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Chronology of Bush Claim that Iraq Attempted to Obtain Uranium
from Niger
An updated
version of this chronology is now available in the Fact
Sheets section of this web site.
One of the chief arguments used by the Bush administration to justify
the invasion of Iraq in March 2003 was that Iraq was reconstituting
its nuclear weapons programs. Central to this argument was the claim
that Iraq attempted to obtain processed uranium from Africa and
that it attempted to acquire specialized aluminum tubes to enrich
that uranium. Debate continues about the accuracy of the second
assertion. But President George W. Bush’s inclusion of the
first claim in his January 28, 2003, State
of the Union address has become particularly contentious as
evidence has emerged that it was based on discredited or misleading
information. National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice acknowledged
June 8 that Bush’s claim was based in part on inaccurate information,
and the controversy intensified when the White House conceded July
7 that the information should not have been included in the president’s
speech. Several administration officials have accepted varying degrees
of responsibility for the statement, including Rice, Director of
Central Intelligence George Tenet, and Deputy National Security
Adviser Stephen Hadley, as well as President Bush himself.
This chronology details the intelligence that the United States
possessed on reported Iraqi attempts to obtain uranium from Africa,
along with relevant administration statements.
2001-2002
Late 2001-early 2002: The United States gathers what Tenet
later terms “fragmentary intelligence” about Iraq’s
attempts to acquire uranium from Africa.
Late February 2002: The CIA sends former Ambassador Joseph
Wilson to Niger to investigate reports about Iraq’s attempts
to acquire uranium from that country. Wilson later writes in The
New York Times on July 6, 2003, that “it was highly doubtful
that any such transaction had taken place” because Niger’s
uranium industry is closely regulated by its government and is controlled
by a consortium of foreign companies monitored by the International
Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). Wilson briefs this conclusion to the
CIA when he returns in March 2002.
Wilson also reports to the CIA that a former Nigerien official described
a businessman’s attempt to arrange a meeting between the former
official and an Iraqi delegation as “an attempt to discuss
uranium sales,” Tenet says July 11, 2003. But Wilson told Arms
Control Today August 18 that the official mentioned uranium as an
afterthought.
CIA officials tell Wilson that his mission to Niger is in response
to an interest expressed by Vice President Dick Cheney. Wilson tells
CNN later on July 7, 2003, that Cheney’s office “asked
the question and that office received a very specific response.”
Tenet, however, claims July 11, 2003, that CIA experts sent Wilson
to Niger “on their own initiative” and that the agency
never briefed Wilson’s conclusions to senior administration
officials. The CIA distributed a summary of Wilson’s report
to intelligence community entities on March 9, 2002.
March 1, 2002: The State Department Bureau of Intelligence and
Research (INR) sends a memorandum to Secretary of State Colin Powell
stating that claims regarding Iraqi attempts to obtain uranium from
Niger are not credible, according to a knowledgeable government
official.
August 26, 2002: Cheney declares that “we now know that
Saddam has resumed his efforts to acquire nuclear weapons….
Many of us are convinced that Saddam will acquire nuclear weapons
fairly soon.”
September 2002: The CIA expresses “reservations”
to British intelligence about information regarding Iraqi efforts
to acquire African uranium after the United Kingdom informs the
agency about its plans to include the allegation in a forthcoming
report about Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction, according
to a July 11, 2003, statement from Tenet.
September 24, 2002: The United Kingdom issues a report
on Iraq’s WMD program, stating that “there is intelligence
that Iraq has sought the supply of significant quantities of uranium
from Africa. Iraq has no active civil nuclear power programme or
nuclear power plants, and therefore has no legitimate reason to
acquire uranium.”
September/October 2002: U.S. intelligence officials tell
Senate committees about their differences with the British report
regarding the Iraq uranium claim, according to Tenet’s July
11, 2003, statement.
October 2002: The State Department acquires documents about
the Iraq-Niger uranium deal and shares them with “all the appropriate
agencies,” department spokesman Richard Boucher says later
on July 17, 2003. A senior administration official, however, claims
on July 18, 2003, that the CIA did not receive the documents until
February 2003.
Early October 2002: A classified National
Intelligence Estimate (NIE), a portion of which was later made
public July 18, 2003, states, “A foreign government service
reported that as of early 2001, Niger planned to send several tons”
of uranium to Iraq, adding that “Niger and Iraq reportedly
were still working out arrangements for this deal, which could be
for up to 500 tons of yellowcake [lightly processed uranium ore].”
The NIE also says that “reports indicate Iraq also has sought
uranium ore from Somalia and possibly the Democratic Republic of
the Congo. We cannot confirm whether Iraq succeeded in acquiring
uranium ore and/or yellowcake from these sources.”
The NIE also contains a State Department INR dissent that characterizes
“claims of Iraqi pursuit of natural uranium in Africa”
as “highly dubious.” Rice does not read the INR dissent,
a senior administration official said July 18, 2003.
October 5-7, 2002: Tenet calls Hadley to request that a line
referring to Iraqi attempts to obtain “substantial amounts
of uranium oxide” be removed from a draft of a Bush speech
scheduled for October 7.
The CIA sends a memorandum to Hadley and White House speechwriter
Michael Gerson October 5, asking them to remove a similar line referring
to Iraq’s attempted acquisition of “500 metric tons of
uranium oxide from…Africa.”
The CIA also sends a memorandum to the White House October 6 providing
additional detail about the Iraq uranium claim and noting the U.S.
intelligence community’s differences with the United Kingdom
over the intelligence. The memorandum is passed to both Hadley and
Rice.
Per the CIA’s request, no reference to Iraqi uranium procurement
attempts appears in Bush’s October 7 speech.
Hadley and White House Communications Director Dan Bartlett reveal
these details in a July 22, 2003, press briefing.
December 19, 2002: A State Department fact
sheet charges Iraq with omitting its “efforts to procure
uranium from Niger” from its December 7 declaration to UN weapons
inspectors. UN Security Council Resolution 1441, adopted November
8, 2002, required Iraq to submit a declaration “of all aspects
of its [weapons of mass destruction] programmes.” The declaration
is supposed to provide information about any prohibited weapons
activity since UN inspectors left the country in 1998 and to resolve
outstanding questions about Iraq’s WMD programs that had not
been answered by 1998.
The fact sheet is “developed jointly by the CIA and the State
Department,” according to an April 29, 2003, letter from the
State Department to Representative Henry Waxman (D-CA). Boucher
later says July 14, 2003, that the Niger information was “prepared
in other bureaus of the State Department,” but he does not
say which bureaus were involved. The fact sheet was not cleared
by the State Department’s intelligence bureau, according to
knowledgeable sources.
A State Department official interviewed August 21, 2003, however,
said the State Department’s Public Affairs Bureau developed
the fact sheet from a draft of a speech U.S. Ambassador to the United
Nations John Negroponte gave December 20, 2002, to a closed session
of the Security Council. The State Department would have discussed
the information for that speech “at several levels with the
National Security Council (NSC),” the official added. The final
draft of Negroponte’s speech did not contain the reference
to Niger.
The IAEA requests information from the United States on the uranium
claim “immediately after” the fact sheet’s release,
according to a June 20, 2003, letter from the IAEA to Waxman. This
information is not supplied until February 4, 2003, according to
a July 1, 2003, State Department letter to Waxman.
2003
January 2003: White House staff members decide to include a reference
to Iraqi attempts to procure uranium from Africa in the State of
the Union speech. During a discussion about the intelligence on
this matter, NSC staff member Robert Joseph insists that information
about the uranium procurement attempt be included in the speech,
according to later accounts from several U.S. senators investigating
the claim. But Alan Foley, head of the Director of Central Intelligence’s
Center for Weapons Intelligence, Nonproliferation, and Arms Control,
expresses concern about the intelligence. Foley eventually agrees
to a change that appears in the final draft of the speech. According
to Bartlett’s later briefing, Tenet does not review the speech,
and Rice and Hadley do not recall the October memorandums or a phone
call from Tenet while putting together the State of the Union remarks.
Joseph later recalls the exchange differently, believing it was
only about a question of whether to cite the British report or the
NIE in the State of the Union address, Bartlett says in his July
briefing.
Powell reviews the State of the Union address but does not raise
any objections to it, Boucher says July 14, 2003.
January 20, 2003: Bush submits a report to Congress stating
that Iraq omitted “attempts to acquire uranium” from its
December 7 declaration to the United Nations.
January 23, 2003: Rice writes in The New York Times that
Iraq’s declaration “fails to account for or explain Iraq’s
efforts to get uranium from abroad.” A White House report issued
the same day asserts that Iraq’s weapons declaration “ignores
efforts to procure uranium from abroad.”
January 26, 2003: Powell asks, “Why is Iraq still trying
to procure uranium and the special equipment needed to transform
it into material for nuclear weapons?” during a speech in Switzerland.
January 27, 2003: IAEA Director-General Mohamed ElBaradei
tells the Security Council that IAEA inspectors “have to date
found no evidence that Iraq has revived its nuclear weapons programme
since the elimination of the programme in the 1990s.”
January 28, 2003: Bush asserts that “the British government
has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities
of uranium from Africa” during his State of the Union address.
January 29, 2003: Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld states
in a press briefing that Iraq “recently was discovered seeking
significant quantities of uranium from Africa.”
February 4, 2003: State Department officials give the IAEA
the information the agency requested about Iraq’s attempts
to obtain uranium from Niger, telling the agency that it “cannot
confirm these reports and [has] questions regarding some specific
claims.”
February 5, 2003: Powell presents evidence, based on U.S.
intelligence, about Iraq’s prohibited weapons programs to the
Security Council. He does not mention Iraqi attempts to obtain uranium
from Africa.
February 14, 2003: ElBaradei reports to the Security Council
that “we have to date found no evidence of ongoing prohibited
nuclear or nuclear-related activities in Iraq,” adding that
“a number of issues are still under investigation and we are
not yet in a position to reach a conclusion about them.”
March 7, 2003: ElBaradei tells the Security Council that
the documents allegedly detailing uranium transactions between Iraq
and Niger are “not authentic,” adding that “these
specific allegations are unfounded.”
March 9, 2003: Powell acknowledges that the documents concerning
the alleged Iraq-Niger uranium deal might be false.
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