The Niger Documents

Vanity Fair's long piece about the Niger forgeries doesn't touch a lot of new ground, but the new ground it does cover really has me scratching my head. Sure, these forgeries helped the Bush administration get the war they wanted, but they really screwed up by using them. They didn't have to, and they have payed quite the price in terms of approval ratings and political capital for using these lies to get their war.

You see, according to former CIA analysts interviewed by Vanity Fair, Iraq already had 550 tons of yellowcake uranium oxide in its possession. That is enough to produce 55 nuclear weapons and it was already in Saddam Hussein's hands, although I'm assuming it was under IAEA seal.

Still, if you combine that with the aluminum tube lie, you could make an even scarier claim that Iraq was trying to get the tubes to process the yellowcake that they possessed, and after the war you could produce actual evidence that you were right. I doubt the tube lie would have ever been looked into.

Of course, going that route presented the administration with a risk. If the administration would have chosen that path, what would they do if Iraq simply announced that they were going to turn over the yellowcake to the IEAE for removal? The administration wouldn't have got their war. Of course, given where we are today, it's obvious the administration took the wrong risk.