The now-infamous forged documents purporting to prove that Saddam Hussein attempted to import uranium from Niger have been revealed by an Italian newspaper as being of such poor quality that their inauthenticity would be obvious almost immediately. Rome is understood to have passed the documents to British intelligence, although denies doing so formally. The paperwork emerged in the La Repubblica daily. The Niger government logo is poorly drawn, the identity of a minister mistaken, and the documents contain many spelling mistakes. The papers profess to be from senior Niger officials to the country's ambassador to Rome discussing attempts by Iraq to purchase 500 tonnes of uranium. UK Prime Minister Tony Blair stood by the claim that Baghdad tried to import the uranium, saying that it was based on more than one source and that there was a historical link. 'We know in the 1980s that Iraq purchased from Niger 270 tonnes of uranium, and therefore it is not beyond the bounds of possibility - let's at least put it like this - that they went back to Niger again,' he told parliament.