Rome CIA Station Chief recognized Niger docs as forgeries - 2002

[understandinglife]

More than 10 years later, according to a retired high-ranking U.S. intelligence official, a businessman named Rocco Martino approached the CIA station chief in Rome. An occasional informant for U.S., British, French and Italian intelligence services, Martino brought documents on Niger government letterhead describing secret plans for the sale of uranium to Iraq.

The station chief "saw they were fakes and threw out," the former CIA official said. But Italy shared a similar report with the Americans in October 2001, he said, and the CIA gave it circulation because it did not know the Italians relied on the same source.

On Feb. 12, 2002, Cheney received an expanded version of the unconfirmed Italian report. It said Iraq's then-ambassador to the Vatican had led a mission to Niger in 1999 and sealed a deal for the purchase of 500 tons of uranium in July 2000. Cheney asked for more information.

The same day, Plame wrote to her superior in the CIA's Counterproliferation Division that "my husband has good relations with both the PM and the former Minister of Mines (not to mention lots of French contacts), both of whom could possibly shed light on this sort of activity." Wilson -- who had undertaken a similar mission three years before -- soon departed for Niamey, the Niger capital. He said he found no support for the uranium report and said so when he returned.

Martino continued to peddle his documents, with an asking price of more than 10,000 euros -- this time to Panorama, an Italian magazine owned by Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi. Panorama editor Carlo Rossella said his staff concluded the letters were bogus but in the interim sent copies to the U.S. Embassy in Rome in October 2002.

<clip>

From A Leak, Then a Deluge:
Did a Bush loyalist, trying to protect the case for war in Iraq, obstruct an investigation into who blew the cover of a covert CIA operative?

By Barton Gellman on October 30, 2005

Link:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/10/29/AR2005102901478_2.html

From Laura Rozen:

Rocco Martino himself brought the forgeries to the US embassy Rome

Just confirmed with a former US intelligence official who was briefed on it at the time that a surprising claim in this Washington Post story tonight is indeed true: that Rocco Martino was a walk-in to the US embassy Rome and tried to sell the Niger forgeries to them, months before the Italian reporter Elisabetta Burba brought them to the embassy at the direction of her editor at her Berlusconi-owned magazine. (My source thought he remembered Martino's walk in occurring in the early spring of 2002, but wasn't positive). The CIA Rome station chief reportedly threw Martino - and the forgeries - out.

In fact I'm a bit chagrined to realize that a source had already told this to me, but I had somehow dismissed it at the time as a slight misunderstanding of how the Niger forgeries got to the US embassy (as they later did from the Italian reporter Elisabetta Burba who was passed the forgeries by the same Rocco Martino). Apparently, when Burba brought the Niger docs in October 2002 to the US embassy in Rome, it was the Regional Security Officer, not the CIA station at the embassy, who met with her.

We know Martino sold the dossier to the French, and to the British. We now learn that he tried to sell them to the Americans directly -- and failed -- that's where the October 2002 attempt to sell them to Burba came in.

But it seems increasingly obvious that he must have sold or given them to the Italians as well, ....

More at the link:

http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/002955.html

No wonder Silvio is giving interviews saying he tried to convince Georgie boy not to lanuch his war against Iraq; sure thing Silvio. Oh, and Silvio, you might want to have that dinner with Georgie boy in Rome rather than visiting the US any time soon.

And, Colin, naughty, naughty boy -- you know you were lying, don't you.

And, Georgie, those 16 words will get you hard time in the USofA. What you did to the Nation of Iraq is going to get you hard time at The Hague.

Run, Georgie, run .... but you've got no where to hide -- you're a WAR CRIMINAL, dude.


Peace.

[understandinglife]

1. "I warned Bush about Iraq": Italy's PM

Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, on the eve of a trip to Washington, said he repeatedly tried to persuade US President George W Bush against invading Iraq.

The Italian leader voiced his unease with the military operation to topple Saddam Hussein during a television interview to be broadcast on Monday - the same day he meets Bush.

<clip>

http://www.theage.com.au/news/World/I-warned-Bush-about-Iraq-Italys-PM/2005/10/30/1130607134051.html

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/006891.php

Sure thing, Silvio. Roger. Gotcha. ...


Peace.

[TahitiNut]

2. Silvio (the fascist) warned Bushoilini "against invading Iraq"???

It looks like Silvio is expecting Bushoilini to meet the same fate as one of Silvio's predecessers. Silvio's getting out from under this one.

[Garbo 2004]

5. He was against the invasion yet he sent troops to Iraq? uhuh. n/t

[flyarm]

3. this is called "cut and run"....or.......

three strikes you are out ..bye bye *hie boy!!!!

but do we suppose any usa mainstream media will pick this up???

although since the cut and run on judy judy judy ..the editors at nyt are on a roll of revenge against the admin and the paper..no more propaganda for them?? do you suppose??
they are like hells fire!!


thanks UL..you are the best..and always on top of it all...do you ever sleep???


lol..fly

[Nothing Without Hope]

4. Recommended. Even if a third party turns out to have forged the

documents (which is by no means clear), the fact is that their obvious fake status was covered up within the Administration. The lies were there from the start.

[DemReadingDU]

6. Recommended

Thanks U.L.

[mod mom]

7. Let's hope this stays front and center. Rec'd

[understandinglife]

8. dKos: Berlusconi Up To His Ears In TreasonGate

In all the hoo-ha over Scooter and Turd Blossom, don't forget the Italian connection to TreasonGate. Fitzgerald sure hasn't.

Fitzgerald has unredacted Italian Niger forgery report

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2005/10/19/41429/846

Silvio Berlusconi, who up until now has been Bush's best buddy in Europe outside of Tony "Poodle Boy" Blair himself, is trying to put as much daylight between himself and Bush as he can. He's now even trying to claim that he opposed the invasion of Iraq and tried to stop Bush from doing it. But that's not what the Italian paper La Repubblica is saying.

Contrary to what he's now saying, Silvio Berlusconi not only was Bush's eager little helper in the runup to the invasion of Iraq, he was behind the creation of the forged Niger yellowcake documents that "proved" Saddam either had nuclear weapons or was trying like mad to get them.

Blogger and Eschaton habitué Nur al-Cubicle has provided English translations of the three La Repubblica articles in question -- and more at the link:

http://dailykos.com/story/2005/10/29/211121/82

And, some essential resources from left coaster:

Treasongate: The Real Significance of the Niger Uranium Forgery Stories in La Repubblica

http://www.theleftcoaster.com/archives/005844.php

Treasongate: The Real Significance of the Niger Uranium Forgery Stories in La Repubblica - Part II

http://www.theleftcoaster.com/archives/005859.php

Treasongate: Uranium from Africa and the Robb-Silberman report

http://www.theleftcoaster.com/archives/005863.php

Peace.

[HR_Pufnstuf]

9. Rocco Interview

This is G o o g l e's cache of http://cryptome.org/rocco-martino.htm as retrieved on Sep 14, 2005 08:38:11 GMT.

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29 September 2004. Thanks to SA.



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Italian Ex-Spy Discusses Own Role in Iraq-Niger Uranium Traffic Hoax
Milan Il Giornale in Italian 21 Sep 04 p 4
IL GIORNALE
Tuesday, September 21, 2004

Interview with Italian former SID Defense Intelligence Service agent Rocco Martino by Gian Marco Chiocci; place and date not given: "Former 007 Rocco Martino Speaks Out: 'Here Is the Truth About Nigergate'" -- first two paragraphs are Il Giornale introduction

(FBIS Translated Text)

Rome -- After growing a mustache, he has now also grown a beard, and a thick one at that, but it is not phony like the ones that stereotype secret agents are alleged to sport. "Giacomo o' spione" ("James the spy" in southern Italian dialect) is the name favored by newspapers engaged in telling the spy story (previous two words in English in original) in which he is the leading player in connection with a hoax dossier on alleged uranium trafficking between Niger and Iraq. After being questioned by Assistant Public Prosecutor Franco Ionta, he agreed to make a confession to Il Giornale in a downtown bar. Almost as though he were organizing an (illegal) rave party (previous two words in English in original), 66-year-old Rocco Martino from Tropea, a "free-lance intelligence" (previous three words in English in original) agent as he likes to style himself, constantly shifted the venue of our rendez-vous, in keeping with his need to put people off the scent after a month of dangerous living around the world, in his capacity as a much-wanted key player in a mystery story involving the 007's of Italy, France, the United Kingdom, and the United States, and which is partly responsible for the US military operation in Iraq.

There was to be no beating about the bush. Former SID (Italian Defense Intelligence Service, now defunct) agent Martino went straight to the point: "I do not have much time, and even though I have quite a few things to say about this damned Nigergate business, I would like to start by pointing something out."

(Chiocci) Go ahead.

(Martino) I have not been on the run from the Italian law; I simply moved away for reasons that are easy to comprehend -- let us say, for personal security reasons and also so as not to become cannon fodder for the national media. I traveled abroad and that is where I stayed pending a summons from Prosecutor Ionta who had been contacted and urged to issue a summons by my lawyer, Giuseppe Placidi. When the magistrate asked to meet with me, I landed in Rome in the space of a few hours in order to provide my version of events, borne out by various documents and recordings that confirm my total good faith in this murky story -- a story which is much bigger than me, and in which I turned out to be the weak link.

(Chiocci) You speak of total good faith, but the file which you slipped to Panorama and which the weekly failed to publish after checking the affair out, was a spectacular hoax.

(Martino) I did not know that it was a hoax, and there is proof of what I say. I have been engaged in intelligence (previous word in English in original) for many years, offering my cooperation to various intelligence services including the French, about whom a great deal has been said and about whom we will be talking later on. The hoax began one day when a Nigerian (as published) Embassy source who had proven to be reliable on previous occasions and who had contacts also with the collaborator of a SISMI (Intelligence and Military Security Service) aide, passed on to me a whole lot of information. It is true that that information included some references to a uranium traffic between Niger and Iraq. What did I do at that juncture? I passed it on to the French secret service, with which I am in touch and by which I was remunerated. I passed it on also to Panorama, which assessed it in order to study it, dispatching a reporter to Niger and turning the file over to the US Embassy in Rome for cross-checking.

(Chiocci) What happened then?

(Martino) The female journalist told me that the trip to Niger had not produced any real confirmation, and also the French confirmed to me that the reports I had passed on to them were groundless. But at that juncture the beans had been spilled. The file was circulating, the reports contained in it were going around the world, and Bush and Blair were talking about those documents, albeit without actually mentioning them. I turned the television on and I did not believe my ears...

(Chiocci) The suspicion is that you may have played France's game, opposed as it was to intervention in Iraq and planning to cook up a "poisoned meat ball" to give the lie to the United States and to the United Kingdom, which were hunting around for any kind of excuse to justify the invasion of Iraq: Nigergate.

(Martino) I do not know what you are talking about. These are lunatic ravings, among other reasons because the documents in question originated back in 2000, a year before the attack on the Twin Towers in New York and three years before Bush's decision to proceed with the war against Saddam.

(Chiocci) Someone may have remembered those documents, picked them up out of the waste basket, and released them back into circulation at the right moment.

(Martino) Anything is possible. And in any case, I am the victim, the tool used by someone for games much bigger than me.

(Chiocci) When did you realize that you were in trouble?

(Martino) When I read an article in a British newspaper that more or less called me a hardened criminal, pointing the finger of accusation at me as a double-crosser working for the French, who were clearly interested in what we were talking about just now.

(Chiocci) But you were followed, photographed, and recorded while speaking with French agents.

(Martino) So? I told you, I cooperate with them. And not only with them. But I did not plot against Italy or against the United States.

(Chiocci) The British 007's think otherwise.

(Martino) That is their business.

(Chiocci) You told the Sunday Times in an interview that also the Italian Government and the SISMI were involved in the Nigergate affair. Then you backtracked when talking with Prosecutor Ionta the other day. Where does the truth lie?

(Martino) I reached a preliminary agreement with the Sunday Times for interview that was never conducted. We talked about this and that, including the SISMI, but only to say that my source on the uranium traffic was the same as the source of an Italian intelligence service aide. As far as I know, the SISMI has nothing to do with it. I never, and I repeat never, said that Forte Braschi (SISMI's Rome headquarters) was involved, and certainly not that the Italian Government was involved.

The truth is that I have been duped, manipulated, used. I would like to figure out why they chose me; I do have some idea, but without any evidence one gets nowhere.

(Chiocci) Whom were you duped, manipulated, used by?

(Martino) If I knew that, I would dash off to report it to the magistracy, to whom indeed I have already handed over important documents and revealed the names of all the players in this murky business.

(Chiocci) People have written things about your previous misadventures...

(Martino) I have read them. What lies! To mention but two of them, I was never thrown out either of the Carabinieri Corps or of the SID.

(Chiocci) I do not wish to harp on about it, but if you had nothing to hide, why have you yourself been in hiding for all this time?

(Martino) Because the game, for those who are familiar with certain mechanisms, had become too dangerous. I do not know whether, as some people have written, there were any secret agents of various nationalities hunting me down in order to eliminate me. I do not even know in whose interest it would really have been for me not to open my mouth. The fact remains that, thanks to my lawyer, Giuseppe Placidi, and to my contacts with the public prosecutor over my giving a statement, also that veiled propensity for suicide that had begun to oppress me has disappeared.