Background: The Niger Uranium ForgeriesTo justify the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq, White House officials repeatedly used dubious intelligence to publicly make accusations that Iraq had a clandestine nuclear weapons program. The most compelling accusation was that Iraq secretly sought to purchase 500 tons of yellowcake uranium from Niger to refine and produce nuclear weapons. It was compelling because Iraq had only one plausible use for uranium—making nuclear weapons.Wissam al-Zahawie, an Iraqi diplomat stationed at the Vatican traveled to Niger’s capital Niamey on February 1, 1999. Al-Zahawie solicited the Niger government’s support for lifting UN trade embargoes imposed against Iraq after the Persian Gulf War (Iraq War I). In the year 2000 Rocco Martino, a former Italian Carabinieri policeman, was allegedly asked by Italian intelligence agency officer Antonio Nucera if he was interested in earning money. Martino accepted and was placed in contact with Laura Montini, an Italian intelligence (SISMI) agent working inside the Niger embassy in Rome, who began passing documents about a Niger sale of uranium to Iraq—allegedly the true purpose of the Wissam al-Zahawie trip—for Martino to shop around to his European intelligence agency clients. The documents had been faxed from Niger phone numbers, presumably so that French, British and other electronic eavesdroppers could pick them up. By the end of 2000 a UK intelligence commission derived from the forgeries a report claiming, “unconfirmed intelligence indicates Iraqi interest in acquiring uranium.” UK later released a White Paper claiming Iraq “sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa, despite having no active civil nuclear power programme that could require it.” By the summer of 2001, Rocco Martino assembled an entire dossier of Niger uranium documents based on forgeries from stolen Niger embassy papers and SISMI intelligence files. Their centerpiece was written in French on Niger government stationary stamped “confidential.” This fake July 27, 2000 letter was from Niger’s President to Iraq’s, signed with the seal of the President of Niger. It read, “I have the honor of referring to accord No. 381-N1 2000, concerning the provision of uranium, signed in Niamey on the 6th of July between the Government of the Republic of Niger and the Government of Iraq…” The letter described future shipments of 500 tons of yellowcake uranium. Different compilations of the Niger dossier circulated in Europe, some with handwritten corrections of the most obvious errors, with an asking price of up to $100,000 euros. On October 15, 2001 the CIA Rome station received SISMI reports of a Niger uranium deal with Iraq, and passed the information to Washington with the caveat that it was uncorroborated. Americans were subsequently bombarded by U.S. officials in the runup to the U.S. invasion of Iraq with Niger uranium sale claims. Vice President Richard Cheney set the stage, telling CNN’s Wolf Blitzer on March 14, 2001 that Saddam Hussein was actively pursuing nuclear weapons. On December 7, 2002, Iraq declared to UN weapons inspectors it did not have a nuclear weapons program. But State Department Under Secretary for Arms Control and International Security John Bolton oversaw the official U.S. response, issued on December 19, 2002 charging Iraq with omitting its “efforts to procure uranium from Niger.” In January 2003, National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice echoed Bolton, claiming in the New York Times that Iraq had “failed to account for or explain Iraq’s efforts to get uranium from abroad.” Secretary of State Colin Powell followed on January 26 asking, “Why is Iraq still trying to procure uranium?” Most critically, on January 28, President Bush delivered his State of the Union Address, claiming "The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa." These words stoked fears among Americans that the U.S. was vulnerable to a nuclear attack from Iraq. Polling at the time revealed 90 percent of Americans believed Iraq was trying to develop nuclear weapons before the war. In October of 2001, Italian journalist Elisabeta Burba of the magazine Panorama received a copy of the dossier from Martino including the fabricated July 2000 "agreement" between Iraq and Niger for the purchase of 500 tons of yellowcake uranium. Martino was asking 15,000 Euros for the publication of 17 pages of the documents in Panorama. Burba was encouraged by her editor Carlo Rosella to try to authenticate the dossier at the U.S. Embassy in Rome before publishing any stories. Burba delivered the dossier to lower level U.S. embassy employees, asking for authentication on October 9. The employees, foreign national officers, refused to provide any but sent the dossier to the U.S. Department of State in Washington. The International Atomic Energy Agency had heard that a dossier on Niger was behind US and British Niger claims since at least the fall of 2002, but the U.S. refused to turn over any copies to the IAEA until February 4, 2003. Two weeks before the U.S. invasion, Mohamed ElBaradie, director general of IAEA, testified before the UN Security Council that the much touted Niger dossier was based on forged documents. It took IAEA staff only a matter of hours of Internet searches to see the documents were fraudulent. Forgery documents cited Niger officials who were not in power during the time of “negotiations” and disbanded official agencies as instrumental in the so-called plot to sell Niger uranium to Iraq. Neoconservatives inside the administration and outside excoriated ElBaradei, but presented no evidence about why he was wrong. This background was based on the book "The Italian Letter; How the Bush Administration Used a Fake Letter to Build the Case for War in Iraq." The FBI Investigates the Niger Uranium ForgeriesIn the months immediately following the invasion, after no signs of "weapons of mass destruction" or related programs were found in Iraq, the House Intelligence Committee expressed its concerns and asked Director of Central Intelligence George J. Tenet to reevaluate intelligence used by the Bush administration about Iraq's proscribed weapons programs and Iraq's alleged links to terrorist organizations such as al Qaeda. The CIA review followed growing criticism that the Defense Department and other parts of the Bush Administration had manipulated intelligence to make the case for war in Iraq. On March 14, 2003 Senator John D. Rockefeller, IV, Vice Chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence sent a letter to FBI Director Robert Mueller requesting an investigation. (See Exhibit 1)
The FBI began an investigation. However, not until 9/15/2004—551 days into the investigation—did the Washington Field Office understand that the full mandate given by Senator Rockefeller was much broader than trailing forgery suspects in European regions where they held little jurisdiction. But the lead investigators were never allowed by FBI Director Robert Mueller to pursue U.S. officials in their own back yard who were twisting dubious intelligence in support of the U.S. invasion of Iraq.
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| Document name, link and dates | Key Content | From/to |
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1328949-0-FILE
1.pdf OCR version June 3, 2003 |
Possible perception management activity directed against the U.S. government; documents allegedly given to Italian journalist disclosing government of Iraq efforts to obtain uranium (sic) from Niger. |
From: FBI Counterintelligence To: Washington Field Rome London |
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1328949-0-FILE
2.pdf OCR version June 12, 2003 |
Request for a priority investigation to the Legats
Rome and London and the Washington Field Office for
FBI Director Robert Mueller's testimony to
Congressional committees about the forgeries. At the
request of the House Intelligence Committee. "For the further information of Washington Field and Legat London, on 06/05/03, the U.S. Department of State (USDS), Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR) provided FBI Headquarters with 17 pages of documents in the French and Italian languages that were received by two American Embassy officials. The USDS also provided English language translations of the documents. The documents purportedly consisted of diplomatic notes between the Iraqi Embassy to the Holy See and the Embassy of Niger to Rome, internal communications within the Government of Niger (GON) , telexes between the GON and the Embassy, and an accord for uranium transaction between the two Governments." |
From: FBI Counterintelligence To: Washington Field Rome London |
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1328949-0-FILE
3.pdf OCR version 6/16/2003 |
FBI obtains and reviews copies of forged documents and interviews key embassy officials emphasizing that it was not conducting a criminal investigation. |
From: Washington Field IT-4 To: Counterintelligence |
| 6/23/2003 | FBI concludes that "based on the investigation conducted to date, it appears as though the person(s) responsible for the false information/documents was acting on his/her own (i.e. there was no foreign government involvement), and their goal was to profit financially." |
From: Washington Field IT-4 To: Counterintelligence |
| 6/6/2003 |
Report about October 8, 2002 U.S. embassy meeting in
Rome during which [Elisabeta Burba] of Panorama
passes the forged Iraq Niger documentsobtained from Rocco
Martino to embassy staff. An embassy official photocopies the
documents are returns them. The pretext of the visit
is for the U.S. to "verify" the authenticity of the
documents, which the foreign service officer does
not promise to do. On October 15, 2002, without
analyzing the information, the Embassy in Rome faxes
the documents to the U.S. Department of State in
Washington. Opinion that if [Burba] were contacted, "she would make use of the contact in a story for the magazine or other publication." |
From: Rome To: International Operations Counterterrorism Counterintelligence Washington Field |
| 7/23/2003 | FBI notes that "She appears politically savvy, and has reported on several "hot spots" over the last ten years, to include: Rwanda, Kosovo, Sarajevo, Somalia and the Middle East. Of note, was the absence of any articles concerning the 17 pages of documents and her contact with the u.S. Embassy." |
From: Counterintelligence To: Washington Field |
| 8/6/2003 |
FBI notes a 7/25/2003 article in Panorama.
"The above documents and the events
associated with them were the topic of an article,
dated 07/25/03, in the Italian magazine,
Panorama. The journalist stated the documents
were given to her by a source...In the article, the
journalist described her attempt to validate the
material as unsuccessful. Her attempted (sic)
included her Editor's recommendation
she contact the American Embassy, as she did on
10/09/02. The journalist ultimately labeled the
event a 'hoax.'" "Further, Italian and U.S. media reports have stated that Italian security services had acquired the information that is contained in the documents. Some media reports claimed the Italian services obtained the material from the Embassy of Niger in Rome. The media reports also claim that third-party, foreign security services, such as the British, may have been aware of action undertaken by the Italian services in the acquisition of the material." |
From: Counterintelligence To: Laboratory |
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1328949-0-FILE
4.pdf OCR version 11/04/2003 |
Memorandum of October 29, 2003 interview, probably of Panorama's editor. "...believes that whoever was the originator of this information did not believe that Panorama would check this information as closely as they did..." |
From: Rome To: International Operations Counterintelligence; Washington Field |
| 12/3/2003 |
FBI constructs a timeline of key events. Notes that
just 8 days after that NIE was created, Burba passed
the Niger forgeries to the U.S. embassy,
The 2002 NIE claimed: Although we assess that
Saddam does not yet have nuclear weapons or
sufficient material to make any, he remains intent
on acquiring them. Most agencies assess that Baghdad
started reconstituting its nuclear program about the
time that UNSCOM inspectors departed--December 1998. "October 1, 2002: the National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) was published." "October 9, 2002 [Burba] visited the American Embassy in Rome and provided 17 pages of documents." "October 11, 2002; An American Embassy, Rome, cable to the Department of State reported {Burba] had visited the Embassy" October 15, 2002 (approximately): Seventeen pages of documents were sent by facsimile from the American Embassy, Rome, to the Department of State." |
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| 09/23/2004 |
FBI's Washington Field Office finally receives a
full copy of its investigative mandate in the form
of the Rockefeller letter. "The fax is a copy of the 3/14/2003 letter from Senator John D. Rockefeller, IV (D-WV) to FBI Director Robert S. Mueller, III, which predicated captioned matter. Prior to 9/15/2004, WFO had never been provided with a copy of the Senator's letter." |
From: Washington Field To: Washington Field |
| 9/17/2004 | "Based on this review, the FBI concluded that the documents contained fabricated text which was pasted onto Government of Niger (GON) stationary. The documents referred to Iraqi efforts to procure uranium from the Republic of Niger." | |
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1328949-0-FILE
5.pdf OCR version 2/3/2004 |
FBI translation of a 9/21/2004 Il Giornale
interview of Rocco Martino. "...the documents in question originated back in 2000, a year before the attack on the Twin Towers in New York and three years before Bush's decision to proceed wtih the war against Saddam. Someone may have remembered those documents, picked them up out of the waste basekt, and then released them back into circulation at the right moment. Anything is possible. and in any case, I [Rocco Martino] am the victim, the tool used by someone for games much bigger than me...." |
From: Washington Field To: Counterintelligence. |
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1328949-0-FILE
6.pdf OCR version 6/14/2006 |
Internal FBI email detailing the bureau's "Comitment to closure...to shut the case down as we have then addressed all pertinent investigative avenues." |
To: Washington Field From: Washington Field |
| 7/17/2007 |
Draft responses to all concerns raised by Senator
Rockefeller leading to the investigation, "after 21
months of investigation." "...While there have been numerous conspiracy theories promoted in the media,...the bottom line is that the first FBI investigation (from 6/16/2003 to 04/01/2005) answered all of the questions/issues posed by Senator Rockefeller's letter--the documents were not created as part of a perception management campaign to influence public oinion and foreign policy regarding the invasion of Iraq." |
From: Washington Field To: Counterintelligence |
| 9/14/2003 | "...At the request ofthe United States Senate, FBI Director Mueller ordered that a foreign counterintelligence investigation be opened to determine whether or not documents and related items surrounding this alleged deal could have been used in a perception management campaign by a foreign power to influence U.S. Government executive policy makers concerning Iraq." | |
| 08/23/2003 | Report on forensic examination of the photocopied Niger forgeries, and what can be determined from photocopies vs original documents. |
To: Counterintelligence From: Laboratory |
| 09/08/2003 | Interview with [Burba] of Panorama magazine. "....believes that the source's motivation was money....advised she does not believe the source was used while providing the original documents but could not rule it out...On July 6, 2003 the Italian newspaper 'La Republica' published six (6) of the twenty three (23) documents."" |
To: Counterintelligence From: Rome |
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1328949-0-FILE
6.pdf November 2, 2006 OCR version |
2006 Legat FBI emails, requests for translation, closure of case in Rome Legat. "There are no pending leads at Legat Rome; as such Legat Rome will conduct no further investigation on this matter. Legat Rome considers this matter referred upon completion (RUC'd)." |
From: FBI Counterintelligence To: Washington Field Rome London |
| September 22, 2004 | News report on CBS News spking its Niger uranium forgeries story about "how the White House came to embrace the fradulent documents...The senator [Rockefeller] is frustrated by the slow pace of the investigation." | |
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CBS News report on White House disinterest in a
member of Saddam Hussein's inner circle confirming
Iraq did not have an active WMD program. "Once they learned what it was the source had to say - that Saddam Hussein did not have the capability to wage nuclear war or have an active WMD program, Drumheller says,"'They stopped being interested in the intelligence.'" "'The group that was dealing with preparation for the Iraq war came back and said they're no longer interested,' Drumheller recalls. 'And we said, 'Well, what about the intel?' And they said, 'Well, this isn't about intel anymore. This is about regime change.'" "There was no one voice in coming out of the intelligence community and that allowed those people to pick and choose those bits of information that fit what they wanted to know." |
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1328949-0-FILE
7.pdf OCR version March 23, 2005 |
Deleted page information sheet. | |
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1328949-0-FILE
8.pdf OCR version |
Deleted page information sheet. | |
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1328949-0-FILE
9.pdf OCR version March 23, 2005 |
Washington Field office serializes all files. "These documents are being sent to file as attachments to this EC. The reason for the delay in the documents being sent to file is that most are classified, and therefore had to be mailed (via diplomatic pouch) by Legat Rome to WFO." |
To: Washington Field From: Washington Field |
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1328949-0-FILE
10.pdf OCR version March 28, 2005 |
Newspaper/magazine/Internet articles regarding the investigation. |
To: Washington Field From: Washington Field |
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1328949-0-FILE
11.pdf OCR version November 4, 2004 |
Pages 1-83 of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence "Report on the U.S. Intelligence Community's Prewar Intelligence Assessments on Iraq." | |
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