This article really closed the loop for me. Note that its from 2005.
http://www.americanthinker.com/2005/...of_yellow.html

Flash forward to 1999 when British intelligence found out through multiple sources that representatives of the Iraqi government had met with officials from the Niger government.

This fact is not in dispute. The mystery is in what they talked about. A memo obtained by the British — later proven to be a forgery — purported to show the Iraqis were interested in purchasing 500 tons of yellow cake uranium from Niger's mines. Forgery or not, since Niger's exports are extremely limited, consisting largely of uranium ore, livestock, cowpeas, and onions, one doesn't have to be an intelligence analyst to figure out in which one of those items the Iraqis might be interested.