NIGERGATE: WHY THE FRENCH ARE STILL LAUGHING AT THE U.S.A. (Part II)

The inside story of how President George Bush’s administration is facing a dire crisis thanks to a set-up orchestrated by French spies, US journalists and a man with a white moustache.

The first part of this posting I introduced the Laurel and Hardy of Italian investigitive reporting, our friends Chip and Chop. I invited readers to study what I wrote last year and to read what the diabolical duo published earlier this week in Italy’s second most important newspaper, La Repubblica. In addition to this some readers might have taken a look at Laura Rozen’s site or the rantings of Talking Points Memo. Anyone who has done this cannot ignore the transatlantic link across the water and all the way to Italy.

Nigergate or Repubblicagate? A legitimate question and one well understood by all who have read the investigative report published by La Repubblica. To better understand what’s happening in Italy I have had parts of an article published today by another Italian newspaper, Il Foglio, translated into English. So what does the serious press have to say about Chip and Chop, the chipmunks, antics. Here we go.

Rome. The secret meeting, allegedly held behind the CIA’s back, between General Nicolò Pollari (Sismi) and Stephen Hadley (National Security Council) was organised by the CIA who, amongst others, were present. The meeting, which according to the Italian newspaper La Repubblica, is the key evidence of Italy’s own Nigergate, was in reality far from secret. It wasn’t even with Hadley but with Condoleeza Rice and was held in the presence of numerous witnesses. The proof of Italian involvement in what La Repubblica defines as “Cheney’s paralell and clandestine intelligence agency’s” attempt to overide the doubts that the CIA had on the proof of Saddam Husseins arms of mass destruction vanish in the fog of militant Italian journalism.

So basically all that was needed was for Il Foglio to place a few calls, ask a few questions and come to the correct, and only, conclusion: there was no secret meeting. The 15 minute meeting correctly followed the strict protocol that governs such encounters. And this is only the first of the lies that we are about to uncover.

Il Foglio proceeds to explain how the meeting, held on September 19 202, was simply part of an agenda prepared by the CIA for the visiting head of the Italian Military Intelligence (SISMI). The international cabal’s contorted version of the truth takes yet another blow when Il Foglio proceeds to state that “the only dialogue was between Condoleeza Rice and the Director of SISMI, Nicolò Pollari, everybody else remained silent”. So much for secret deals! Il Foglio, without any need for doubt given that protocol was observed and minutes recorded, then explains that during the meeting “the subjects discussed did not regard Iraq or Niger”. How was the newspaper able to state this? Quite simple, they caled the White House and spoke to Fredrick Jones, Hadley’s spokesperson, who explained all and added that the article published by the Los Angeles Times, and copied by La Repubblica, was “a dishonest and incorrect way to do journalism”.

In regards to the overall show of blatant disregard for the principals of journalism and what mother used to tell us, that little boys who tell lies get eaten by the boggyman, or something to that effect, Chip and Chop suffer a severe blow by Il Foglio’s next comment. The paper offers the following suggestion.

“To know, point by point, the truth behind the false reconstruction of Nigergate as supplied by La Repubblica, and in part shown by us, the official declerations are not the only source, two independent bi-partisan reports, one published in Great Britain the other in the United States, exist that pulverise the very supporting collumns of the Repubblica investigation. Not only do the facts fail to correspond but the dates and circumstances are all wrong. In addition to these two public reports, the first by the Senate in Washington and the second the British Lord Butler report, both easily found on the Internet, two additional enquiries exclude any involvement of the Italian Government or Military Intelligence Services, these are the Italian Prosecutors enquiry and the F.B.I. enquiry. The F.B.I. enquiry excludes any involvement on the part of the Italian Government or Military Intelligence Services in the fabbrication of the dossier (which amongst other things goes back to the year 2000 when Giuliano Amato was the Prime Minister), the dissemination of the dossier and the political use of the dossier ”

So, Voilà, Voilà, Voilà. The F.B.I., hardly noted for their offering the benefit of the doubt far less declerations of complete innocence, are happy to state that the Italians are off the hook. The Italians are off the hook, how strange then that Italy’s second largest daily paper should sustain the opposite. How strange indeed. In reality there is nothing strange here at all, it’s all very simple. But that’s another story and, as I stated in part 1, albeit the eve of the electoral campaign, Italian internal politics don’t interest us, at least not for the moment.

Before progressing any further one point should perhaphs be raised. The F.B.I. is still looking into the Nigergate affair and by all accounts is determined to find out where the documents originally came from. According to an official source who spoke to the New York Times the “matter was being investigated as a counterintelligence case, not a criminal one”. Can we thus hope that the F.B.I. has been putting together a team of agents who speak French and if not why not and when are they going to.

One piece of advice to Director Robert Mueller: don’t fly with Air France. In case Mueller’s boys in Washington down at the headquarters on Pennsylvania Avenue dont’ know or have forgotten: the French bug the seats on the Air France jets. Not so long ago D.G.S.E. was caught listening in to the private conversations of foreign businessmen while, in all innocence (you don’t expect French spies to be listening in on you at 33,000 feet), they discussed the details of business deals and corporate takeovers. After the last scandal the spies at the D.G.S.E. promised to behave themselves and refrain from such practices. In the light of the Nigergate affair does anyone have any reason to doubt their word?

Back to Rome. After the first installment of the diabolical duo’s rantings a lot of people start to get upset. After the second installment the public starts to smell a rat and by the time the third part of the series is published the Italian Government is forced, once again, to issue a statement. The institutions start to move and the official statements start to flow. On the streets the Italian public want to know why Chip and Chop have not been certified by a qualified psychiatrist and locked into padded cells. The bad news for the employees of La Repubblica is that some of their advertisers are asking the same questions only they want to know why the qualified psychiatrist didn’t have the editor and publisher locked up as well. Il Foglio puts it like this.

“The contents of the articles begin to be refuted from all sides, Italian, American, British, political, institutional, jiudicial, investigative to the point that it’s a fatigue trying to understand where to begin. Despite all this La Repubblica continuesto ignore the facts. The Repubblica’s theory is this: an ex Italian Intelligence agent with the assistance of a SISMI officer created a false dossier on Iraqi’s purchase of Uranium from Niger. The fraudster then sold the papers to Paris but the French Intelligence services, realising it was a fraud, threw it in the bin. ”

The article proceeds to introduce one of the most significant facts in the entire Nigergate affair.

“The French did not bin the dossier at all. They used it, officially and otherwise, on more than one occassion to confirm to the Americans that the Iraq-Niger deal was real. This fact is of fundamental importance because it proves that the French never put the documents in the garbage bin. Thus the entire thesis of La Repubblica collapses. Proof of this can be found in the U.S. Senate report which specifies that during meeting on 22 November 2002 the State Department learned from French Foreign Ministry officials that Paris had information regarding Iraq’s attempts to purchase Uranium in Niger. Although the French did not know if the Uranium had been delivered they believed the attempt to be true”

So the French believed that Saddam Hussein was attempting to buy uranium from Niger, only later, as Il Foglio points out, did Paris admit to basing it’s intelligence on the false Niger documents.

“On February 3 2004 the Americans ask a foreign intelligence service, the French, if the documents in their possession came from a third party, or more specifically did the French get the documents from the Italians. The French reply is a curt no, the documents are of ‘national origin’ ”.

Only on the fourth of March 2003 does America finally learn that the French based their beliefs and accusations on the false documents. On the fourth of March 2003 it was far too late to stop the American led invasion of Iraq.

Nigergate will be remembered for a number of reasons, it would be offensive to state the most obvious. To the casual observer it’s all simply down to spies and lies and, if the truth be told, nobody liked Saddam Hussein very much anyway. It’s all simply a case of highlevel officials slipping on banana skins and, well, all considered, they should have known better. Nigergate to the casual observor is just a chain of events that, once set into motion, just seemed to have the knack of causing a whole lot of trouble. Almost as bad as hurricane Katerina some might venture to say. ‘Well’, the casual observer might say, ‘tommorows another day’. That line worked well in Gone with the Wind but Nigergate is reality not Hollywood. So what is Nigergate?

Nigergate is about treason, yes treason. Nigergate is about vendetta, sorry but that’s what it comes down to. Nigergate is about spies with no ethics, spies who are happy to set-up an allied nation. But that’s not all. Above all Nigergate is about dishonest journalism and the capacity for moral cancer to spread from one pathetic psuedo intellectual to another. Yes, pathetic psuedo intellectuals spreading moral cancer amongst themselves. A delightful category, morally bankrupt, prepared to dance to the tune of a master who had no qualms in encouraging a nation to go to war. France saw where America was headed, France opposed the invasion, France tried to render the Bush administration ridiculous by plying false documents. When the French came clean it was too late to stop the war. Was the plan perhaps to let things go to a certain point and then say ‘hey guys guess what, you’ve been dupped’. Was this the strategy to stop the invasion of Iraq. All of the available evidence, repeat evidence, point to exactly this. So why did France let it go so far down the line before admiting their guilt? This is a question that Democracy Now, War and Piece, Talking Points Memo, La Repubblica etc., etc., etc. should be asking. Nobody has as yet, save the author of this piece, pointed a finger at the French. Why is this, how can it be explained, indeed will it ever be explained.

Selling your country through false testimony is treason, all of a sudden Chip and Chop the diabolical duo don’t seem so funny anymore. Perhaps Laura Rozen should reflect on this the next time she refers to the Burke and Hare, not the Laurel and Hardy, of Italian investigative journalism as “my colleagues at La Repubblica”. Well done Laura, or “brava” as her colleagues, the Italian Burke and Hare, would say. Why don’t you ask them why they wrote their ‘piece’. I’d like to read the reply on the War and Piece website but I doubt that Laura could ever publish it. Laura, I know why they published false accusations, I know why their editor allowed them and I know what the intention was. Do you? I would ask were I in a position as embarrasing as yours. Amy, you wasted no time in getting Laura onto Democracy Now, did you ask her what was behind the Chip and Chop report? I’ll bet you didn’t, had you done so you might have changed idea. Chip and Chop, Burke and Hare or however want to call the diabolical duo commited treason. They will not be punished, and neither will any of the other members of the international cabal. What will probably happen come Christmas time is that DHL will deliver them all a bix box of Beaujolais Nuovo. After all come December the French are going to be sick of it and will resort to more serious wine. So let French cast off’s be your reward, after all your role was a simple one: the dance of treason to a foreign tune.

Is there any more that needs to be said? Yes, I was forgetting the man with a white moustache: Rocco Martino. As regards Rocco all I’m going to say is that he is as much a victim as everybody else. But that’s another story.

are paid to lie, spies are paid to push disinformation and muddy the waters. Spies, it would seem, will be spies. France has acted in the most vulgar and dishonest fashion .

From my files:

My theory (#42)is that this was a collaborative effort by the French and CIA coordinated by Wilson and his second wife, the French "Diplomat". Wilson did not lie when he said he saw the documents.

Also, Rocco only "procured" the documents, he did not forge them. Fitzgerald went to Italy to investigate the Niger Embassy (in Rome) burglary...where the letterhead and seals for the forgeries were stolen. Ex-CIA agent (and coincidentally, an advisor to the Vatican in Rome),Vincent Cannistraro has stated that Alan Wolf and Duane Clarridge were the actual forgers, but his account is the only one available that I can find on the subject. He has also pointed the finger at Michael Ledeen, but Ledeen has publicly made a statement that he had nothing to do with it and demanded an apology from Cannistraro.

In addition, despite what the MSM is reporting, the Italians released a press report yesterday saying they had nothing to do with the forgeries:

Italy denies role in fake documents on Iraq

This was also backed up by Rocco here

Cannistraro's "theory" falls apart when you consider that he:

1) blamed SISME (the Italians), which has proven to be wrong

2) bases his assumptions on a Dec 2001 Ledeen meeting, when Cannistraro himself was in Rome in Nov 2001, which would make him just as suspect.

I also discovered that Cannistraro worked directly with Clarridge during Iran Contra, so he has alot of nerve bringing that up in connection to Ledeen. Another interesting tidbit (#47) that I discovered is that Wolf and Clarridge worked with Aldrich Ames, who outed Plame to the Russians in the 90's. Coincidence? I think not. Cannistraro trying to kill two birds with one stone to cover his own carcass seems to be the more likely answer. Equally suspicious is the Hersch article, where Cannistraro and another unnamed agent state the exact route the documents took and Cannistraro actually admits that he called the CIA about the documents before they were proven to be false. This begs the question...just how did Cannistraro know about the documents before they were vetted? Sounds a whole lot like Wilson's slip-up about seeing the documents.

Also take into consideration:

Wilson (as Ambassador to Gabon) had/has connections to the Gabon Chief of State, Omar Bongo, who was the chief African ally of the French oil company TotalFinaElf, a major beneficiary of the Oil-for-Food bribes. Prior to the Iraq War, they had a contract with Saddam's regime worth an estimated 12.5 to 27.0 billion barrels of oil reserves. Also he had connections via the Middle East Institute and Rock Creek, both of which are Saudi controlled.

Wilson's wife Jacqueline was also apparently a lobbyist for Bongo and it seems Wilson was pretty chummy with Saddam's weapons buyer, having dinner with him on the eve that Kuwait was invaded in 1990. That makes it very clear that there are connections to oil-for-food. No wonder Wilson can afford his lifestyle.

Source: Posts 21 and 22

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