U.S. authorities have been seeking an independent review and authentication of the laptops' contents, and the U.S. House Foreign Affairs Committee has asked Colombian National Police commander Oscar Naranjo for a briefing.
Some analysts have cautioned that information described by Colombians as being taken from the laptops could be part of a government disinformation program to buttress its charges against the FARC and thereby discredit Ecuador and Venezuela, which criticized the government in Bogota for the cross-border raid.
However, the senior American intelligence official said U.S. intelligence agencies believed that at least some of the the laptops' reported content was likely to be authentic.
"I think the intention or aspiration may be true" on the part of the FARC to obtain uranium, said the senior intelligence official. "I don't think there's any evidence they ever got it, and don't know that they would know what to do with it if they did."
The seized material was "depleted, not enriched," the official added. "So what's the use of that other than irritating people?"
Another senior U.S. official speculated that the FARC was the victim of a hoax in which the group was offered an easily obtainable form of uranium, usually worth $100 a pound, at a much higher price.
In an e-mail purportedly found on one of the laptops, a FARC commander said he had contacts in Bogota who "propose to sell each kilo for $2.5 million," or about $1 million a pound, according to accounts in the Colombian media.
"The real story is the very fact that the FARC is looking for uranium, even if they got scammed this time," said the second senior U.S. official, who works in Congress on Colombian issues. "The very fact that they are out there looking for it is troubling."
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josh.meyer@latimes.com
paul.richter@latimes.com
greg.miller@latimes.com
Times staff writers Peter Spiegel in Washington, Maggie Farley at the United Nations and Chris Kraul in Bogota contributed to this report.
