December 17, 2002: CIA WINPAC Unit Says Iraq Declaration Failed to Explain Aluminum Tubes and Efforts to Obtain Uranium from Africa

Analysts with CIA’s WINPAC unit send a paper to the National Security Council noting two omissions in Iraq’s December 7 declaration (see December 7, 2002). The paper, written in response to an order from Undersecretary of State John Bolton, says that Iraq’s declaration failed to explain its procurement of aluminum tubes and “does not acknowledge efforts to procure uranium from Niger, one of the points addressed in British dossier (see September 24, 2002).” [US Congress, 7/7/2004, pp. 58; Isikoff and Corn, 2006, pp. 163]