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Blair stands by Niger uranium claim
London, July 16: Prime Minister Tony Blair said today it was ``not beyond the bounds of possibility`` that Iraq had sought supplies of uranium in Niger, where it had purchased tons of the substance in the 1980s.
London, July 16: Prime Minister Tony Blair said today it was ``not beyond the bounds of possibility'' that Iraq had sought supplies of uranium in Niger, where it had purchased tons of the substance in the 1980s.
``I stand by entirely the claim that was made last September that there were intelligence reports that Iraq was seeking uranium in Africa,” Blair told the House of Commons.
Two parliamentary committees are probing the British government's use of intelligence information in a pair of dossiers published to bolster the case for war. In a dossier published in September, Blair's government said, ``There is intelligence that Iraq has sought the supply of significant quantities of uranium from Africa. Iraq has no active civil nuclear power programme or nuclear power plants and therefore has no legitimate reason to acquire uranium.''
``I stand by entirely the claim that was made last September. The intelligence on which we based this was not the so-called forged documents that have been put to the International Atomic Energy Agency, and the IAEA have accepted that they got no such forged documents from British intelligence. We have independent intelligence to that effect,'' Blair said. ``And secondly, it may just be worth pointing out to the house and also to the public, it's not as if this link between Niger and Iraq was some invention of the CIA or Britain. We know in the 1980s that Iraq purchased from Niger over 270 tons of uranium, and therefore it is not beyond the bounds of possibility,'' Blair said. Bureau Report
Two parliamentary committees are probing the British government's use of intelligence information in a pair of dossiers published to bolster the case for war. In a dossier published in September, Blair's government said, ``There is intelligence that Iraq has sought the supply of significant quantities of uranium from Africa. Iraq has no active civil nuclear power programme or nuclear power plants and therefore has no legitimate reason to acquire uranium.''
``I stand by entirely the claim that was made last September. The intelligence on which we based this was not the so-called forged documents that have been put to the International Atomic Energy Agency, and the IAEA have accepted that they got no such forged documents from British intelligence. We have independent intelligence to that effect,'' Blair said. ``And secondly, it may just be worth pointing out to the house and also to the public, it's not as if this link between Niger and Iraq was some invention of the CIA or Britain. We know in the 1980s that Iraq purchased from Niger over 270 tons of uranium, and therefore it is not beyond the bounds of possibility,'' Blair said. Bureau Report