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(U) In a written response to questions from Committee staff, the White House said that on September 11, 2002, National Security Council (NSC) staff contacted the CIA to clear language for possible use in a statement for use by the President. The language cleared by the CIA said, "Iraq has made several attempts to buy high strength aluminum tubes used in centrifuges to enrich uranium for nuclear weapons. And we also know this: within the past few years, Iraq has resumed efforts to obtain large quantities of a type of uranium oxide known as yellowcake, which is an essential ingredient of this process. The regime was caught trying to purchase 500 metric tons of this material. It takes about 10 tons to produce enough enriched uranium for a single nuclear weapon." The text was identical to the text proposed by the White House except that the CIA had suggested adding "up to" before 500 metric tons. The President never used the approved language publicly.

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On September 24, 2002 the British Government published a White Paper on Iraq's WMD stating, "there is intelligence that Iraq has sought the supply of significant quantities of uranium from Africa."

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(U) In a response to questions from Committee staff, the White House said that on September 24, 2002, NSC staff contacted the CIA to clear another statement for use by the President. The statement said, "we also have intelligence that Iraq has sought large amounts of uranium and uranium oxide, known as yellowcake, from Africa. Yellowcake is an essential ingredient of the process to enrich uranium for nuclear weapons." The CIA cleared the language, but suggested that "of the process” be changed to "in the process." The President did not use the cleared language publicly.

(U) Some time in September a member of the NSC staff discussed the Niger uranium issue with a CIA analyst. The CIA analyst told Committee staff that during coordination of a speech (he was not sure which one) with an NSC staff member, the CIA analyst suggested that the reference to Iraqi attempts to acquire uranium from Africa be removed. The CIA analyst said the NSC staff member said that would leave the British "flapping in the wind." In a written response to a question about this matter from the Committee, the NSC staff member said that the CIA analyst did not suggest that he remove text regarding Iraqi attempts to acquire uranium from Africa. The NSC staff member said the analyst suggested that Saddam's meeting with his "nuclear mujahedin" was more compelling evidence of Iraq's effort to resurrect the Iraqi nuclear program than attempts to acquire yellowcake, but said the analyst never suggested that the yellowcake text be removed. He said he had no recollection of telling a CIA analyst that replacing the uranium reference would leave the British "flapping in the wind" and said such a statement would have been illogical since the President never presented in any one speech every detail of intelligence gathered on Iraq either by the U.S. or by the U.K.

E. The National Intelligence Estimate

At the same time

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IC was preparing the National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on Iraq's Continuing Programs for Weapons of Mass Destruction. In mid-September 2002, in both hearings and in letters, Members of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI) requested that the CIA publish an NIE on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction (WMD) programs. Committee Members expressed concerns that they would be expected to vote on an Iraq Resolution shortly and had no NIE on which to base their vote.

(U) On September 12, 2002, the DCI officially directed the National Intelligence Officer (NIO) for Strategic and Nuclear Programs to begin to draft an NIE. The National Intelligence Council (NIC) staff drew the discussion of nuclear reconstitution for the draft NIE largely from an August 2002 CIA assessment and a September 2002 DIA assessment, Iraq's Reemerging Nuclear Weapons Programs. The NIO sent a draft of the entire NIE to IC analysts on September 23, 2002 for coordination and comments and held an interagency coordination meeting on September 25, 2002 to discuss the draft and work out any changes.

(U) Regarding uranium from Africa, the language of the NIE said:

Iraq has about 550 metric tons of yellowcake and low-enriched uranium at
Tuwaitha, which is inspected annually by the IAEA. Iraq also began vigorously
trying to procure uranium ore and yellowcake; acquiring either would shorten the
time Baghdad needs to produce nuclear weapons.

A foreign government service reported that as of early 2001, Niger
planned to send several tons of "pure uranium" (probably yellowcake) to
Iraq. As of early 2001, Niger and Iraq reportedly were still working out
arrangements for this deal, which could be for up to 500 tons of
yellowcake. We do not know the status of this arrangement.

Reports indicate Iraq has also sought uranium ore from Somalia and
possibly the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

We cannot confirm whether Iraq succeeded in acquiring uranium ore and/or
yellowcake from these sources.

(U) At the NIE coordination meeting, the only analyst who voiced disagreement with the uranium section was an INR analyst. Several analysts from other agencies told Committee staff that they did not recall even discussing the uranium reporting at the meeting. All of the analysts said that the bulk of the time at the meeting was spent debating other issues such as the aluminum tubes, time lines for weapons designs, and procurement of magnets and other dual use items. CIA, DIA and DOE analysts all said that at the time the NIE was written, they agreed with the NIE assessment that Iraq was attempting to procure uranium from Africa. Some analysts said, in retrospect, the language should have been more qualified than it was, but they generally agreed with the text.

(U) The uranium text was included only in the body of the NIE, not in the key judgments section because the interagency consensus was that Iraq's efforts to acquire uranium were not key to the argument that Iraq was reconstituting its nuclear program. According to the NIO, the key judgments were drawn from a CIA paper which only highlighted the acquisition of aluminum tubes as the reason Iraq was reconstituting its nuclear program. The NIO said that at the NIE coordination meeting, analysts added other reasons they believed Iraq was reconstituting, such as acquiring magnets, machine tools, and balancing machines, and reestablishing Iraq's nuclear scientists cadre. When someone, the NIO was not sure who,' suggested that the uranium information be included as another sign of reconstitution, the INR Iraq nuclear analyst spoke up and said that he did not agree with the uranium reporting and that INR would be including text indicating their disagreement in their footnote on nuclear reconstitution. The NIO said he did not recall anyone else at the coordination meeting who disagreed with the uranium text, but also did not recall anyone really supporting including the uranium issue as part of the judgment that Iraq was reconstituting its nuclear program, so he suggested that the uranium information did not need to part of the key judgments. He told Committee staff he suggested that “We'll leave it in the paper for completeness. Nobody can say we didn't connect the dots. But we don't have to put that dot in the key judgments."

(U) Because INR disagreed with much of the nuclear section of the NIE, it decided to convey its alternative views in text boxes, rather than object to every point throughout the NIE. INR prepared two separate boxes, one for the key judgments section and a two page box for the body of the nuclear section, which included a sentence which stated that "the claims of Iraqi pursuit of natural uranium in Africa are, in INR's assessment, highly dubious.'

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(U) While formatting the final version of the NIE, the NIC staff decided to separate the entire aluminum tubes discussion into a separate annex that laid out each agency's position. When this formatting change was made, a text box INR had previously submitted for the body of the NIE was split into a text box on reconstitution and a text box on the aluminum tubes. Both the NIO for Strategic and Nuclear Programs and the INR's senior WMD analyst told Committee staff that INR's dissent on the uranium reporting was inadvertently separated from the reconstitution section and included in the aluminum tubes box in the annex of the NIE. The NIC staff disseminated a draft of the NIE in which those changes were made on September 26, 2002

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Committee staff interviewed all of the analysts involved in coordinating the nuclear portion of the NIE and none could recall who suggested that Iraq's interest in acquiring uranium from Africa be included in the key judgments. A DOE analysts said he could have made that suggestion, because at the time he did believe that uranium acquisitions attempts was an important sign of reconstitution, however, he could not be certain.

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