Foreign Office received CIA advice on ‘yellow cake’ claim
The CIA raised serious objections to several claims in the September dossier on Iraq’s capacity to launch lethal weapons, the Foreign Office admitted yesterday.
The CIA raised questions over Iraq’s capacity to deploy chemical and biological weapons within “45 minutes” and the claim that Saddam Hussein had tried to buy uranium from Africa, officials told the Foreign Affairs Select Committee.
The CIA was handed a draft of the dossier on September 11 2002, prior to its eventual publication.
Alastair Campbell, the PM’s communications director, was given the dossier on the same day.
Despite the CIA’s comments, the Foreign Office said it published the claims because it considered the intelligence “reliable.”
US President George W Bush included the claim in his State of the Union address in January, ahead of the Iraq war in March.
His administration has since admitted the evidence was flawed.
In the speech, Mr Bush had said: “The British Government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa.”
National Security Council advisor Condoleezza Rice said the ‘yellow cake’ ‘transaction’ between Iraq and Niger had been forged but denies she received a CIA memo highlighting the dubious nature of the claim more than three months before the January speech.
On the other side of the Atlantic, President Bush admitted yesterday that he was personal responsibile for the claim in his State of the Union address.
He said he was responsible “for everything I say, of course, absolutely.”
