"In the Center of Nigergate Because of a Counterfeit Letter"

By Carlo Bonini and Giuseppe D'Avanzo

Published in La Repubblica on April 29, 2006, page 19.

 "I find it incredible that three years after the events there is still some mystery and speculation on my alleged role in Nigergate."

Wissam Al Zahawie, former Iraqi ambassador to the Holy  See in Rome, was to hold a conference in mid-May in Udine (Italy) on "Media and War." "I'm afraid my participation will have to be cancelled because I have yet to obtain a visa, and I`m leaving for Ankara."

Do you have time to answer some questions?

"Of course. Just as I have always done these years. I have offered my collaboration on several occasions to all public authorities interested in my testimony. In three years, however, no one has come forth."

The Italian government issued an official communiqué of April 25th that asserts that it is "difficult to understand why the reconstruction of the Sunday Times which should demonstrate "the groundlessness of the entire Niger-gate case" is not taken into consideration."

According to the English daily, a letter dated July 6, 2000, signed by you and in the hands of the French and English secret services, would be the proof of Saddam's intention to procure rough uranium in Niger to enrich in  Iraq for an atomic re-armament project. This letter alone would be the source of Bush's famous 16 words in his State of the Union address, which became [in effect] a declaration of war. In short, Washington, London and Rome would have been in good faith. Moreover they would have caught Saddam with his mitts in the cupboard.

"I know what the Sunday Times wrote, rehashing an affair that has been documented as false. In fact, I answered that newspaper with a letter of April 12th. Now what is the Italian government saying on the matter?"

The Italian government suggests that the story of the letter confirms that Saddam had renewed his nuclear program. That it is this letter the reason for going to war and not the false dossier put together by Italian agents in the Niger embassy in Rome.

 "But that letter which I supposedly wrote while Iraqi ambassador to the Holy See, was as false as the dossier. It has already been demonstrated as false and time is not going to make it true. Perhaps that letter only explains how Italian intelligence was involved in the affair. It's a story that I explained on August 10th, 2003, to the Independent on Sunday. Since then, although I have been solicited by the press, I have refused in the hope that some Western government asks me how things went."

Now the Italian government is calling you to task. So, then. Did you sign a letter in July 2000 that related to an agreement with the Niger government for the purchase of uranium?

"I never signed that letter nor any similar document for that matter. I learned about this false letter on February 11, 2003, when I was urgently summoned to Baghdad. At the time I lived in Amman. When I arrived I was informed that UN inspectors would "interview me." They were inspectors of the IAEA: three men and two women. We met in the conference room in the then Ministry of Foreign Affairs, just behind Hotel Rashid. The meeting lasted slightly under two hours. No Iraqi functionary was present. I insisted and obtained permission to tape our discussion. I'll tell you frankly, I have no faith in the methods of the American and English governments. During the interview, which I would define more as an interrogation, only two inspectors spoke, one British and the other Canadian. The other three did not utter a word. The interrogation began from afar. They asked many questions about my diplomatic career and my life. I explained that I entered the Foreign Ministry in 1955 during the monarchy and that I had never been a member of the Ba'ath party. Then they began to ask me questions about what really interested the inspectors: Niger uranium."

What did they contest?

"They contested my trip to Niger in February 1999. They asked what were the real reasons for my visit, what did I discuss with the Niger president, if I was aware of official contacts between Niger and Iraq and what was the object [of those contacts.] I answered that the reason for my visit to four African nations (Niger, Burkina Faso, Benin, Congo Brazzaville) was to invite the chief of States to Baghdad to let up the pressure of the UN embargo. I explained that during that meeting uranium was never discussed. Besides, if the reason for my trip was to negotiate rough uranium, I would have been the person least adapted for Baghdad. I was only a diplomat, not even a member of the Ba'ath. For these matters Saddam Hussein would have entrusted one of his most trusted persons and certainly would not have announced the mission with a telegram. However, my explanations did not convince them."

Why?

"They suddenly asked me if I had ever signed a letter dated July 6th, 2000, addressed to the Niger government, concerning uranium. I answered no and added that if such a document existed it was certainly false."

Did they show you the document?

"No."

Did they read the contents to you?

"No. They only told me it concerned the purchase of uranium. I repeatedly asked to see it, but there was nothing to do about it. On the contrary the inspectors wanted to know who had in custody the diplomatic seal in my embassy, and if I normally signed in full or only initialled diplomatic letters. I replied that I was the only custodian of the seal- I kept it in my safe- and diplomatic praxis was no different from that of any other country."

What is the procedure?

"When the seal is used the ambassador's signature is not in full. They seemed to be surprised by my explanation. Of course, they were not convinced, because the morning after, February 13th, I received a telephone call from the Iraqi general Husam Amin, liaison officer with the IAEA. He told me that the director of the UN Agency, Mohammed El Baradei, was deeply irritated by my answers because he was convinced that I knew a lot more that what I had let on. I then decided to make a move."

What did you do?

"I requested and obtained another encounter that same evening with the IAEA inspectors. The meeting lasted three quarters of an hour, this time in the inspectors' general headquarters in the area of the University of Baghdad. I once again asked without success to see the letter, but only obtained [permission] to turn over a series of letters that I had written while still ambassador to the Holy See in Rome. I thought that a calligraphic examination  might have convinced them that the document in their possession was false.  They accepted, because my letters were sent to Vienna and March 7th, 2003, El Baradei declared to the UN Security Council- let me cite textually- that "an independent examination has demonstrated anomalies in the signatures, the letter heading and the format of the documents, concluding that they are not authentic.""

May we recapitulate. It has been clarified that at least as of February 13th, 2003, and confirmed authoritatively by independent analyses and by the declarations of El Baradei to the Security Council that the letter of July 6th, 2000, is false.

"Exactly. And I am very surprised that this story keeps coming up. Naturally I don't know why. I can only confirm that if the Italian authorities are interested in having my testimony, I declare once again that I am ready to testify."

Also to the Rome Procura that has an open investigation on the false Niger-gate documents?

"Absolutely yes. What else can I do? Certainly I don't want to transform myself into a fixed guest for journalistic talk shows."

The Council Presidency once again finds it necessary to discuss the so-called Niger-gate caper to bear witness to the falseness of the representations and the reported conclusions (...) The reported news items do not even correspond to the truthfulness of the event they relate. They are intrinsically false, just as the title of the service is false and misleading. It is false that the Cia has ever confirmed or indicated Italian institutions behind the Niger-gate caper.  On the contrary, it's precisely the contrary, and has always been so ever so more at present even in relation to the more than expected results of the joint Sismi-FBI [sic] investigation, the maximum American authorities as far up as the intelligence services (CIA included) have always reaffirmed that our country and its services are not involved nor implicated in the affair of the so-called false Niger dossier. (...) Firm and unchanged, always and only, has remained instead the truth of the facts as officially represented, and in documented terms. The documents that proclaim the truth exist, are and remain at the acts, constituting an extraordinarily limpid, clear and linear consolidation of all the investigations undertaken since the beginning of this false journalistic scoop through today.

The false news comes from an American television program during which for a few minutes an ex-director of the CIA formulates personal evaluations concerning the relations within the United States between American intelligence and the political authorities of that country. That's all there is. This interview, if ever, as far as Italy is concerned, furnishes further confirmation of what has always been known, that is the acquisition of information up to the year 2000 concerning an Iraqi attempt to procure uranium in Niger was shared in 2001, a normal and due practice in the context of international cooperation.

(...) It is difficult to understand how the evidence continues to be denied despite proven testimony, the results of criminal procedures, results of investigations carried out by foreign police, relations and documents produced also by the Italian Parliament, and the formal conclusions of independent parliamentary investigations in the United States and Great Britain.  It is moreover difficult to understand how the testimony in public documents by [Iraqis] responsible for the Iraqi nuclear programs and the investigations conducted by major foreign newspapers, most recently the Sunday Times on April 9, 2006, are not even taken into consideration or even evoked in the context of a full evaluation of the affair and the positions assumed that have the ambition to appear credible even in the slightest plausible terms.

Published in La Repubblica on April 26th, page 21, and il Giornale on the same date.