The Niger connection - the same shady Italian intelligence broker

[TacticalPeek]

The Niger connection

Britain insists it did not rely on forgeries for its case against Iraq. But its own 'evidence' came from the same shady Italian intelligence broker.

Andrew Buncombe, John Phillips and Raymond Whitaker report

Published: 06 November 2005
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/politics/article325155.ece


A political scandal in Italy, involving allegations that Italian secret agents followed a shady intelligence operator around London as he headed for a meeting with MI6, has called into question one of Britain's last justifications for the invasion of Iraq.

Silvio Berlusconi's government has admitted that agents of Sismi, the Italian military intelligence service, tracked the movements in London of Rocco Martino, an ex-informer, in the autumn of 2001. It did not say whether the British authorities were informed, but admitted that Mr Martino was also followed by Sismi in the US, without the knowledge of the FBI.

According to Italian press reports, however, Mr Martino had a meeting with the Secret Intelligence Service in London. A year later, the 66-year-old, who made a living peddling information to intelligence services and journalists, was the source of forged documents purporting to show that Saddam Hussein was buying uranium for nuclear weapons from the west African state of Niger.

The documents were used by the US to make its case for war. President George Bush cited the uranium claim in his State of the Union address in January 2003. But as soon as the US passed the documents to the UN's nuclear watchdog, the IAEA, it denounced them as obvious fakes. The ensuing controversy in America has now resulted in charges against a top former White House official, Lewis "Scooter" Libby, and a continuing investigation into Karl Rove, Mr Bush's closest aide.

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Another mark in the "FBI - clueless imbeciles" column.

[alfredo]

1. Under bush, the FBI has become much more powerful and corrupt.

The FBI has played ball with the bush junta, whereas the CIA has dared to question the junta.

they didn't find the perp because they didn't want to. It's amazing how easy it was to find the man behind the forged papers after the FBI closed the case.

Remember it was the FBI investigating the Anthrax killer. Remember also the investigation disappeared when it was obvious the anthrax came from Ft Detrick.

I firmly believe they were willing to kill Democratic Senators to regain control of the Senate.

the FBI has gained power by doing the bidding of the junta.

[daleo]

2. A few choice paragraphs, ties things up.

Blair's lies:
But while the US has admitted the uranium claim should never have been made, Tony Blair's government, which first made the allegation public in its September 2002 dossier on Iraq's alleged weapons of mass destruction, still insists it was supported by "separate intelligence"...
"There seems to be a common source ... it seems that the British intelligence came from the same false and discredited source."

Berlusconi's lies:
"Sismi says it was next involved in 2002, when Mr Martino began offering the fake Niger documents to anyone willing to buy them. His first client is reported to have been the French intelligence service, but in October 2002 they were given to the American embassy in Rome by Panorama, a Berlusconi-owned magazine he had approached."

Bush/Cheney/neo-con lies:
General Pollari's critics in Italy claim he worked closely with American neo-conservatives to spread the Niger uranium claims to the highest levels of the US administration, bypassing the CIA. He is said to have had a meeting in Rome in December 2001 with a group of neo-cons led by Michael Ledeen, an influential hawk close to Israel and involved in the Iran-Contra scandal in the 1980s.

[thebigidea]

3. could you imagine if during one of those warmongering speeches...

... Bush said, "according to intelligence provided to us by Rocco Martino..."

who the fuck is gonna go to war based on what some guy named Rocco Martino says?