In other news, the New York Times is reporting a high-level Bush administration intelligence assessment concluded in early 2002 that the sale of enriched uranium from Niger to Iraq was “unlikely.” The claim, since discredited, that Iraq sought to purchase the uranium played a key role in the Bush administration’s attempts to justify the invasion of Iraq. The Times reports a secret memo by State Department intelligence analysts concluded the sale was improbable for several reasons, including that it would have required Niger to send “25 hard-to-conceal 10-ton tractor-trailers” filled with uranium across 1,000 miles and at least one international border. A Bush administration official interviewed by the Times would not say whether President Bush saw the memo before he made the Niger claim in his infamous State of the Union address in January 2003 — over 10 months after the intelligence assessment was made.