Yellowcake and yellow journalism

Speaking of bovine excretion -- and we were; see below -- I'm infuriated by recent efforts to revive the Niger yellowcake story, and the parallel efforts to trash Joe Wilson.

In the case of Wilson, right-wing "journalists" have not even sought out his response to the intelligence committee's assertion that his wife recommended him for the inspection gig. In the past, reporters understood the wisdom of learning both sides of a story.

More to the point: The Saddam-wanted-Niger-uranium story is dead, dead, dead. It has joined the choir invisble; it has ceased to be. Republicans can manipulate the corpse after the fashion of Weekend at Bernie's, but they still can't make the thing breathe. They can remove the stake, but they can't make the cadaver walk out of its coffin.

There is no proof that Saddam bought or tried to buy yellowcake from Niger. There is no proof that he had a nuclear program. There is no proof that, even if he had such a program, he did not already possess sufficient amounts of the needed material. And Niger could not have sold the material to Saddam under any circumstances; the uranium is not in that country's immediate control.

Republicans harp on Wilson yet never discuss Marine Gen. Carlton W. Fulford Jr., a four-star general who traveled to Niger and confirmed Wilson's findings. Before we let the propagandists toss certain key facts down the memory hole, re-read this Washington Post story published exactly one year ago:

In an interview, Fulford said he came away "assured" that the supply of "yellowcake" was kept secure by a French consortium. Both Fulford, then deputy commander of the U.S. European Command and his commander, Air Force Gen. Joseph Ralston, said the issue did not surface again, although they were both routinely briefed on weapons proliferation in Africa. "I was convinced it was not an issue," Fulford said.

Fulford was asked by the U.S. ambassador to Niger, BarbroOwens-Kirkpatrick, to join her at the meeting with Niger's President Mamadou Tandja on Feb. 24, 2002. "I was asked to impress upon the president the importance that the yellowcake in Niger be under control," Fulford said. "I did that. He assured me. He said the mining operations were handled through a French consortium" and therefore out of the Niger government's control. Owens-Kirkpatrick, reached by phone, declined to comment.

Fulford's impressions, while not conclusive, were similar to those of former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson, who traveled to Niger for the CIA in February 2002 to interview Niger officials about the uranium claim and came away convinced it was not true.

The charge that Iraq was seeking to buy nuclear material in Africa was based mainly on documents that the International Atomic Energy Agency concluded this March were forged.

And as for who cobbled together that forgery -- ah. Therein lieth a tale. Experts will argue over it for many a year to come, just as some people are still arguing about the Zenoviev letter or the bordereau made famous in the Deyfus affair. Despite the bleatings of propagandists who would complicate matters, those who seek the simplest explanation will cast a suspicious eye at the "fake document" shop run by neocon icon Ahmed Chalabi.