How cute...

William Safire has an opinion in the NY Times today.

His article is based upon a Financial Times article alleging that Iraq may have been in business with Niger for uranium prior to the discovery of forged documents upon which the Bush Administration based its claim that Iraq was pursuing yellowcake uranium.

The headline asserts: "Intelligence backs claim Iraq tried to buy uranium"

Oddly, both Safire and the headline writer seem to miss that the article's allegation is that: "uranium smugglers planned to sell illicitly mined Nigerien uranium ore, or refined ore called yellow cake, to Iran, Libya, China, North Korea and Iraq."

A legalistic quibble? Not when one considers the article's caveat: "the European investigation suggested that it was the smugglers who were actively looking for markets, though it was unclear how far the deals had progressed and whether deliveries of uranium were made."

So, we know that there were uranium smugglers in Niger who were trying to peddle yellowcake to states on the black market. Surprise, surprise, they considered Iraq among the states which might be a potential client. We also don't know whether or not Iraq tried to buy said uranium, and in fact, the article claims that this is NOT known. (One might think all this inconclusiveness might have something to do with Iraqi wariness... after all, if they had done a deal with this group (who we were allegedly watching), wouldn't Iraq have given an instant casus belli to our intelligence services?)

With the kind of scrupulousness one would expect from a person trying to truck in bogus facts, Safire draws the conclusion:

Was Iraq, like Iran and Libya, in the secret market for atomic material? This article does not yet prove it, but neither does the falsity of some of the data prove the opposite. A safe bet for thee and me is to dispense with certitude

In the end, I'd agree with him. The safe bet is to dispense with certitude, and thus adopt the skeptic's standard - until proof is provided that Saddam TRIED TO BUY URANIUM, there is no reason to believe that he did.