You’re not going to believe it, but they’re trying the same BS all over again, although, to be fair, Karl Rove knows you use the same lie over and over again until it falls flat.

Mixed with timely but unrelated references to the Hiroshima bomb and sleepercells who might attack British nuclear plants, the London Sunday Times reports on an alleged smuggling of Uranium ore from Congo via Tanzania to Iran.

IRAN is seeking to import large consignments of bomb-making uranium from the African mining area that produced the Hiroshima bomb, an investigation has revealed.

A United Nations report, dated July 18, said there was “no doubt” that a huge shipment of smuggled uranium 238, uncovered by customs officials in Tanzania, was transported from the Lubumbashi mines in the Congo.

Tanzanian customs officials told The Sunday Times it was destined for the Iranian port of Bandar Abbas, and was stopped on October 22 last year during a routine check.

[...]

A senior Tanzanian customs official said the illicit uranium shipment was found hidden in a consignment of coltan, a rare mineral used to make chips in mobile telephones. The shipment was destined for smelting in the former Soviet republic of Kazakhstan, delivered via Bandar Abbas, Iran’s biggest port.

This is a puzzling story, since the FAS has reported that Iran opened 10 uranium mines in 1996, and it’s proven reserves are more than 5,000 tons.

Why would they need to import African uranium? For that matter, the suspect shipment was to be transshipped through Iran to Kazakstan, which is the world’s third largest uranium producer. The reason for this, of course, is that Bandar Abbas is (allegedly) the nearest open port available to Kazakhstan, which is a landlocked country.

When a story is slowly, gently released into the atmosphere, and the basics are completely illogical a cynical man would immediately think: “Time for a different war.”

It so happens that Bernard, from Moon Over Alabama, saw the same story and also dug into it, from a different direction:

[I]t [London Times] puts three of its best authors on the small fact available and blows that up. All three well known veterans of the scare business.

Jon Swan reported in March 2003 that Iraq tried to order drones and spray kits. We know where that one went. David Leppard, publishing through the well know neocon marketing outlet Benador Associates, writes general scare pieces like TERROR PLOT TO ATTACK US WITH BA and Brian Johnson-Thomas finds Radiation rockets on sale to ‘terrorists’ in an unsuccessful scam to buy some old Russian meteorological research rockets.

Actually, I suppose it isn’t too surprising that they’d use the same lies a second time. After all, the Lapdog Press in America will print anything the Bu$h malAdministration reads off to them, as long as they dictate it slowly so it can be easily written down. And, let’s face it: a populace too stupid to remember what year 9/11 happened in will believe anything.

I just hope they don’t go for the trifecta insult and use the same Italians to counterfeit the official documents again.