ONE piece of intelligence which survived the Butler committee’s scrutiny was the controversial claim that Iraq had tried to acquire uranium from Niger in West Africa.

The Niger connection was included in the Government’s dossier on Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction in September 2002. It was also referred to by Colin Powell, the US Secretary of State, when he addressed the UN Security Council later that year.

The US Administration later withdrew support for the intelligence, claiming it was based on forged documents. But MI6 said it had secondary intelligence about Iraq’s quest for “yellow cake” in Niger, a fuel which can be converted into material for a nuclear bomb.

Lord Butler in his report said that after examining the intelligence on Iraqi attempts to buy uranium from Africa, his committee had concluded that Iraqi officials had visited Niger in 1999.

The Butler report said: “The British Government had intelligence from several different sources indicating that this visit was for the purposes of acquiring uranium. Since uranium constitutes almost three quarters of Niger’s exports, the intelligence was credible.”

Lord Butler noted that in last week’s report by the Senate Intelligence Committee on CIA intelligence on Iraq, it had come to the view that the British were right on Niger.

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