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.