| by Larisa 
		Alexandrovna January 11, 2006 Update: Retired 
		Paris CIA station chief Bill Murray confirms and corrects.
 Several U.S. and foreign intelligence sources, along with 
		investigators, say an Iranian exile with ties to Iran-Contra peddled a 
		bizarre tale of stolen uranium to governments on both sides of the 
		Atlantic in the spring and summer of 2003.
 
 The story that was peddled -- which detailed how an Iranian intelligence 
		team infiltrated Iraq prior to the start of the war in March of 2003, 
		and stole enriched uranium to use in their own nuclear weapons program 
		-- was part of an attempt to implicate both countries in a WMD plot. It 
		later emerged that the Iranian exile was trying to collect money for his 
		tales, sources say.
 
 By all credible accounts, the source of this dubious tale was 
		Manucher Ghorbanifar, an Iranian arms dealer who used middle-men and 
		cut-outs to create the appearance of several sources. Ghorbanifar 
		played a key role in the Iran-Contra scandal that threatened to take 
		down the Reagan administration, in which the U.S. sold arms to Iran and 
		diverted the proceeds to Nicaraguan militants.
 
 While the various threads of the larger story of Ghorbanifar and his 
		intelligence peddling began in December of 2001, meetings in Paris in 
		2003 are far more important in illustrating -- as a microcosm -- the 
		larger difficulties faced in untangling the facts relating to global 
		intelligence trafficking.
 
 Tall Tale of Uranium
 
 During the spring and summer of 2003, Congressman Curt Weldon (R-PA) 
		made several visits to Paris to meet with a source believed to have 
		important military intelligence information.
 
 Unbeknownst to Weldon, the informant, who he would dub simply "Ali," 
		was already peddling a tale of stolen uranium traveling between Iraq and 
		Iran that had been deemed false by most intelligence agencies.
 
 As reported by American Prospect and confirmed by intelligence 
		sources, Ali is a pseudonym used to identify a former minister in the 
		Shah's Iran, Fereidoun Mahdavi. Mahdavi himself is a secretary to 
		Ghorbanifar, the originating source of the uranium fable.
 
 The American Prospect's reporters wrote, "'Ali' is actually a cipher 
		for Manucher Ghorbanifar, the notorious Iranian arms dealer and accused 
		intelligence fabricator -- and the potential instrument of another 
		potentially dangerous manipulation of American policy in the Persian 
		Gulf region."
 
 The Washington Post discusses Ali as follows: "'These secrets,' he says, 
		come from 'an impeccable clandestine source,' whom Weldon code-names 
		'Ali,' an Iranian exile living in Paris who is a close associate of 
		Manucher Gorbanifar. Gorbanifar is a well-known Iranian exile whom 
		the CIA branded as a fabricator during the 1980s but who was used by the 
		Reagan White House as a middleman for the arms-for-hostages deal with 
		Iran."
 
 According to several intelligence sources on both sides of the Atlantic, 
		the tale that "Ali" tells Weldon and others was as intricate as it was 
		false.
 
 "Ali provided information that indicated Iranian intelligence had sent a 
		team to Baghdad to extract highly enriched uranium (weapons grade) from 
		a stockpile hidden by Saddam Hussein," one intelligence source said.
 
 Ali asserted that an Iranian intelligence team had infiltrated Iraq 
		prior to the start of the war and stole enriched uranium to use in their 
		own nuclear weapons program, sources say.
 
 Ghorbanifar said "the team successfully extracted the stockpile but 
		on the way back to Iran contracted radiation poisoning," one source 
		remarked.
 
 Upon learning this information Weldon says that he immediately notified 
		then-CIA director George Tenet.
 
 "Tenet appeared interested, even enthusiastic about evaluating Ali and 
		establishing a working relationship with him," Weldon wrote in his book, 
		Countdown to Terror. "He agreed to send his top spy, Stephen Kappes, the 
		deputy director of operations, along with me to Paris for another 
		debriefing of Ali.
 
 "On the day of our scheduled second meeting with Ali in Paris, Kappes 
		bowed out, claiming that "other commitments" compelled him to cancel," 
		Weldon continued. "Later, the CIA claimed to have met with Ali 
		independently. But I discovered this to be untrue... Incredibly, I 
		learned that the CIA had apparently asked French intelligence to silence 
		Ali."
 
 But according to the Prospect and several sources in intelligence 
		abroad, the CIA did investigate, as did the Department of Defense. 
		According to the Post, the agency tasked then-Paris station chief Bill 
		Murray with investigating the claim, who ultimately found Ali to be a 
		"fabricator."
 
 The CIA, understanding Ali to be Ghorbanifar, did not think him a 
		credible source.
 
 Intelligence sources and a source close to the UN Security Council tell 
		RAW STORY. Murray took Ali (either Ghorbanifar or his agent) to Iraq in 
		order to retrace the footsteps of the alleged mission in which the 
		uranium was stolen from Saddam's own stockpile and taken back to Iran. 
		In the end, sources say, the entire event proved a wild goose chase 
		because Ali's earlier clarity all but evaporated.
 
 "Soon it became apparent that Ali and his sources were fabricators and 
		were trying to extract large sums of money," one intelligence source 
		said.
 
 Murray says he did meet with the source, but was not part of a trip to 
		Iraq.
 
 "I did not make any such trip," Murray said. "I met with the source, 
		found that he was not credible, forwarded the information he gave us to 
		Washington, where it was thoroughly analyzed by many people and found 
		not to add anything new to what we knew about Iran. The sensational 
		charges that the source made could not be substantiated."
 
 Weldon's office declined to comment for the record after several 
		extended conversations. RAW STORY delayed the article for a day to give 
		Weldon's office a chance to comment.
 
 The neoconservative movement has long expressed an inherent distrust of 
		the CIA. Many neoconservatives note that the agency undercounted 
		Russia's nuclear stockpile in the waning days of the Soviet Union, and 
		believe that it routinely underestimates foreign threats.
 
 Weldon, who had been led to believe the CIA never opened an 
		investigation into the information he provided, took his case directly 
		to Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. Rumsfeld then pressured the CIA 
		to investigate further.
 
 "CIA reluctantly, after pressure from Rumsfeld, followed up by detaching 
		one of their weapons experts from the team that was hunting WMD in 
		Iraq," one former CIA officer who asked to remain anonymous said.
 
 Sources say that this second investigation resulted in another wild 
		goose chase. The question of motive, however, seems to either have been 
		entirely missed or simply glossed over.
 
 Weldon seen caught in web
 
 By all accounts, Weldon seems to be more of an innocent bystander taken 
		in by an internationally known con-man and the lure of spook-like 
		activities than an inside player with an agenda or material participant 
		in these events.
 
 The Ali composite seems to have used Weldon as a conduit by which to 
		provide the CIA with information.
 
 There was good reason to be cautious of Manucher Ghorbanifahr, who, 
		along with his secretary, made up the "cipher" of Ali.
 
 The CIA had already had issued two burn notices against Ghorbanifahr as 
		early as 1984 and his role in Iran-Contra as a middleman between the 
		hardline neoconservative and another Iran-Contra figure, Michael Ledeen.
 
 In his book, Weldon said he met Ghorbanifahr after being approached by a 
		Democratic congressman.
 
 "On March 7, 2003, a former Democratic member of Congress and my good 
		friend Ron Klink called and asked to meet with me. . . . The source was 
		Ali. My contacts with him were at first by telephone. Subsequently, Ali 
		sent faxes to my home on a regular basis from different hotels in Paris, 
		where he lives in exile. Eventually, as the information became more 
		detailed and critical, I decided on a face-to-face meeting." (Countdown 
		to Terror, p. 4).
 Why such highly 
		important information would be provided to Klink and then Weldon as 
		opposed to the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee remains 
		unclear.
 Neoconservative Leeden explains meetings
 
 Ghorbanifahr has strong ties to Michael Ledeen, and both of them were 
		involved in a controversial meeting in Rome of 2001. That meeting, whose 
		purpose is unknown, included high level officials in Italian 
		intelligence, Iranian nationals and Larry Franklin, a former Defense 
		Department analyst who current pled guilty to charges of passing 
		classified information to Israel and Iran. Also in attendance was Middle 
		East expert Harold Rhode, also under investigation for charges of 
		passing classified information to Israel and Iran. Both Rhode and 
		Franklin worked for Feith in the Office of Special plans.
 
 Ledeen was consulting for OSP when all three were dispatched to Rome in 
		2001. He says the meetings had nothing to do with Iraq.
 
 "The Rome meetings had nothing whatsoever to do with Iraq, but with Iran 
		and Afghanistan," Ledeen wrote in an email. "I don't think a single word 
		was pronounced, by anyone, on Iraq."
 
 Later, in a phone conversation, Ledeen explained that the Rome meeting 
		had to do with what his sources told him was going on on the ground in 
		Afghanistan, namely that Iran was allegedly fueling the Afghan 
		insurgency.
 
 "I reported this back," Ledeen said. "This information saved American 
		lives."
 
 According to James Risen's New York Times article dated December of 
		2003, Ledeen was a paid consultant to the National Security Council at 
		the time of the meeting. Risen reports that National Security Advisor 
		Stephen Hadley was informed of the plans for the meeting and that Hadley 
		expressed reservations given Ledeen and Ghorbanifahr's background.
 
 The Office of Special Plans, however, authorized the meeting without 
		notifying any other agency, violating protocol. They did not notify the 
		Rome CIA station chief or the U.S. Ambassador to Italy, Mel Sembler.
 
 Ledeen, however, says that Hadley had authorized the trip. This would 
		also implicate Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, then-National 
		Security Advisor.
 
 "Hadley authorized it and he could not have done so without reporting it 
		to his direct superior," said Ledeen.
 
 Ledeen also denies that he had anything to do beyond that first meeting 
		in December of 2001.
 
 "I was involved in one meeting, in Rome, in December 2001," Leeden said. 
		"Period."
 
 Paris, Again
 
 The uranium story peddled to Weldon is strikingly similar to the story 
		told to Ledeen.
 
 "I approached a variety of government officials, lots of them, and told 
		them that I had a reliable source that told me about how and where the 
		Iranians stole enriched uranium from Iraq," Ledeen said.
 
 Ledeen says his source then went on to explain that the "stash" was 
		buried in an underground facility and recounted, much like Weldon did, 
		that neither the CIA, the Defense Department or the State Department 
		would listen to his concerns.
 
 Asked if his source was Ghorbanifahr, Ledeen said "No," but was 
		unable to tell the identity of his source for fear said source might be 
		"put in danger."
 
 Who arranged the meetings and their ultimate purpose remains unclear. 
		One intelligence official, however, described the series of events and 
		the market of intelligence trafficking as follows: "If you were going to 
		launder intel to make up a war, you could easily send some fool on an 
		errand."
 
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