Italy provided U.S. with faulty uranium intelligence, officials insist

[Rose Siding]

WASHINGTON - Contrary to Italian government denials, a powerful Italian military intelligence agency passed bogus allegations to the United States of an Iraqi effort to buy uranium ore from the African nation of Niger for a nuclear bomb program, U.S. officials said Friday.

The purported deal, which President Bush cited in his Jan. 28, 2003, State of the Union address, was a key argument that Bush and his senior aides advanced for invading Iraq and toppling dictator Saddam Hussein. It remains unclear, however, who forged the documents, why and how information from such crude forgeries got into a major presidential speech.

No nuclear weapons program was found after the March 2003 invasion.

Four U.S. officials said the Italian military intelligence agency known as SISMI passed three reports to the CIA station in Rome between October 2001 and March 2002 outlining an alleged deal for Iraq to buy uranium ore, known as yellowcake, from Niger. Yellowcake is refined into the uranium fuel that powers nuclear weapons.

The U.S. officials spoke on condition of anonymity because portions of the matter remain classified.

http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/13085306.htm

This story is breaking all different ways tonight. This seems to be a subsequent development, or a contradiction to the Italians' offical conclusions today, and it has Rockefeller discounting the FBI's conclusion:

"While I greatly appreciate all of the FBI's efforts into completing the investigation of the Niger documents, some questions remain," Rockefeller said in a statement. "Until I receive additional information about the thoroughness of the investigation, I cannot make a judgment on the accuracy of the conclusions."

[Straight Shooter]

1. Hogwash. Classified or not, the 4 officials don't have to be anonymous.

Get your face out there in front of everyone, just as the Italians have done, and tell your lies so that you can be held accountable for them.

I cannot believe this crap. Berlusconi is going to have a cow. Not that I give a rat's patooie about that fascist, either.

[Dancing_Dave]

2. The Italian documents had been shown to be fraudulent

Well BEFORE Bush's State of the Union Address. He can't pass the buck!

[Wordie]

3. Italy provided U.S. with faulty uranium intelligence, officials insist

(This is a Knight-Ridder article, published last night, which Josh Marshall, of talkingpoints memo kindly points the way to, in his blog.)

Link to the Knight-Ridder article:
http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/13085306.htm

Link to talkingpoints memo:
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/

<snip>
Posted on Fri, Nov. 04, 2005

Italy provided U.S. with faulty uranium intelligence, officials insist

By Jonathan S. Landay

Knight Ridder Newspapers

WASHINGTON - Contrary to Italian government denials, a powerful Italian military intelligence agency passed bogus allegations to the United States of an Iraqi effort to buy uranium ore from the African nation of Niger for a nuclear bomb program, U.S. officials said Friday.

The purported deal, which President Bush cited in his Jan. 28, 2003, State of the Union address, was a key argument that Bush and his senior aides advanced for invading Iraq and toppling dictator Saddam Hussein. It remains unclear, however, who forged the documents, why and how information from such crude forgeries got into a major presidential speech.

No nuclear weapons program was found after the March 2003 invasion.

Four U.S. officials said the Italian military intelligence agency known as SISMI passed three reports to the CIA station in Rome between October 2001 and March 2002 outlining an alleged deal for Iraq to buy uranium ore, known as yellowcake, from Niger. Yellowcake is refined into the uranium fuel that powers nuclear weapons.

___________________________________________________________________
Note that the article says the officials who provided the info for the story spoke on condition of anonymity, because the information is classified.

[Christa]

4. It's not really important WHO provided the incorrect info

we had the means to verify it - why wasn't it done?

[Wordie]

5. This article is important, because it refutes the NYT article, which has

lulled some into thinking there was no problem.

Beyond that, though, I completely agree with you. Most of the questions go way beyond that of who actually forged the documents. Not to mention, if the Italians are not telling the truth, there is the important questions of who ordered the forgeries (presuming the story that Martino did it for economic reasons is false), and who made sure they landed in the right hands?

[Wordie]

6. Is there a La Repubblica response to the Italian government's claims?

That should be telling...what La Repubblica has to say about it. They broke the story in the first place, on the Italian side. No news from them has been translated yet, to my knowledge. Here is a link to the latest La Repubblica story:
http://www.repubblica.it/2005/j/sezioni/esteri/nigergate/pollar/pollar.html

(I was able to search to find the story (love those latin roots), but I can't understand a word of it. Italian speakers, please come to our rescue!)

[flpoljunkie]

7. Laura Rozen:Il Giornale reports Rocco Martino was freelance agent of SISMI

http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/002995.html

November 05, 2005

Il Giornale, a newspaper owned by Paolo Berlusconi (the prime minister's brother), has published a story today based on an interview with Niger forgeries middleman Rocco Martino. And what does Martino say? The same thing Repubblica reported him saying before. That he was a freelance agent for Sismi. That it was Sismi colonel Antonio Nucera who called him saying to go to the lady at the Niger embassy in order to get "something." And that he didn't know the documents he received were forgeries, when he sold them on, originally to the French. So two big points here: According to Martino, his Sismi colonel friend Antonio Nucera *came to him* and set him up with the Sismi asset at the Niger embassy. And secondly, Rocco Martino says, he didn't forge the documents, he was just the postman.

Is it possible the 8th division of Sismi, the counterproliferation division, of which Nucera is reportedly the #2 guy, was doing its own kind of operation? Also keep in mind, that in all of the interviews he has given,Martino has been consistent in saying that this whole transaction was set in motion as early as 1999/2000. In fact, as I understand, he received the documents/forgeries *over time* from the Sismi asset at the Niger embassy in Rome. All of it occurring before Nicolo Pollari became Sismi director in October 2001.

The Italian government is of course furiously denying that Italy or Sismi had anything to do with either the *claims* Iraq was seeking uranium in Niger, or the forgeries. On the former point, that is patently false. Sismi did promote the claims, to allied intelligence services (which, in turn, repeated them back to Washington. A US Navy investigator in Marseille France also fed a report from an informant about containers warehoused in Benin, that led to a DIA report on possible yellowcake shipments as well. When the CIA inspected the warehouse months later, they found cotton bales). But on the latter point, about the forgeries, while I think it is quite likely that Sismi did not make an institutional decision at the very top to make the forgeries, it's been very well reported that the forgeries plot was put together by a gang whose chief unifying feature is their being on the Sismi payroll in one form or another -- a current Sismi officer (Nucera), an ex Sismi freelancer, and a Sismi asset. In other words, a faction of Sismi, rogue or authorized, clearly hatched the plan. For all the statements and misstatements from the Italian parliamentarians coming out of their interview with Pollari Thursday, what was notably absent was any mention of Nucera, the currently serving senior Sismi officer, and the reported role he had in setting the forgeries plot in motion. It seems Sismi needs an Inspector General investigation of its own.

Posted by Laura at 09:13 AM

[Wordie]

8. Amazing...and yet the FBI says they have stopped investigating! eom

[Gyre]

9. Which the US asked no questions about

because they didn't want to hear any contradictory information. It's called a deliberate failure to confirm sources of critical information. In other words a "crime of ommission".

Gyre