Geiger Counters
There's a report in today's Financial Times that the long-awaited intelligence inquiry made by Lord Butler will be published next week and will exonerate Tony Blair's and George W. Bush's claims that Saddam was, in fact, seeking to purchase uranium from Niger.

People with knowledge of the report said Lord Butler has concluded that this claim was reasonable and consistent with the intelligence.

President George W. Bush referred to the Niger claim in his state of the union address last year. But officials were forced into a climbdown when it was revealed that the only primary intelligence material the US possessed were documents later shown to be forgeries.

However, British intelligence's claim was not based upon these forged documents, despite the mewling protests of the anti-war Left.

The Bush administration has since distanced itself from all suggestions that Iraq sought to buy uranium. The UK government has remained adamant that negotiations over sales did take place and that the fake documents were not part of the intelligence material it had gathered to underpin its claim.

The Financial Times revealed last week that a key part of the UK's intelligence on the uranium came from a European intelligence service that undertook a three-year surveillance of an alleged clandestine uranium-smuggling operation of which Iraq was a part.

Intelligence officials have now confirmed that the results of this operation formed an important part of the conclusions of British intelligence. The same information was passed to the US but US officials did not incorporate it in their assessment.

In addition to this important point ---that Saddam was seeking out materials he had no business with--- we now know that almost two tons of depleted uranium was removed from Iraq last month by American authorities and with Iraqi permission. Even though the IAEA got its feelings hurt when we didn't ask their permission.

Let's see how much attention this gets from the wankers who want to spread the lie that Bush and Blair were not dealing squarely with the public.