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Niger hits back over uranium claim
The prime minister of the west African state of Niger has challenged
Tony Blair to produce evidence for his controversial claim that Iraq
tried to buy uranium there.
"If Britain has evidence to support its claim then it has only to
produce it for everybody to see," said Prime Minister Hama Hamadou in an
interview with the Sunday Telegraph.

Mr Blair has stuck by the claim, first made public in a British
Government dossier, that Iraq tried to buy uranium for nuclear weapons
from Niger, even though the allegation has been widely discredited.

Would we really send material to somebody whom we had fought against and
who could destroy half the world with a nuclear bomb?

The Bush administration has said it was a mistake for the claim to have
been included in the key presidential State of the Union address in
January.
The head of the CIA and a senior national security adviser have taken
the blame for allowing the allegation to be included in the address,
despite the CIA's long-held doubts about its credibility.

The UN has said that the claim was based on forged documents but the UK
says it has a different source which substantiates the claim.

'Powerful politics'

"We were the first African country to send soldiers to fight against
Saddam after the invasion of Kuwait in 1991," Mr Hamadou said.

"Would we really send material to somebody whom we had fought against
and who could destroy half the world with a nuclear bomb? It's
unthinkable".
He told the newspaper his government had not received any formal
accusation of involvement with Saddam, saying that the row had its roots
in the battle for public opinion in the UK and the US.

"We cannot get involved in the politics of the world's most powerful
nations. We are a poor country. Our uranium is tightly controlled and
our priorities are to produce enough food to feed our people and provide
education for all of our children," he said.

But he said the row would not affect Niger's reputation.

"Everybody know s that the claims are untrue," he told the paper.

"We have survived famine in Niger. We can survive this".

Story from BBC NEWS:

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