Whose
Deliberate Disinformation?
By RAY CLOSE
Retired CIA
analyst, Near East Division
There
was a small but very important passage in Mohammad Elbaradei's testimony
on behalf of the U.N.'s International Atomic Energy Agency before the
UNSC last week that cries out for further investigation: "With
regard to uranium acquisition, the I.A.E.A. has made progress in its
investigation into reports that Iraq sought to buy uranium from Niger in
recent years. This investigation was centered on documents provided by a
number of states that pointed to an agreement between Niger and Iraq for
the sale of uranium between 1999 and 2001.
"The I.A.E.A. has discussed these reports with the governments of
Iraq and Niger, both of which have denied that any such activity took
place. For its part, Iraq has provided the I.A.E.A. with a comprehensive
explanation of its relations with Niger and has described a visit by an
Iraqi official to a number of African countries, including Niger, in
February 1999, which Iraq thought might have given rise to the reports.
"The I.A.E.A. was able to review correspondence coming from various
bodies of the government of Niger and to compare the form, format,
contents and signature of that correspondence with those of the alleged
procurement-related documentation. Based on thorough analysis, the
I.A.E.A. has concluded, with the concurrence of outside experts, that
these documents, which formed the basis for the reports of recent uranium
transaction between Iraq and Niger, are in fact not authentic. We have
therefore concluded that these specific allegations are
unfounded."
On Saturday, March 8th, the Washington Post reported under the headline
"Some Evidence on Iraq Called Fake" that the documents in
question had been given to the U.N. inspectors by the British Government
and "reviewed extensively by U.S. intelligence." The documents
were then forwarded to the I.A.E.A. by the U.S. Government, an action
clearly implying that in Washington's opinion they constituted reliable
intelligence. A similar stamp of authenticity must have been implied in
the case of the British Government's actions. Such is certainly the
impression that would be gained by the United Nations recipients, knowing
that the documents had been "reviewed extensively" by U.S.
intelligence experts. However, after the I.A.E.A. determined through its
own "outside experts" that the documents were bogus, the U.S.
and British governments were reluctantly compelled to acknowledge that
they had both been the victims of an elaborate deception operation. One
unnamed (but hopefully red-faced) U.S. official was honest enough to
admit to Washington Post reporter Joby Warrick that "We fell for
it." In a curious display of unwarranted courtesy, an I.A.E.A.
spokesman graciously informed the Washington Post that his agency did not
blame either Britain or the United States for the forgery. The documents
"were shared with us in good faith", he said.
The following questions immediately occur to anyone with experience in
the area of covert technical operations ("Department of Dirty
Tricks"), and to everyone else with a modicum of common sense:
1. The fabrication of false documentation, especially what purports to be
official correspondence between the agencies of two different
governments, is a major undertaking for any professional intelligence
service or criminal enterprise. This is obviously most true when the
perpetrator intends to accomplish an extremely important purpose and so
anticipates that his work will be carefully scrutinized by competent
experts. The job requires extensive and time-consuming research,
reasonably advanced technical skills, and a high level of motivation. It
would not be attempted by anyone whose intentions were frivolous. All of
these factors would be accentuated in a case such as this, where the
political costs of exposure of deliberate fraud would be very high.
2. Unless accomplished with a high degree of skill, the counterfeit
quality of the documents in this case should have been quickly obvious to
the British and American intelligence services, and the contents should
have been dismissed immediately as a trivial diversion. Surprisingly,
however, according to the Washington Post story, the forgeries contained
"relatively crude errors" that gave them away. This clearly
points to one or the other of two possible conclusions:
a. The technical services departments of MI-6 and CIA (historically
reputed to be credible rivals to the KGB and Israel's Mossad for
technical sophistication) are in fact incompetent. If they manufactured
the forgeries themselves, they did a careless and clumsy job. On the
other hand, if they merely evaluated the authenticity of the documents as
a means of determining whether the information contained therein was
valuable intelligence for their own governments, they obviously showed an
equally appalling lack of professional skill. They "fell for
it", we are informed.
b. The only other explanation that I can think of is that the British and
American intelligence services, despite having figured out that the
documents were crude forgeries, nevertheless decided to pass the
information to the U.N. inspectors anyway, knowing that they would serve
conveniently to mislead the I.A.E.A. into thinking that this was
documentary evidence supporting US-UK claims that Iraq has made illegal
attempts to acquire nuclear resources. (Of course, intelligence services
can be incredibly obtuse sometimes. Note the recent public admission by
the British that the famous "dossier" of evidence against Iraq,
glowingly praised by Colin Powell in his testimony to the Security
Council, consisted mainly of hearsay plagiarized from the work of a
California graduate student.)
3. Somebody has engaged in the criminal act of manufacturing false
evidence. If it has been done once, it may well have been done before.
The issues under consideration are matters of war and peace, life and
death for perhaps thousands of people. How much more despicable could a
crime be? And yet our government and that of Great Britain seem more
bemused than concerned. Shouldn't Congress be alarmed that our
intelligence service, on which we are so dependent these days, is so
incompetent or so inured to the corruption of the national intelligence
process as to tolerate the deliberate or careless introduction of false
evidence into a process so critically important to our national security
and to the credibility of the United States? Those responsible for this
humiliating fiasco should be exposed and discredited --- for the good of
our country.
4. The Washington Post story is also a testament to the flaccid quality
of American investigative journalism these days. It apparently never
occurred to any reporter how important it would be to know exactly who it
was that forged the documents in the first place. Here was an organized
effort to spread extremely significant disinformation to at least two
governments, and through them to the Security Council of the United
Nations, that might have a direct influence on a momentous decision about
war and peace.
5. Immediately, a host of other specific questions come to mind. Who were
the "outside experts" consulted by the I.A.E.A. who correctly
spotted the falsity of the Iraq-Niger correspondence (and exposed the
incompetence of MI-6 and CIA in the process)? Were they governments, or
private agencies? Where located? By whom controlled?
Elbaradei reported that these documents were provided to the I.A.E.A. by
"a number of states." Very interesting. Any other government
besides the British and American? Did "a number of states"
provide identical counterfeit documents to the U.N. inspectors,
representing those documents as reliable "intelligence"? Did
each of those states originally obtain the documents from the same
source? When the information was passed by the British and Americans to
the United Nations, was the original source identified? Or did MI-6 and
CIA claim the necessity to protect "sensitive sources and
methods". (Wouldn't it be interesting to learn that in this case
that same familiar claim was made? What would that do to the credibility
of other intelligence provided by us to the United Nations? This is not a
trivial question. If the United States is accused of either careless
indifference or deliberate corruption in matters of this import, what
does that do to our reputation and to our image as "leader of the
free world"? Or is Brady Kiesling right --- it only matters that
others fear our power?
It would make no sense to suppose that a neutral or non-governmental
entity would go to the trouble and expense of falsifying documentation
and then convincing "a number of states" to deliver that
evidence to the I.A.E.A. Quite clearly, the more one thinks about this
intrigue, the more obvious it becomes that someone was responsible for a
deliberate intelligence disinformation campaign targeting the United
Nations with an aim toward padding the evidence supporting an
American-British invasion of Iraq. That is a world-class criminal act, a
felony of historic proportions, by any definition.
We should not let it be swept under the carpet.
Ray Close was a CIA analyst in the Near East division. He can be
reached at:
[EMAIL PROTECTED].
http://www.counterpunch.org/close03102003.html
