“On March 1 [2002], the State Department weighed in with another cable, this one headed ‘Sale of Niger Uranium to Iraq Unlikely.’ Citing ‘unequivocal’ control of the mines, the cable asserted that President [Mamadou] Tanja of Niger would not want to risk good relations with the United States by trading with Iraq, and cited the prohibited logistical problems in a transaction requiring ’25 hard to conceal 10-ton-tractor trailers’ that would have to travel a thousand miles and cross one international border before reaching the sea.”
– Craig Unger, The Fall of the House of Bush, Page 241