X-Nico

Jeffrey W. Castelli

Jeffrey W. Castelli is a CIA officer who served as CIA station chief in Rome at the time the Niger uranium forgeries.

Karen DeYoung

In the days before the 2003 invasion of Iraq, DeYoung and fellow Post reporter Dana Priest filed a story with their editors that the CIA had significant doubts about documents alleging an attempted uranium purchase, but The Post did not publish the story until March 22, 2003, after the invasion had begun.

Niger uranium forgeries

Far more officially, Nicolò Pollari, chief of SISMI, brought the Niger yellowcake story directly to the White House, meeting secretly in Washington on September 9, 2002, with then–Deputy National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley.

•

They were obtained by a "security consultant" (and former agent of the precursor agency to SISMI, the SID), Rocco Martino, from Italian military intelligence (SISMI).

•

The deputy commander of U.S. Armed Forces Europe, Marine General Carlton W. Fulford, Jr., went to Niger and met with the country's president, Tandja Mamadou.

•

In June and July, British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw testified that the claim in the dossier rested on separate evidence to the fraudulent documents, and that this specific intelligence, obtained from a foreign government, was still under review and had not been shared with the CIA.

Rocco Martino

He played a major role in the fabrication and the dissemination of the Yellowcake Forgery, when he approached CIA Rome station chief Jeffrey W. Castelli with documents on Niger government letterhead describing secret plans for the sale of uranium to Iraq.

Wissam al-Zahawie

This alleged attempt by Hussein to purchase uranium is highly controversial, with skeptics commonly stating that the claim has been discredited and/or is generally considered to have been the product of an elaborate hoax, and with supporters of Coalition efforts in Iraq stating that the claim is in fact true.

see also