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by de Gondi More on the developing story of Italian-US-Iraq intrigue ~ whataboutbob While the Italian Sismi and the Berlusconi government scuttle for damage control over the revelations in la Repubblica last week, Carlo Bonini and Giuseppe D'Avanzo take a hint from an American blog and again wreak havoc. But this time by simply pointing out glaring inconsistencies that have been available to the public since the publication of the Senate Select Committee Investigation Report. Apparently they're doing the job that Rockefeller and Roberts can't get around to doing in the Senate follow-up investigation. According to today's Repubblica scoop, the blog Left Coaster noticed a crucial detail and asked an appropriate question: "Why did the Senate Report attribute a letter by Allele Dihadj Habibou to Nassirou Sabo? Who is disinforming who?" That is precisely what is written on page 36 of the SSCI Report: "Nigerien Minister of Foreign Affairs Nassirou Sabo." The answer can only be the Sismi, for it was the Sismi that showed the documents to the CIA station chief in Rome as early as October 15th, 2001. The station chief was not allowed to photocopy the documents but only to hand copy salient details.
The only problem is that in the original forged document there was a fundamental error that was noticed by someone, most likely an Italian intelligence officer. Habibou was no longer Niger minister of foreign affairs since 1989. The minister of foreign affaires in 2000 was Nassirou Sabo. All that needed to be done was to correct the forged document by forging Sabo's signature and pass it off to the Rome embassy.
...the dossier is ready, but it has to be managed with discretion. It would be too tricky to turn it over to the CIA. What if they discover that the signatures had been manipulated? What should be done? Here's what the Sismi came up with, according to George Thielmann...: "The CIA field officer in Italy [Jeff Castelli] told Langley that he had seen (but was not able to make a copy) some papers that documented an Iraqi attempt to acquire 500 tons of pure uranium from Niger in early 2001, thanks to the collaboration of Sismi." This is the October 15th, 2001 report. The CIA agent... quickly copies the news he reads in the dossier ... the 1999 telex, the Court of Niger [letter], the letter from Mamdou Tandja to Saddam Hussein. He notes that the letter of October 10th, 2000 is signed by Nassirou Sabo (The signature of Allele Dihadj Habibou has been substituted by a sleight of hand.) But the probable original forgery apparently in the hands of Rocco Martino still had Habibou's name on it. It is this document that was first published by la Repubblica on July 16th, 2003 and subsequently published by Panorama on July 31st, 2003. Cryptome published all published documents in three sets on July 18th, July 27th (also here) and October 22nd, 2003. The Sismi information could well have been the smoking gun that proved Saddam's interest in nuclear material. While INR found the information highly suspect, Langley asked for further details. Again the Sismi in the person of Nicolo Pollari confirmed their sources as reliable on October 18th, 2001.
Pollari, as he explains to the Messaggero [a Roman daily owned by Caltagirone- my note], answers immediately on October 18th "with a page-and-a-half letter". He explains that "the information comes from a reliable source, la Signora". He does not reveal her identity but says that "in the past la Signora supplied the Sismi with cryptographic codes and the Embassy's protocol registers." Therefore, the documents could be good. On the same day, October 18th, 2001, the CIA issued a complete report (Senior Intelligence Brief, "Iraq, Nuclear-Procurement Efforts.") [SSCI Report, pages 36-37] "...According to a foreign government service, Niger as of early this year planned to send several tons of uranium to Iraq under an agreement concluded late last year. Iraq and Niger had been negotiating the shipment since at least early 1999, but the state court of Niger only this year approved it, according to the service... The quantity of yellowcake to be transferred could support the enrichment of enough uranium for at least one nuclear weapon..." Pollari's initial assertions could be written off as a beginner's mistake. He had just assumed the direction of the Sismi that month after a stint as the Cesis vice-director. Perhaps he had been duped into accepting the dossier as authentic by old Sismi hands.
It is however difficult to believe in the ensuing weeks that he had not personally verified a story that was as hot as molten steel. He was used to doing it. "I don't trust anyone in here," is his refrain. Above all he personally controls [everything] when it's obvious the CIA wants more out of the Italians. Whatever Pollari may have been aware of with the first cable, his tone did not change with the second and third reports sent to Virginia. The information is always the same. Some details added in. But no other source. The origin and the scope [of the dossier]- never denounced to the allies- is the same old nonsense thrown together by Totò, Peppino and Malafemmina. To err is human, to persist is diabolic. By February 5th, 2002, Pollari's secret service provided a "verbatim text" of the Iraq-Niger accord (SSCI Report, page 37).
...an [intelligence] analyst testified before the Senate that he did not recall "a report as detailed as this one for similar transactions of uranium." The INR continued to doubt it. They asked "if the source was willing to take a lie-detector test." A CIA analyst wanted to know the origins of the information from the Directory of Operations and he was told that it was "a very reliable source." With the guarantee of Fort Braschi [Sismi headquarters] la Signora in via Antonio Baiamonti, 10 goes from one success to another. Just like the dossier that had been "cleaned up" by the Sismi racketeers. The package can continue its triumphal march. The authors of the article continue in detail to relate the persistence of the Italian services in "giving wine to an alcoholic" as so aptly said recently by a CIA hand. Many of the points brought up have been discussed in the excellent on-going dossier at Left Coaster, but from the Italian viewpoint. In the past ten days here in Italy there has been a rush to cover-up and downplay the continuous stream of revelations, not only by the Italian government and the services but also by parties and the media of both political spectrums, ranging from the smear-and-spin tactics often used by the Berlusconi press to short-sighted discounting by the left. Yesterday, the Minister of Defence, Antonio Martino, saw no better than to once again declare that the services had utterly nothing to do with the Niger forgeries, and that the present journalistic campaign is "a clumsy political operation to give credit to a make-believe thesis that our government was pro-war." Martino pointed out that the Italian contingent is in Iraq for "humanitarian and peace-keeping" reasons, and he hoped that "in a day not far off our military can refer to Iraq as a mission accomplished." As often happens in the Italian panorama, distinctions are blurred, and with the elections coming up in a distant April 2006, perhaps the Left does not want to aggravate the White House. After all, as both Left Coaster and la Repubblica point out, the Senate Report declared, "There were no obvious inconsistencies in the names of officials mentioned or the dates of the transactions in any of the three reports." With fact-finding like this we can all sleep safely, mindless of what sleep may generate. Cross-posted by rom wyo at Booman and Kos. |
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The Niger forgery- The devil is in detail | 11 comments (11 topical, 0 editorial, 0 hidden)
The Niger forgery- The devil is in detail | 11 comments (11 topical, 0 editorial, 0 hidden)
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