11/20/2001

After the CIA was briefed by Italian intelligence about the possible sale of yellowcake uranium from Niger to Iraq, “the State Department directed the U.S. embassy in Niger to check out the alleged uranium deal. On November 20, 2001, the U.S. embassy in Niamey, the capital of Niger, disseminated a cable reporting on a meeting between the American ambassador, Barbro Owens-Kirkpatrick, and the director general of Niger’s French-led consortium. According to the Senate report, the head of the consortium told Ambassador Owens-Kirkpatrick that ‘there was no possibility’ that the government of Niger had diverted any yellowcake to Iraq.”

 – Craig Unger, The Fall of the House of Bush, Page 229