A little common sense shows that a Niger uranium sale--even if attempted--was always highly improbable and was never a serious threat.
The following is adapted from the remarks of Dr. Hans Blix, chairman of the Weapons of Mass Destruction Commission, to the 2004 Carnegie International Non-Proliferation Conference, June 21 and 22, 2004.
Following the release of the Senate Intelligence Committee report on pre-war assessments of Iraqi WMD, Carnegie has updated the four summary tables that appear in WMD in Iraq: Evidence and Implications on each type of suspected weapons: nuclear, chemical, biological, and missile and delivery programs. The summary tables show several key patterns.
The new reports from the Senate Intelligence Committee and the United Kingdom's parliamentary inquiry by Lord Butler offer devastating critiques of both nations' intelligence failures in Iraq.
The following are excerpts from remarks by Linton F. Brooks, administrator of the U.S. National Nuclear Security Administration, to the 2004 Carnegie International Non-Proliferation Conference, June 21, 2004.
As background for the Senate Intelligence Committee's new report, we present below excerpts from the January 2004 Carnegie report, WMD in Iraq: Evidence and Implications. The report compared the intelligence assessments on Iraq with the UN inspectors' findings and what is now known. Why were the intelligence assessments so flawed? Were they based on faulty collection or analysis, undue politicization, or other factors? What steps could be taken to prevent a repetition? The shift between prior intelligence assessments and the October 2002 NIE suggests, but does not prove, that the intelligence community began to be unduly influenced by policymakers' views sometime in 2002. Although such situations are not unusual, in this case, the pressure appears to have been unusually intense.
More resources on Iraq and intelligence:
"A Tale of Two Intelligence Estimates," by Jessica Mathews and Jeff Miller, 26 March 2004
"Revisiting the Case for War," Foreign Policy Web Exclusive by Joseph Cirincione, Dipali Mukhopadhyay, Alexis Orton, Updated March 2004
"The Congress Shares Responsibility for War," by Joseph Cirincione and Michael O'Hanlon, Los Angeles Times Op-Ed, 19 November 2003
"The Intelligence Bell Curve," by Joseph Cirincione, 17 July 2003

Before attention is lost in the controversies over the war itself and in the challenges of its aftermath, the UN must capture, clarify, and publicize the record of international inspections in Iraq: for itself, for member governments, and for the public.