Josh Marshall: SISMI Attempted to Bypass CIA w Niger Doc - Hadley Involved

[Stephanie]

The story is up:

I mentioned yesterday that the Italian daily La Repubblica ran a story reporting alleged new details about the origins of the Niger/uranium forgeries. Today they followed up with a second part of their report which could rock the foundations of official Washington.

***

Nicolo Pollari is the head of Italian military intelligence, SISMI. The Repubblica article claims that over the course of 2002 Pollari -- knowing the documents were fakes -- made repeated attempts to get them into the DC information stream by going around the CIA, which discounted them as fakes. This was to satisfy the expressed needs of Bush administration officials who were searching for some information to validate their claims about an Iraqi nuclear program.

Pollari's efforts were apparently in concert with the man who is now the Italian ambassador to the United States. And, perhaps most explosively, Pollari apparently arranged a secret meeting with Stephen Hadley -- then deputy National Security Advisor, and now National Security Advisor -- to discuss the documents.

The alleged date was September 9th, 2002.

The context here is important. The source of endless suspicion about when the documents first surfaced has been the timing and how that related to what was then happening in Washington. They surfaced just after the White House and the CIA had had a roundhouse battle over whether the President could make the Niger accusation in a speech in Cincinnati, Ohio. The CIA eventually prevailed, at least winning that round. The documents surfaced in Italy a couple days later. And the president eventually succeeded in levelling the claim in his subsequent State of the Union address.

<more>

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/

[Quixote1818]

1. Stephen Hadley works for Cheney doesn't he? nt

[Peachhead22]

4. He's National Secirity Advisor

In 2002 he would have been deputy NSA. He worked for Condi and Shrub.

[bpilgrim]

2. * cites UK intel in his 2003 SOTU

has this source ever been disclosed?

or was he simply LYING, again :argh:

peace

[politicaholic]

3. Oh God, we won't have to start calling pizza "freedom pie" now will we?

I don't think that the foreign media can break through and be used in this instance. Regardless of *'s lagging poll numbers, the average American isn't going to allow foreign sources of any kind to influence their opinion.

Legislators will shy away, afraid to connect themselves to something that could be used against them during the next election, i.e., being influenced by foreign governments and media.

Hadley may have to answer some questions, but look how far the Downing Street Minutes went and then qualify the impact of this article.

[ClintonTyree]

21. Unfortunately, you're probably correct.......

a mountain of evidence showing to what degree this administration manufactured intelligence needed by them to prosecute their Iraq oil grab will not suffice to an American public so entrenched in blind nationalism. The notion that America is always the best, the brightest, the most noble of all nations is constantly hammered into their heads by those who need that blind nationalism to cary out their most devious of plans. It's a propaganda tool as old as the first nations themselves.
Our media is part and parcel of that deception and will give no credence to this or any other country's investigative journalism. Their swelled heads won't allow them to believe that anyone, save themselves, are capable of uncovering a story that takes an unflattering look at the seamy underside of American politics. They couldn't be more wrong but it's perception that counts in America and the perception is that foreign media are somehow lacking in the skills, ability and truthfulness to turn out attention beyond our own borders.
I'm quite sure the bush administration knows who forged those documents and possibly had them created by fiat for their diabolical execution of the PNAC agenda. We'll probably never know because our media will not go anywhere near this story either out of fear or allegiance to the bush White House.

[Peace Patriot]

30. Whenever some new crime by the Bush cabal is revealed, someone...

...at DU always manages to chime in, almost instantly, with something like this, "...an American public so entrenched in blind nationalism," that--in this case--it clearly won't care about the "mountain of evidence" of "manufactured intelligence." In other words, whatever the Bushite issue, Americans (meaning, most Americans, I presume), will swallow Bush propaganda like "sheeple."

I strongly disagree with this. I believe there is overwhelming evidence that contradicts it. But let me back up a minute first.

ClintonTyree (above) then goes on to discuss "the media" and what it will do--it will "give no credence to this or any other country's investigative journalism"--then says, "it's perception that counts in America." I agree with this latter statement--it's perception that counts--at least to some degree. I also agree that, based on the record of the war profiteering corporate news monopolies thus far, during the Bush junta, they are likely not only to ignore (or try to ignore) this report from Italy, they will also likely ignore (or try to ignore), spin, demean, trivialize and blackhole any bad news about Bush Jr. and his horrible war. But I don't agree with the first part--that the American public doesn't care and--as a general characterization--is gripped with "blind nationalism."

58% of Americans opposed the Iraq war before the invasion. Feb. 03. That number dipped only once, during the few weeks of the invasion, then went right back up to nearly 60%, where it stayed throughout the election. It's in the 70% range today.

The American people never supported this war. Never! They overwhelmingly wanted the UN inspectors to complete their work, and UN consensus on any military action, not pre-emptive war by Bush (and about 30% of them opposed the war outright).

Look deeper at the issue polls over the last two years, and you will be amazed at what you find. The great majority of Americans not only oppose this war--and always have--they also oppose every major Bush policy, foreign and domestic, way up in the 60% to 70% range. You name it. The Iraq war. Bush torture policy (63% opposed to torture "under any circumstances"--May '04). Social Security. The deficit. Women's rights.

There is, in fact, a great progressive consensus in this country, with the great majority of Americans having almost no representation of their views in Washington DC.

Add to this Bush approval figures, never strong (except for a brief moment after 9/11), and which were so low leading up to the election, Zogby said he couldn't win, and have sunk like the Titanic today (into the mid-30s), and other figures, such as the Democrats' blowout success in new voter registration in 2004, nearly 60/40, and you really begin to wonder about that word "perception."

Why do the individual members of this great progressive majority have the PERCEPTION that they are all alone, that "I must be the only one"? And why does the rightwing minority--a figure that is, at its best, in the 40% range--possess such a Big Trumpet in the corporate news monopolies, to promulgate their views way out of proportion to their numbers?

It's clear to me that the great majority of Americans are not stupid and uninformed, and are not "sheeple"--they are disempowered, and, above all DISENFRANCHISED.

And if you then look at certain facts about our election system--for instance, that, in 2004, 80% of our votes were tabulated by two far rightwing Bushite corporations--Diebold and ES&S--using "TRADE SECRET," PROPRIETARY programming code, or that the corporate news monopolies, late on election day, DOCTORED their own exit polls (which Kerry won) to FIT the results of Diebold's and ES&S's secret formulae (Bush won), well, you have to figure that Americans may in fact be a bit stupid and uninformed on this one--albeit important--matter: Their election system has been seriously compromised, and very likely produced the wrong result for president (if not for other offices as well).

After reading the stats on Americans' views on torture, I have to tell you that I was deeply touched. Americans are maintaining their sense of ethics and lawfulness and fairness, despite relentless fear-mongering. They have been subjected to an incredible regime of propaganda, on this and other issues, and they haven't bought it. 63% is a HUGE majority. In an election, it would be an overwhelming landslide. Why then did we have torture memo writer Alberto Gonzales shoved down our throats as the chief law enforcement officer of the U.S.? How could that happen?

I think it is critically important to make a distinction between what Americans are really thinking and what the corporate news monopolies portray them as thinking or want them to think. And this is the mistake that DUers are making, in describing Americans, or most Americans, as "sheeple"--that the two things are the same: What most Americans really think, and what the corporate news monopolies TELL US we think, by the sort of news and opinion they present.

For this reason, I greatly object to the phrase "mainstream media" (MSM). When we describe the corporate news monopolies as "mainstream," we are giving ground to them on the illusion that they are manufacturing that they represent US, as a people, and our opinions, when they very clearly, and very demonstrably, do not. The irony is that some of the evidence is in their own opinion polls, which they rarely analyze or comment on, or pay any heed to.

I think Americans care, and care deeply, and I think we are a very frustrated and discontented--and maybe even depressed--people, because we are not being heard! We seem to be powerless to prevent mass murder and torture of others, in our name, and massive theft of our own treasury, even though we perceive these outrages, from alternative news sources or from our own intelligence, reading between the lines of the corporate news coverage, and repeatedly express our opposition, whenever we are asked, and in whatever way we can.

So, please, please stop and think before you say Americans do not care, or Americans are brainwashed, or have swallowed the fascist line--or are unthinking "sheeple." Put the problem to yourself entirely differently: ASSUME that Americans DO care, and do NOT agree with Bush and the rightwing, and are broken-hearted about the things that are happening, and feel helpless about it--and try to buck them up and find their way back to empowerment as citizens.


----------------


Re: The reception here of the Italian report. This report is not an opinion, it is reported fact, that has been confirmed by official sources, that points to the attempted subversion of our government by a fascist cabal in the Italian intelligence service. And it appears that high White House officials were colluding with this cabal, and the Bush regime was/is harboring a cabal of its own who likely committed serious crimes related to the ones that are already being investigated. If they didn't just lie about the Niger allegation, but manufactured false evidence of it, this adds to the number and types of laws they may have broken, and to the overall, heinous crime of lying us into war. I don't think this can be sloughed off the corporate news monopolies, but they never cease to amaze me, what they slough off, so we will see. (And, in any case, it's more important what the Grand Jury thinks about it than what the corporate news monopolies think about it.)

[peacetalksforall]

5. Hadley = Rice! Hooray!!!!!

[Broken Acorn]

6. How credible?

There are so many articles published in foreign newspapers with explosive material that most never get traction. I'm hoping for the best, but expecting nothing to come from this.

Whatever happened to the DSM? Anyone even remember what those letters represent?

[Shakespeare]

7. Uh, this is pretty credible. The NSA already confirmed the meeting...

...with Hadley.

[gasperc]

8. didn't Iraq have yellowcake in sealed barrels?

didn't the inspectors seal up the uranium they found in the 90's? isn't that an important reason about the skeptism about buying uranium from Niger since they already had tons of it? the forged docs try to do two things, give the impression that Iraq was trying to do something nuclear related recently and second take advantage of the public's lack of knowledge about weapon's grade uranium. Namely, that it takes tons of yellowcake turned into a gas to search for the "weapons" atoms that can then be accumulated into a handful of weapon's grade uranium. and my understanding is that Iraq already had barrels of this stuff sealed by the inspectors. So, it seems that the administration didn't want o explain that the stuff was left there on purpose because it is essentially harmless. but they did want to alarm the public about the potential of a nuclear Iraq.

[MGKrebs]

9. I thought that too, but...

I guess that since the uranium they already had was known, under surveillence, and sealed, it could be said that they would have been trying to circumvent that quantity.

[Stephanie]

16. YES - here is the old thread on it >

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=63025

[gasperc]

19. holy shit, that was July 2003, right down the memory hole!!

that's the awful truth

[Stephanie]

20. I reposted it last week but can't find it right now

search is down

[RedEarth]

10. He's updated further ..... CBS, Niger forgeries & Pat Roberts...

(October 25, 2005 -- 01:43 PM EDT // link)
With all that appears to be coming out of Italy today about the origins of the Niger forgeries and efforts to get them directly to the White House by bypassing the CIA, don't forget that the White House in concert with Sen. Roberts (R-KS) went to great lengths last year to delay and eventually to prevent CBS from running a story which would have revealed many of these details.

To understand the key significance of the date (Sept. 9th, 2002) of the secret meeting between SISMI Chief Niccolo Pollari and then-Deputy National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley, review this post from October 31st, 2003. This happened in the thick of the White House's efforts to get the Niger claims before the public, despite CIA warnings that the charges were bogus.

Also don't miss Laura Rozen's piece in the Prospect which provides additional details and context about today's revelations.

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/006828.php

[RedEarth]

11. Link to Laura Rozen's article about Niger docs

Italy's intelligence chief met with Deputy National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley just a month before the Niger forgeries first surfaced.
By Laura Rozen
Web Exclusive: 10.25.05

Print Friendly | Email Article

With Patrick Fitzgerald widely expected to announce indictments in the CIA leak investigation, questions are again being raised about the intelligence scandal that led to the appointment of the special counsel: namely, how the Bush White House obtained false Italian intelligence reports claiming that Iraq had tried to buy uranium "yellowcake" from Niger.

The key documents supposedly proving the Iraqi attempt later turned out to be crude forgeries, created on official stationery stolen from the African nation's Rome embassy. Among the most tantalizing aspects of the debate over the Iraq War is the origin of those fake documents -- and the role of the Italian intelligence services in disseminating them.

In an explosive series of articles appearing this week in the Italian newspaper La Repubblica, investigative reporters Carlo Bonini and Giuseppe d'Avanzo report that Nicolo Pollari, chief of Italy's military intelligence service, known as Sismi, brought the Niger yellowcake story directly to the White House after his insistent overtures had been rejected by the Central Intelligence Agency in 2001 and 2002. Sismi had reported to the CIA on October 15, 2001, that Iraq had sought yellowcake in Niger, a report it also plied on British intelligence, creating an echo that the Niger forgeries themselves purported to amplify before they were exposed as a hoax.

Today's exclusive report in La Repubblica reveals that Pollari met secretly in Washington on September 9, 2002, with then–Deputy National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley. Their secret meeting came at a critical moment in the White House campaign to convince Congress and the American public that war in Iraq was necessary to prevent Saddam Hussein from developing nuclear weapons. National Security Council spokesman Frederick Jones confirmed the meeting to the Prospect on Tuesday.

Pollari told the newspaper that since 2001, when he became Sismi's director, the only member of the U.S. administration he has met officially is his former CIA counterpart George Tenet, but the Italian newspaper quotes a high-ranking Italian Sismi source asserting a meeting with Hadley. La Repubblica also quotes a Bush administration official saying, "I can confirm that on September 9, 2002, General Nicolo Pollari met Stephen Hadley."

more.....

http://www.prospect.org/web/page.ww?section=root&name=ViewWeb&articleId=10506

[Nothing Without Hope]

12. It's clear that key people in Administration KNEW those douments

were forgeries before the UN speech with the 16 words. Not only were they told, but the forgeries themselves were so poor that it took much less than a day for the experts to prove they were fake, once they FINALLY were allowed to examine them. This examination was delayed for MONTHS despite the pleading of the IAEA, and the obvioius explanation is that the Administration ALREADY KNEW what they would find and wanted it to stay hidden.

Here's Seymour Hersh on these pathetically crude forgeries:

http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/?030331fa_fact1

WHO LIED TO WHOM?

Why did the Administration endorse a forgery about Iraq’s nuclear program?
by SEYMOUR M. HERSH
Issue of 2003-03-31, Posted 2003-03-24

(Snip)

Then the story fell apart. On March 7th Mohamed ElBaradei, the director-general of th International Atomic Energy Agency, i Vienna, told the U.N. Security Council that th documents involving the Niger-Iraq uraniu sale were fakes. “The I.A.E.A. has concluded with the concurrence of outside experts, that these documents . . . are in fact not authentic, ElBaradei said

One senior I.A.E.A. official went further. He told me, “These documents are so bad that I cannot imagine that they came from a serious intelligence agency. It depresses me, given the low quality of the documents, that it was not stopped. At the level it reached, I would have expected more checking.”

The I.A.E.A. had first sought the documents last fall, shortly after the British government released its dossier. After months of pleading by the I.A.E.A., the United States turned them over to Jacques Baute, who is the director of the agency’s Iraq Nuclear Verification Office.

It took Baute’s team only a few hours to determine that the documents were fake. The agency had been given about a half-dozen letters and other communications between officials in Niger and Iraq, many of them written on letterheads of the Niger government. The problems were glaring. One letter, dated October 10, 2000, was signed with the name of Allele Habibou, a Niger Minister of Foreign Affairs and Coöperation, who had been out of office since 1989. Another letter, allegedly from Tandja Mamadou, the President of Niger, had a signature that had obviously been faked and a text with inaccuracies so egregious, the senior I.A.E.A. official said, that “they could be spotted by someone using Google on the Internet.”

(snip)

[H2O Man]

13. Gosh .....

sounds like the Plame, neocon spy/AIPAC, and document forgeries are three leaves on one clover.

[The_Mule]

17. Any thoughts...

on whether there's a fourth leaf to make a lucky shamrock?

[savemefromdumbya]

26. 4 leaf

4 = WMD arms smuggling. Good job we have an Irishman looking into it?

[lolly]

14. Incompetence is Scary

If the malicious intent behind this whole mess doesn't scare people (lurkers from LGF and Free Rep, listen up!) doesn't the incompetence?

Doesn't it bother any of his cultish followers that the people running this great and glorious war can't even produce a forgery with the correct names on it?

[gkhouston]

15. aw, shit...

I'm starting to get a sinking feeling that Fitzmas may be delayed. Could be that Fitzgerald's going to need time to dig down deep into this morass and he'll go for the extension. Ah, well, it will be worth the final result.

[Stephanie]

18. Supposedly he already has it

There was an Italian investigation into it and Fitz requested the report - UPI had that story yesterday.

[gkhouston]

22. but when did he get it?

Has he had it long enough to do anything with it?

[Stephanie]

23. here's the article - there was a thread in LBN

Fitzgerald confirmed by NATO to have obtained Niger documents

WASHINGTON, Oct. 23 (UPI) -- The CIA leak inquiry that threatens senior White House aides has now widened to include the forgery of documents on African uranium that started the investigation, according to NAT0 intelligence sources.

This suggests the inquiry by special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald into the leaking of the identity of undercover CIA officer Valerie Plame has now widened to embrace part of the broader question about the way the Iraq war was justified by the Bush administration.

The second is that NATO sources have confirmed to United Press International that Fitzgerald's team of investigators has sought and obtained documentation on the forgeries from the Italian government.

Fitzgerald's team has been given the full, and as yet unpublished report of the Italian parliamentary inquiry into the affair, which started when an Italian journalist obtained documents that appeared to show officials of the government of Niger helping to supply the Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein with Yellowcake uranium. This claim, which made its way into President Bush's State of the Union address in January, 2003, was based on falsified documents from Niger and was later withdrawn by the White House.

http://www.upi.com/InternationalIntelligence/view.php?StoryID=20051023-104217-9679r

[Pryderi]

24. Fits in well with the Downing Street Minutes

[savemefromdumbya]

27. do you remember the 'sexing up' of the WMD UK dossier

and do you remember the death of Dr Kelly - the jigsaw puzzle is fitting together

[Pryderi]

28. Yep. Don't forget John Kokal

[Peace Patriot]

32. I not only remember it, I suspect that David Kelly is an important...

...part of this story. Plame was outed July 14, 2003. David Kelly was found dead four days later, on July 18, under highly suspicious circumstances. His office and computers were searched. Four days after that, on July 22, the entire CIA WMD weapons monitoring and non-proliferation group, the Brewster-Jennings front company, was outed, also by Novak, disabling all projects and putting all covert agents/contacts at great risk of getting killed. This is a provocative coincidence of dates--concerning which some of us have a theory (that Treasongate was the coverup of a failed effort of the Bushites to plant WMDs in Iraq, which Kelly found out about, and this--and not Wilson's article--was the real trigger for the foolish and seemingly panicky way the Bushites outed Plame and BJ, calling at least six reporters, etc., and putting many top Bushites at high risk of treason charges.) There is also the connective tissue of Judith Miller, friend and colleague of Kelly's, to whom he wrote his last email, on the day he died, in which he was worried about the "many dark actors playing games." (--an email released by his family, not by Miller). The WMD-planting theory is that Miller was all set up (by Rumsfeld) to "find" the WMDs that the cabal was going to plant there.

A pretty good theory; holds up well. Needs further investigation--a lot of unknowns still.

[Postman]

25. Proof that BushCo. knew it was fake when they presented it...

If this isn't a "high crime" what is? A blowjob?

[bonito]

29. Kick!

[krkaufman]

31. If SISMI thought the documents were authentic, then this story is NOTHING.

I would hope that others would hurdle obstacles in their path, if they feel they have critical information to share. However, if SISMI, itself, believed the documents to be forgeries, then going around the CIA is seriously suspicious.

[Peace Patriot]

33. I believe that the Italian Parliament's report on the matter, that...

...Fitzgerald requested an unredacted copy of, concerned the burglary of the Niger embassy in Rome, to obtain the letterheads for the forgeries.

Also, I think you have to ask, why were they such crude forgeries--almost laughably crude? One, is SISMI that stupid--to push laughably crude forgeries on the CIA and then the Bushites? Two, why did the SISMI fascists meet in Rome with rabid neocons, Michael Ledeen and others, and Iranian arms dealer Ghorbanifar (of Iran-Contra notoriety), early on?

My theory is that they were INTENDED to be crude forgeries, to bait the CIA into a public position of "no nukes in Iraq," and then to make fools of the CIA and discredit them--and also reap enormous political benefit--when the nukes they intended to plant in Iraq were "found" by Judith Miller. Their plot was foiled (somebody stopped them from planting the nukes). Blair warned Bush that David Kelly (the Brits WMD expert, and whistleblower to the BBC) knew about it, and that's what triggered the panicky outing of Plame and her whole WMD project, with involvement of, and great risk to, so many top Bushites (they were in great fear of their deceitful scheme being exposed). This theory presumes that Wilson's article was expected by the Bushites (lots of evidence of this) and that the article publication does not explain the risks they all took (contacting at least six journalist witnesses to treason, for instance) in the way they outed Plame and also their compounding their risk by then, additionally, outing the whole CIA WMD project (Brewster-Jennings).

The Niger forgeries were part one of a long term Bushite plan to "get" the CIA (planting of the crude forgeries, planting of the provably bogus Niger allegation in Bush's speech, sending the CIA on a wild goose chase to Niger to investigate an allegation the Bushites knew to be false), with part two being the "find" of the planted WMDs (probably nukes or nuke components) in Iraq--but part two got thwarted.

As I said above, it's a pretty good theory, but still mostly just a theory--although, every new fact that comes out--like Hadley's meeting with the Italians--seems to confirm some part of it. (It now appears likelier than it did before that the forgery idea may have been hatched in the WH--rather than by some rogue group--with the forgeries commissioned by the neocon cabal, and then you have really got to ask: Why would they commission such crude forgeries? Why not commission GOOD forgeries? Is it just neocon incompetence again, or something more devious? It makes sense that it was bait to the CIA to debunk the forgeries--maybe partly to draw them out to see "who's for us?" and "who's against us?"--and then to get the CIA really pissed when the damned stupid forgeries showed up again in Bush's speech--a provocation, a dare.)

[Binka]

35. Fabulous Analysis PP Don't Forget Nicola Calipari

He is a major part of the puzzle that I had/ have trouble fitting in. I believe for a FACT that Calipari was assassinated. He was shot in the back of the head for Christ sake. He had connections to Italian journalist Guiliana Segrena and she had a deep and tight relationship with the Iraqi people.

Negropontes death squad took him out....WHY? Interesting chap Nicola he was a federal prosecutor with a brilliant record against the Mafia before taking a high spot in Italian Intel. His wife works for fucking Berlu! His brother is a high ranking priest in the Vatican. His brother is also a physician with a specialty in chemical and man made biological disease. There is much we do not know about Caliparis death. But I think it is connected at the root to Berlu/Bush/Blair.......and this illegal and immoral ME escapade of death.

[sandnsea]

34. The CIA didn't lie, Bush did

This proves the CIA had nothing to do with this intelligence, that Steven Hadley brought it "into the loop" through other means. That's one. Two, they said this wasn't what caused them to make their nuclear claims. Lie. The forgery was said to not be very good so they should have known better than to use it. When did they have the CIA authenticate it? How can they claim they didn't know it was being authenticated when THEY are the ones who brought it into the White House? All kinds of questions are brought up now that the forgery has been connected to Hadley.