Word: niger
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After months of Administration officials trading accusations over whether the Niger uranium story is accurate and how it got into the State of the Union, senior officials disclose Wilson's mission and its findings to the Washington Post without identifying the former Ambassador...
...Wilson appears in the New York Times. He reveals that he is the retired diplomat who visited Niger and accuses the Administration of twisting intelligence to exaggerate the Iraqi threat. The next day the White House admits the claim should not have been in the State of the Union but suggests that the CIA was responsible...
Vice President Dick Cheney's office asks the CIA to look into British reports that Saddam Hussein's government attempted to buy uranium from Niger. Agency officials decide to dispatch ex-Ambassador Joseph Wilson to the West African nation; after eight days he returns and calls the intelligence "bogus and unrealistic." The agency sends a memo to the White House on March 9 summarizing Wilson's findings...
Only a week before the war with Iraq begins, Mohamed ElBaradei, the chief of the International Atomic Energy Agency, tells the U.N. Security Council that the claim is based on false evidence--the papers documenting uranium sales between Niger and Iraq are clear forgeries...
...director George Tenet takes the blame for not having the Niger claim cut from the State of the Union but discloses that the National Security Council (NSC) pressed to include it. Eleven days later, NSC deputy Stephen Hadley admits he forgot that he had seen two memos from the agency expressing serious doubts about the intelligence...