      Mr ElBaradei also repeated his judgment that it was "highly unlikely"
that aluminium tubes that Iraq had tried to purchase could be redesigned for
use in a uranium enrichment programme, as the US and Britain have alleged.

      He also cast doubt on claims, made by the UK in September and expanded
upon by Mr Powell last month, that Iraq had sought magnets and magnet
production facilities for use in uranium enrichment.

      The aluminium tube claim first appeared on September 12, in
documentation accompanying President George W. Bush's address to the UN
General Assembly.

      That month Britain elaborated the claim, saying Iraq had tried to buy
60,000 such tubes, and Mr Powell drew attention last month to the high
specification of the tubes.






-------------------------------------------------------------
Herman Beun                       http://www.hermanbeun.info/
Herman.Beun at tiscali.be                    Brussel, Vlaanderen
-------------------------------------------------------------
*representative democracy is a contradiction in 4 year terms*
-------------------------------------------------------------

**********
Dit bericht is verzonden via de informele D66 discussielijst (D66 at nic.surfnet.nl).
Aanmelden: stuur een email naar LISTSERV at nic.surfnet.nl met in het tekstveld alleen: SUBSCRIBE D66
Afmelden: stuur een email naar LISTSERV at nic.surfnet.nl met in het tekstveld alleen: SIGNOFF D66
Het on-line archief is te vinden op: http://listserv.surfnet.nl/archives/d66.html
**********