French Secret Service kept CIA in the dark over Iraq & uranium

French secret service 'kept CIA in the dark over Iraq and uranium'
By Michael Smith, Defence Correspondent
(Filed: 14/07/2003)


The French secret service is believed to have refused to allow MI6 to give the Americans "credible" intelligence showing that Iraq was trying to buy uranium ore from Niger, US intelligence sources said yesterday.

MI6 had more than one "different and credible" piece of intelligence to show that Iraq was attempting to buy the ore, known as yellowcake, British officials insisted. But it was given to them by at least one and possibly two intelligence services and, under the rules governing cooperation, it could not be shared with anyone else without the originator's permission.

US intelligence sources believe that the most likely source of the MI6 intelligence was the French secret service, the DGSE. Niger is a former French colony and its uranium mines are run by a French company that comes under the control of the French Atomic Energy Commission.

A further factor in the refusal to hand over the information might have been concern that the US administration's willingness to publicise intelligence might lead to sources being inadvertently disclosed.

US sources also point out that the French government was vehemently opposed to the war with Iraq and so suggest that it would have been instinctively against the idea of passing on the intelligence.

More at link:

http://www.portal.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2003/07/14/wdoss114.xml&sSheet=/news/2003/07/14/ixnewstop.html

....Rupert Murdoch's rag??

Hollinger/Richard Perle rag.

The same criminal gang of liars who smeared Galloway, and are now being SUED.

This is fu*king laughable. The French "refused to allow the UK to share intelligence". OK Tony, share it, lets see it jackass.

Galloway versus Telegraph: Runners & Riders...

http://www.crookedtimber.org/archives/000216.html

and others. The Torygraph.

... not the UK Telegraph.

http://www.newscorp.com/operations/newspapers.html

Either way, this whole tact of "Blame the French" for lies/intelligence failures just about made me :puke:

Conrad>Hollinger>Trilateral Commission>Richard Perle ...

Connect the Dots ...

They are about as trustworthy as Rush Limbaugh or Newsmax.

Isn't that conveeeeeeeeeeeenient . . .

But of course! It's FRANCE'S FAULT!

Why don't we just add them to the Evil Empire and forget it?

PUT DOWN the telephone...you can leak all the misinformation you want tomorrow.

Original Brit info that they claim in addition to US info is the "summary" - nothing else

I am curious as to CIA faking a bad fake document.

The CIA I know does not make easy to spot errors - unless it intends to have them discovered.

I can not understand the game that was being played. I only know that we knew the game - the Brits knew the game - and everyone lied so as to go to war.

It is almost like folks were lazy at the top - perhaps playing with bad fakes to dirty up France, then not planting good fakes once they decided to use the garbage info to justify war deaths in Iraq.

They just love to scapegoat the French. As if this matters...the information was bad, is bad and they knew it but used it anyways. Interesting that we are now supposed to trust the French. Does that mean I can start eating French Fries again? For some reason Freedom Fries have been a bit less palatable recently.

Did a French maid once laugh at little George's equipment?

the Telegraph was a mouthpiece for Richard Perle. I wonder how true that is.

:hi:

(snip) Perle has close business ties with Conrad Black, chairman of Hollinger International Inc., which owns more than 400 daily and weekly newspapers in Canada, the United States, Britain, Israel and Australia. Hollinger papers include London's Daily Telegraph, the Chicago Sun-Times, the Sydney Morning Herald and the Jerusalem Post. Perle uses these papers and others to trumpet his anti-Saddam sentiments and to tangle with political figures, such as British Minister Clare Short, who opposes the Perle line on Iraq. Black, a Canadian, recently joined fellow media kingpin Rupert Murdoch in defending British Prime Minister Tony Blair's decision to stick with Bush's war aims, despite overwhelming domestic opposition.

Perle is a top executive of Hollinger Digital Inc., which is the media management and investment arm of Hollinger <2><3>. Perle is listed on various corporate boards through his association with Hollinger. Whether or not Perle speaks for Bush, the president's recent reasoning on Iraq follows a pattern found in Perle's writings, particularly in a lengthy piece for Israel Insider, which uses numerous non-sequiters in its emotionally-charged connection of Saddam to terrorist activity.<4> (snip/...)

http://www.disinfopedia.org/wiki.phtml?title=Richard_N._Perle

I didn't look through any of the other 179 choices for Hollinger + "Conrad Black" + Telegraph + "Richard Perle," but I'm sure they all will inform Perle is connected to Conrad Black, Hollinger, and the BRITISH "Daily Telegraph."

P.S. He also writes opinion pieces in the Telegraph whenever he feels the urge, as does Conrad Black's wife.

(snip) There are other similar gaps in Perle's logic. Trying to allay fears of protracted warfare in an Aug. 6, London Daily Telegraph Op-Ed, Perle in one breath dismissed "the competence, morale and ultimate loyalty of army" as being "a third of what it was in 1991, and it is the same third, 11 years closer to obsolescence." Yet just two paragraphs later, trying to gin up urgency, Perle compared Hussein with Hitler at the height of the Third Reich's mighty military buildup. (snip)

http://www.despardes.com/Opinion/salim/mar30-prince-of-darkness.html

Blame the French. Half the people in the USofA will believe it.

180

Ne Viva la Bush Administration Pas!

to the investigating commission. She mentioned that the French had excellent intelligence and said something that made me suspect the French intelligence was NOT being shared with the Americans.

Of course, this mornign Rummy said on Meet the Press that the reason the information should not have been used in the SOTU was because the US shouldn't rely on "foreign intelligence." Which means that they'll have to change their tune once again if they want to point to this as evidence they were right.

But then, changing the story is no real challenge for them.

Eh? The Niger info WORKED - we had a war!

There is a goddamn CIA operative on the UK's intelligence commitee. Why would France share info with Britain when it was going to invade Iraq? Wouldn't they just keep their mouth shut, then hey presto, no use of uranium in any documents, less of a case for war?

Just shows how desparate BushCo is.

They are soooooooo desparate ..must be France's fault
Bawahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha !

Did the United States ever have any evidence (that can be proven) that Iraq was attempting to purchase uranium? None of this, I heard it from a friend, who heard it from a friend, who heard it form a friend, stuff.

The truth always comes out in the end.

Moussaui?

Seems like the French intelligence has been quite willing to work with the US and the UK in the past.

hmmmmm.....

wonder if there is another agenda to this article </sarcasm>

let them eat yellowcake!

It's about WMD, it's not about WMD.
It's about tyranny, but we took 20 years to get around to it.
It's about flouting the UN, the UN is irrelevant.
It's about regional stability, but we took 20 years to get around to it.

But it's not about oil, even though oil production is the only thing we have got up and running.

That's why we went. All the rest of the "reasons" are lies. Lies upon lies upon lies, spinning round and round they're so dizzy they don't remember which lie to support next and they end up saying opposite things are true at the same time ... condi saying yesterday the SOTU line shouldn't have been in the speech, but that it was accurate but the CIA is to blame .... Jeesh! Which is it?!

Everyone could just start breathing again if they just said
"we went for the OIL!"

It's not like it's a secret or anything.

Damn those French! First they don't let W have his war, then they put the wrong words in his mouth - and on top of it, they keep our dead prisoners there - and after everything we did for them!

Vraiment, c'est un bon mot!

Voici votre pied. Ouvrez votre bouche...

to the yellow cake in Niger in his New Yorker article.

so there was no simple way to check this info? I mean, wouldn't they have records if they owned the rights?

maybe I'm too simple.

But wouldn't the IAEC have this information...was this part of what they debunked from Bush's statement?

Wouldn't the French Atomic Energy Commission have to answer to that larger body, as well?

seems these things should be easy to check out if someone were writing an article about this.

I guess blaming Clinton finally got too boring for them.

The French secret service is believed to have refused to allow...

......US intelligence sources believe that the most likely source....

.... A further factor in the refusal to hand over the information might have been concern

yup there ya have it our best intelligence at work

:-)

How much are we paying those goons in our so-called intelligence operation? Is it $25B a year? Or, do we even know. It's probably classified.

We had friends from intelligence agencies from numerous countries calling us to warn us of 9-11. Okay, so even if we had like three agents and two clerks and one secretary, as our entire intelligence staff, they could have looked into that, right?

Instead, they blew it (or caused it). And, they used their failure to "justify" increasing their budget.

So, we're relying on the French or the Poodle to know what Niger is up to?

Fine.

Disband the CIA, NSA, DOD Intelligence, and Office of Special Plans. Pay $1000 per tip to any foreign intelligence agency that gives us a decent one.

If we had any friggin intelligence at all, we'd spend money on education, health, and the environment and quit blowing the world up.