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Tuesday, October 25, 2005

The rumors appear to have been true. Well, there were a lot rumors, but the ones way back that said that documents concerning Iraqi uranium purchases from Niger may have been forged by France -- those may have been true. (via LGF comments and American Thinker)

Telegraph: Agent behind fake uranium documents worked for France

The Italian businessman at the centre of a furious row between France and Italy over whose intelligence service was to blame for bogus documents suggesting Saddam Hussein was seeking to buy material for nuclear bombs has admitted that he was in the pay of France.

The man, identified by an Italian news agency as Rocco Martino, was the subject of a Telegraph article earlier this month in which he was referred to by his intelligence codename, "Giacomo".

His admission to investigating magistrates in Rome on Friday apparently confirms suggestions that - by commissioning "Giacomo" to procure and circulate documents - France was responsible for some of the information later used by Britain and the United States to promote the case for war with Iraq.

Italian diplomats have claimed that, by disseminating bogus documents stating that Iraq was trying to buy low-grade "yellowcake" uranium from Niger, France was trying to "set up" Britain and America in the hope that when the mistake was revealed it would undermine the case for war, which it wanted to prevent...

This is going to keep things nicely complicated (other than what everyone should simply think of the French) -- as Saddam had approached Niger in 1999 and Joe Wilson reported as much, though he didn't tell the truth about that later. These documents apparently confirmed that a deal actually went through, at least according to Stephen Hayes' comprehensive Weekly Standard (and must-read) article (assuming they're the same papers):

...THEN THE STORY TOOK A BIZARRE TURN. That same day, October 9, an Italian journalist walked into the U.S. embassy in Rome and delivered a set of documents purportedly showing that Iraq had indeed purchased uranium from Niger. The embassy provided the documents to the State Department and the CIA. At State, an INR analyst almost instantly suspected the documents might be forgeries. Although several different CIA divisions received copies of the documents, the agency provided no immediate evaluation of them and did not identify them as likely fabrications.

Two events in the fall of 2002 seemed to enhance the credibility of the initial reporting on an Iraq-Niger deal. First, a French diplomat told the State Department that his government had received additional, credible reporting on the transaction and had concluded that the earlier reports were true. A second report, this one from the U.S. Navy, suggested that uranium being transferred from Niger to Iraq had been discovered in a warehouse in Cotonou, Benin. Although that report indicated that the broker for the deal was willing to talk about it, he was never contacted by the CIA or military intelligence...


4 Comments

Sounds like what they say about OJ Simpson and the L.A. police department: They framed a guilty man.

Who said that Joanne? Johnny Cochran?

If the French and/or Berlusconi really were trying to set the UK and the US up, why aren't we hearing more about this? Some in the MSM (Daniel Schorr at NPR comes to mind) are selectively using bits and pieces of this story to make Bush look bad. Or to say, see I told you so, there was no justification for this war.

No one, as far as I know, is telling the whole story. It really infuriates me that I have to dig so deep to find out details, when I thought that was the press's role.

The focus is on Libby because he lied about telling the truth?!

Wilson seems to be up to his ears in this. Or was he duped also?

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