In Brief.

"This summer, the British and U.S. governments were revealed to have relied on obviously forged documents suggesting that Iraqi agents had purchased uranium ore from Niger. In fact, the phony documents were one of the main reasons they argued that Iraq presented an imminent danger. But Niger's government wanted to make clear that it would never divert ore from its legal contracts. Hama Hamadou, the prime minister, said that his government had never even talked with Iraq, and he called on Tony Blair to produce the 'evidence' that Blair claimed confirmed the sale. At that point, United States Secretary of State dispatched Herman Cohen, a former assistant Secretary of State to Niger's capital, Niamey, to deliver a message to the small country highly dependent on international aid. As interpreted by one unnamed Niger official, Cohen's message, delivered in late July, was 'shut up.' The official added that 'everybody in Niger knows what the consequence of upsetting America or Britain would be.' (London-Sunday Telegraph, August 3)." [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]