[Shermy]

The latest story.

[Shermy]

Ping you too.

[Bommer]

The middleman, an Italian who uses the name Giacomo, is a small-time tipster said to have worked for Italy’s armed forces and intelligence services

The reporter knows his true identity I take it, yet doesn't verify if what he says is true? No wonder the media sucks.

[ex-snook]

Why the fakeroo?

[THX 1138]

This is as bad as the NY Times printing rumours on the front page above the fold.

Scumbag media.

[George W. Bush]

An interesting bit on the Italian connection in the Niger affair.

Unfortunately, I don't think the general public will ever see all the supposed proof for the claims about Saddam and Nigerian uranium.

But then, I don't think Bush or Blair will get tossed out of office over this matter anyway. It's become a footnote to history.

[tobyhill]

Just an attempt to down play or eliminate the findings that Niger and Iraq attempted a "yellow cake" deal.

[doug from upland]

We did not rely on this phony report. Several European intelligence agencies have confirmed the real attempt by Iraq to get yellowcake.

[AFPhys]

Some of these newspapers really are run by losers.

Someone needs to point out to them that Butler's report a week ago confirmed that these "faked documents" were not even in existence when the British made their determination about Libya. They were about as important as the sixth car that runs over a dead frog.
.

[Future Useless Eater]

an anti-coalition newspaper interviews a nearly-anonymous
person (who goes by a single-name alias), and THIS is
proof the coalition lied?

The MSM will love it

[Natural Law]

The complete story Niger can be found between pages 36 and 83 of the REPORT ON THE U.S. INTELLIGENCE COMMUNITY'S PREWAR INTELLIGENCE ASSESSMENTS ON IRAQ.

The fact that forged documents existed does not diminish the credibility of the original story. It was a fairly common practice by the KGB to mask and discredit legitimate issues by releasing forged documents. In some ways this actually bolsters the case.

[WOSG]

As usual they bury the lead:

The British government and MI6 claim, however, they have independent evidence of Iraq’s “Niger connection”.

Irrelevent and unnecessary data found to be even less useful. This is not a story really. BFD.

[norton]

"The middleman, an Italian who uses the name Giacomo, is a small-time tipster said to have worked for Italy’s armed forces and intelligence services."

And one is supposed to assume that several other 'small-time tipsters' confirmed and provided second sources for this same bogus information?

Sorry, been there, the best and most desired intelligence in the world has not a chance unless it can be verified and NOT traced to the same source. Even a similar or sometimes colateral source should leave it suspect.

Note: "suspect" would not deny its being acted on, but it would not be quoted in a speech intended to be heard around the world.