Date

Jul 17, 1979

Description

During the lead-up to the 2003 Iraq War, Iraq’s alleged attempts to secure yellow cake (uranium concentrate) from Niger were a talking point in the Bush administration case, although it was soon learned that the documents about the case were forgeries. In the Pakistan case over 20 years earlier, yellow cake from Niger was not a spurious story.[13] In this report on the production of uranium in Niger, INR reviewed supplies of uranium for both Libya and Pakistan, as well as the prospects for Libyan-Pakistani nuclear relations.

Some of Niger’s uranium sales to Pakistan were legitimate and under IAEA safeguards but, as the French had reported, unsafeguarded uranium had been shipped by air to Pakistan, through Libya with Pakistani guards, in large quantities of over 300 metric tons, according to the INR report. This was not the last word, of course, on what had happened and the State Department would continue to seek more information from both the French and the Nigerians, in large part to make sure that such shipments did not happen again. By the end of the year, investigations were continuing and the IAEA had become involved at the highest levels, in part to find out what had happened and to ensure the application of safeguards to all Nigerian uranium exports.

The INR report also assessed the prospects for Libyan-Pakistani nuclear cooperation, noting that “underlying political problems” made any such project unlikely. Military cooperation between the two countries was occurring at high levels, but the Pakistanis were put off by Muammar Qaddafi’s interest in unrestricted access to Pakistani military personnel and his government’s ‘unreliability” in making good on financial promises. For his part, Qaddafi was “angered” by the execution of Bhutto, on whose behalf he had made several pleas for clemency.

Source

RG 59, Smith records, box 18, Incoming Cables

Document published in following posting(s):

Pakistan’s Nuclear Program Posed “Acute Dilemma” for U.S. Policy

Aug 30, 2021

Roscoe Suddarth, Executive Assistant, Office of the Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs, to T [Under Secretary of State for Security Assistance, Science, and Technology] - Mrs. Benson et al., enclosing INR report on “Nigerien Uranium for Libya and Pakistan,” 17 July 1979, Secret