September Dossier

The claim that Iraq was seeking to buy uranium from Africa was repeated in US President George W. Bush's January 2003 State of the Union Address. The controversial '16 words' used by President Bush on 28 January 2003 were:

The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa.[8]

In March 2003, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), when it finally obtained the documents referred to by United States Secretary of State Colin Powell to the United Nations Security Council alleging transactions between Niger and Iraq, concluded that they were obvious fakes.[9]

Subsequently, CIA director George Tenet stated that the remarks should not have been included in the US President's speech. This followed a remark by US National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice, saying that the presence of the line in the speech showed that it had been authorised by the CIA.

In July, Tony Blair testified to the House of Commons Liaison Committee that the evidence the government had regarding Iraq's dealings with Niger came from a separate source to the fraudulent documents. Ever since Powell's presentation, critics argued that had the US and UK intelligence services fully cooperated with United Nations weapons inspectors, it could have been found out whether the claims were truthful.

The same month, British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw told the Foreign Affairs Select Committee (which was investigating the veracity of the claims in the dossier) that the statement in the dossier rested on separate evidence which was still under review, and that this specific intelligence had not been shared with the CIA. In written evidence to the same committee, however, Straw further disclosed that the intelligence information upon which the British government had relied was shared separately with the IAEA by a foreign government shortly before their report of 7 March 2003.[10] This was further confirmed in a Parliamentary answer to Lynne Jones MP.[11] Lynne Jones subsequently contacted the IAEA to question whether a third party had discussed or shared separate intelligence with them and, if so, what assessment they made of it. IAEA spokesman Mark Gwozdecky responded to Jones on 25 May 2004:

I can confirm to you that we have received information from a number of member states regarding the allegation that Iraq sought to acquire uranium from Niger. However, we have learned nothing which would cause us to change the conclusion we reported to the United Nations Security Council on March 7, 2003 with regards to the documents assessed to be forgeries and have not received any information that would appear to be based on anything other than those documents.[12]

The Foreign Affairs Select Committee judged that the British government had been wrong to state in an unqualified manner something that had not been established beyond doubt:

We conclude that it is very odd indeed that the Government asserts that it was not relying on the evidence which has since been shown to have been forged, but that eight months later it is still reviewing the other evidence. The assertion "…that Iraq sought the supply of significant amounts of uranium from Africa …" should have been qualified to reflect the uncertainty.[13]

The privately Blair-appointed Butler Review, whose own report was issued after the aforementioned public investigation, concluded that the report Saddam's government was seeking uranium in Africa appeared credible:

a. It is accepted by all parties that Iraqi officials visited Niger in 1999.

b. The British Government had intelligence from several different sources indicating that this visit was for the purpose of acquiring uranium. Since uranium constitutes almost three-quarters of Niger's exports, the intelligence was credible.

c. The evidence was not conclusive that Iraq actually purchased, as opposed to having sought, uranium, and the British Government did not claim this.

d. The forged documents were not available to the British Government at the time its assessment was made, and so the fact of the forgery does not undermine it.[14][15]

The Butler Review also made a specific conclusion on President Bush's 16 words: "By extension, we conclude also that the statement in President Bush's State of the Union Address of 28 January 2003 that: 'The British Government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa.' was well-founded."

The 45 minute claim lies at the centre of a row between Downing Street and the BBC. On 29 May 2003, BBC defence correspondent Andrew Gilligan filed a report for BBC Radio 4's Today programme in which he stated that an unnamed source – a senior British official – had told him that the September Dossier had been "sexed up", and that the intelligence agencies were concerned about some "dubious" information contained within it – specifically the claim that Saddam Hussein could deploy weapons of mass destruction within 45 minutes of an order to use them.

On 1 June, Gilligan expanded upon that claim in The Mail on Sunday newspaper, stating that the government's director of communications, Alastair Campbell, had been responsible for the insertion of the 45-minute claim, against the wishes of the intelligence agencies. Gilligan subsequently gave evidence before the Foreign Affairs Select Committee, as did Campbell, who denied ordering the inclusion of the claim, and demanded an apology from the BBC. He subsequently backed this demand in writing.

The BBC refused to apologise, and stood by Gilligan's story. Campbell responded angrily, with an appearance on Channel 4 News.[16]

On 7 July, the Select Committee published a report which cleared Campbell, albeit on the casting vote of the chairman. In the report, the committee stated that the 45-minute claim had been given "undue prominence".

On 15 September, MI6 head Richard Dearlove told the Hutton Inquiry that the claim related to battlefield WMD rather than weapons of mass destruction of a larger range than just battlefield.[17] On the same day, Tony Cragg, the retired deputy chief of defence intelligence, admitted there were memos from two members of DIS objecting that parts of the dossier, including the 45-minute claim, was "far too strong" or "over-egged".[18]

On 28 January 2004, the Hutton Inquiry released its report, which among other things concluded that:

• "Mr Gilligan accepted that he had made errors" about the 45 minute claim; specifically, his report that the government "probably knew that the 45 minutes claim was wrong or questionable", and his report that intelligence officers were unhappy with the insertion of the claim in the dossier, or only inserted it at the insistence of the government, were erroneous.
• Hutton was "satisfied that Dr Kelly did not say to Mr Gilligan" certain dramatic statements about the 45 minute claim, which Gilligan had reported as direct quotations.
• That only one person (Dr. Jones) had expressed any reservations about the 45 minute claim, and that was about the strength of the wording, not its inclusion.

Information surfacing in late 2009 initially appeared to suggest that the source of the 45 minute claim was in fact a taxi driver "on the Iraqi-Jordanian border, who had remembered an overheard conversation in the back of his cab a full two years earlier".[19][20] Whether or not the taxi driver was the source of the 45-minute claim or instead "something about missiles" remains an open question.[21]

It is also claimed by Adam Holloway MP that "When the information was acquired by MI6, a footnote was written on the page of an intelligence report sent to No 10 stating that the claim was 'verifiably inaccurate'."[22]