INTELL Sources Reveal Stymied Attempt to Tie IRAN/IRAQ in WMD PLOT

Attempt to tie Iran, Iraq to nuclear arms plot bypassed U.S. intelligence channels
Larisa Alexandrovna
Published: January 11, 2006



Several U.S. and foreign intelligence sources, along with investigators, say an Iranian exile with ties to Iran-Contra peddled a bizarre tale of stolen uranium to governments on both sides of the Atlantic in the spring and summer of 2003.

The story that being peddled -- which detailed how an Iranian intelligence team infiltrated Iraq prior to the start of the war in March of 2003, and stole enriched uranium to use in their own nuclear weapons program -- was part of an attempt to implicate both countries in a WMD plot.

By all credible accounts, the source of this dubious tale was Manucher Ghorbanifar, an Iranian arms dealer who used middle-men and cut-outs to create the appearance of several sources. Ghorbanifar played a key role in the Iran-Contra scandal that threatened to take down the Reagan administration, in which the U.S. sold arms to Iran and diverted the proceeds to Nicaraguan militants.

While the various threads of the larger story of Ghorbanifar and his intelligence peddling began in December of 2001, meetings in Paris in 2003 are far more important in illustrating -- as a microcosm -- the larger difficulties faced in untangling the facts relating to global intelligence trafficking.

more at:
http://rawstory.com/news/2005/Backchannels_used_to_bypass_U.S._government_0111.html

We broke the UN seals on the storage facilities, then left them for the looters. We have no idea where all that uranium went.

Lots of ?s about yellow cake in this article (Kpete)

Paris, Again

The uranium story peddled to Weldon is strikingly similar to the story that was told to Ledeen.

"I approached a variety of government officials, lots of them, and told them that I had a reliable source that told me about how and where the Iranians stole enriched uranium from Iraq," Ledeen said.

He then went on to explain that the "stash" was buried in an underground facility and he also recounted, much like Weldon did, that neither the CIA, the Defense Department or the State Department would listen to his concerns.

Asked if his source was Ghorbanifahr, Ledeen said "No," but was unable to tell the identity of his source for fear said source might be "put in danger."

Who arranged the meetings and their ultimate purpose remains unclear. One intelligence official, however, described the series of events and the market of intelligence trafficking as follows: "If you were going to launder intel to make up a war, you could easily send some fool on an errand."

http://rawstory.com/news/2005/Backchannels_used_to_bypass_U.S._government_0111.html