More strange Italian links found to pre-war intelligence

[ck4829]

The "uranium from Africa" claim became highly controversial after President George W Bush quoted it in his January 2003 State of the Union speech, shortly before the start of the Iraq War. Weeks later, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) announced that documents it had received, "which formed the basis for the reports of recent transactions", were actually crude forgeries.

The controversy deepened in July 2003 when the former US diplomat Joseph Wilson let it be known that he had visited Niger and discounted the possibility that Iraq had sought uranium. In retaliation, the Bush administration leaked the fact that Wilson's wife, Valerie Plame, was a covert CIA agent. Following a criminal investigation, Scooter Libby, chief of staff to Vice-President Dick Cheney, was given a prison sentence for perjury and obstruction of justice, which Bush commuted.

The US withdrew the uranium claim after Wilson's revelation, but Tony Blair insisted that Britain had separate intelligence. Lord Butler's review of pre-war intelligence described the dossier's uranium claim as "well-founded", based on intelligence it had seen. In fact, the New Statesman can now report that the intelligence was from Italy - the source also for the US intelligence that led to Wilson's Africa trip.

...

A source in the US has confirmed that the intelligence that led the CIA to send Wilson to Africa in February 2002 was also from Italy."

http://www.newstatesman.com/200801310011

Someone, or something, in Italy was supplying countries with forged documents and now we know that they were also being supplying them with fake intelligence as well about Iraq's capabilities.

What's really going on here?

[lapfog_1]

1. My favorite theory

which also explains why they went to such efforts to discredit Wilson...

The OSP was behind the whole thing, including the breakin at the Niger embassy in Rome... where all that was stolen was some letterhead.

Cheney did not want that investigated, and tried desperately to make the Wilson's the issue and NOT the case of the forged documents.

I believe that the OSP hired some rather incompetent ideologues to do a few black bag jobs, very much like Nixon did with Watergate. And before them, the Gulf of Tonkin incident.

[unpossibles]

2. read "Hubris" - I am reading it now, and it goes into great detail about this

it's crazy - I already knew a lot about this story, or thought I did, until I read this, and it still pisses me off. It also pisses me off when I hear people defend the Bush/Cheney "mistakes" and deny what happened. Why hasn't the press gone into this more? Oh that's right - they're paid not to.

http://www.amazon.com/Hubris-Inside-Story-Scandal-Selling/dp/0307346811

[Palladin]

3. Ledeen.

Ledeen was the link between Italian intelligence and the AEI/OSP/Cheney cabal back in Washington. He had the means, the motive, and the opportunity, and he was in and out of Italy during the runup to the Niger Forgery. He had longstanding contacts stemming back to Iran/Contra with Italian intelligence, Iranian intelligence, and Mossad, who were also involved, if peripherally.

Lots of Democratic leaders are perfectly aware of this. And they're not doing or saying anything. Why would that be?

[formercia]

6. Ledeen and Italy

His connections go way back to Operation Gladio. If you watch the BBC documentary on Gladio, Ledeen is one of the commentators.

His connections with the Italian Black Aristocracy ( Il Neri), SMOM, the CIA and the P2 Lodge gang are all connected with the present mess.

[ThomWV]

4. Can you spell Berlusconi?

[ladjf]

5. The Bush administration is a cauldron of seething criminality.