3rd August 2004 : Rocco Martino: ’I am the Source of the False Niger/Iraq Uranium Story’
Posted on 07/25/2005 8:08:58 PM PDT by JRM-2M6
But the forged document existed .. so there was a concerted effort to create it and get it into coalition hands to create a buzz and impact/confuse the world to damage Bush and Blair. There are any number of entities with the motivation to do that, but now we know, pretty much with certainty, that we also have a rogue CIA and State Dept. element who's obviously trashed their oath to protect this country and have been and are engaged in pursuing the downfall of their country's President and administration.
27/08/2004
The International Federation of Journalists today condemned the brutal assassination of Italian journalist Enzo Baldoni, who was taken hostage in Iraq as a desperate attempt by militants to force the Italian government to pull its troops out of the country.
Baldoni, aged 56, was a reporter for the Milan-based weekly Diario and volunteered for the Red Cross while in Iraq, his daughter, Gabriella Baldoni, said on Wednesday. "He was trying to save human lives in Najaf by helping a Red Cross convoy in a spirit of solidarity which has always underscored his thinking and his actions," she told Italian public television.
Baldoni's daughter Gabriella told Italian TV on Wednesday that her father was "trying to save human lives in Najaf by helping a Red Cross convoy, in a spirit of solidarity which has always underscored his thinking and his actions".
Kerry and fat teddy come straight to my mind on who would instigate something like that.
Sorry ... forgot which one died... you're right.
If we had a truly independent Press, this whole story would not be focused on Karl Rove or the Bush Administration, it would be focused on the only person shown to be a liar and discredited by the Senate Intel reports. Joe Wilson is the criminal in this investigation, but he is just a small fish, there is more behind this, but the forged document is not worthy of serious concern, it was far too obvious as a forgery to be used by anyone in our Intel community
And I still smell Soros' mitts and $$.
Elaborate..... Soros might be funding the defense lawyers for the actors, but I doubt he is involved beyond that
You are thinking of Giuliana Sgrena, a Commie, whose driver was killed at a checkpoint.
She has no role in the Wilson scandal.
In Newsweek this afternoon, Mike Isikoff and Mark Hosenball have a piece that touches on the fact that the FBI still hasn't managed to interview Rocco Martino, the guy at the center of the forged Niger uranium documents story (he claims to have forged the documents). They put the question to the FBI and were told by a "U.S. law-enforcement official ... [that] the FBI is seeking to interview Martino, but has not yet received permission to do so from the Italian government."
******
Agent behind fake uranium documents worked for France
By Bruce Johnston in Rome
(Filed: 19/09/2004)
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.
snip
According to Ansa, the Italian news agency, which said privately that it had obtained its information from "judicial and other sources", Mr Martino was questioned by an investigating magistrate, Franco Ionta, for two hours. Ansa said Mr Martino told the magistrate that Italy's military intelligence, Sismi, had no role in the procuring or dissemination of the Niger documents.
He was also said to have claimed that he had obtained the documents from an employee at the Niger embassy in Rome, before passing these to French intelligence, on whose payroll he had been since at least 2000.
snip
Mr Martino was first engaged by the French secret services five years ago, when he was asked to investigate rumours of illicit trafficking in uranium from Niger. He is thought to have then been retained the following year to collect more information. It was then that he is suspected of having assembled a dossier containing both real and bogus documents from Niger, the latter apparently forged by a diplomat.
Profile: Rocco Martino
* Italian Intelligence (SISMI) agent
Rocco Martino actively participated in the following events:
(After February 1999) Complete Iraq timeline
Rocco Martino, an Italian security consultant, provides French officials with documents suggesting that Iraq intends to expand its “trade” with Niger. Martino was formerly a member of Italy's foreign intelligence service (SISMI). The French assume the trade being discussed would be in uranium, Niger's main export. At French intelligence's request, Martino continues supplying them with documents. [Sunday Times, 8/1/04; Financial Times, 8/2/04]
People and organizations involved: Rocco Martino
Early 2000 Complete Iraq timeline
Rocco Martino, an Italian security consultant and information peddler, is approached by a former colleague at SISMI, Italy's foreign intelligence agency, who tips him off to a former SISMI source working at the Nigerien Embassy in Rome who can provide Martino with information in exchange for a monthly retainer fee. Martino pursues the lead, and agrees to pay her 500 euros/month. The source, however, remains on SISMI's payroll providing the agency with a way to distribute information to the public while concealing its role. Most of the documents he will receive from the lady will be related to immigration into Italy and Islamist activities in North and Central Africa. [Talking Points Memo, 8/1/04]
People and organizations involved: SISMI, Rocco Martino
Late 2001 Complete Iraq timeline
A member of SISMI, Italy's foreign intelligence service, provides an agency asset working at the Nigerien embassy in Rome with a set of documents which the asset then slips into a collection of documents she later gives to Rocco Martino, an Italian security consultant and information peddler. [Talking Points Memo, 8/1/04; Sunday Times, 8/1/04; Financial Times, 8/2/04] The documents consist of a series of letters purported to have been exchanged between the Niger government and an Iraqi diplomat. According to these letters, Iraq had attempted to obtain 500 tons of uranium oxide, or “yellowcake,” from Niger. [Corriere della Sera, date unknown, cited in Talking Points Memo, 10/31/03; New Yorker, 10/20/03; Agence France Presse, 7/19/03; Reuters, 7/19/03]
People and organizations involved: Rocco Martino, SISMI
Between late 2001 and September 2002 Complete Iraq timeline
Rocco Martino, an Italian security consultant and information peddler, receives a telephone call from a former colleague at SISMI, Italy's foreign intelligence service, who informs him that his source at the Nigerien embassy is in possession of documents (see Late 2001) that might be of interest to him. “I met her and she gave me documents,” Martino later tells the Sunday Times. “SISMI wanted me to pass on the documents but they didn't want anyone to know they had been involved.” [Sunday Times, 8/1/04; Financial Times, 8/2/04]
People and organizations involved: Rocco Martino, SISMI
Hmmmmmmmmmmmm...................
These three former agents signed a letter “begging” Congress not to play politics with the identities of intelligence agents. The letter fairly reeks of hypocrisy and hyperbole. Not only are the agents profiled below playing partisan politics as much as the Bush Administration is in this matter, it’s apparent from what these individuals have said in the past that their agenda goes far beyond “protecting” little Mrs. Wilson’s good name and in fact, goes to the heart of the bureaucratic war going on between the unelected government employees who worked or are working for the CIA and the White House.
snip
MELVIN GOODMAN
On the surface, Mr. Goodman has an impressive resume. He was a senior analyst in Soviet affairs at the Central Intelligence Agency, where he worked for two decades (1966-1986). He later served as a Soviet analyst at the State Department, and he currently is professor of international studies at the National War College and a senior fellow at the Center for International Policy. He is the author of three books on Soviet and Russian Affairs.
But dig a little deeper and what you find is someone who worked in a section of the CIA - Soviet Affairs – that got it more wrong, more often, with the subsequent effect on policy that was nearly ruinous. When some intelligence reports from that era were declassified in 2001, it was discovered in a 8 year period between 1978 and 1985 the CIA consistently overestimated the nuclear threat the Soviets posed. From 1982 until 1987 CIA estimates regarding Soviet economic strength were also grossly exaggerated. And in the area of Soviet intentions, we were virtually blind thanks to this attitude Mr. Goodman describes in an interview with CNN:
I think, in looking back at the work of the CIA, we’ve seen the exaggeration of the value of clandestine reporting. ... I think the Cold War would have evolved no differently whether we were doing clandestine reporting or not—that there were no overwhelming successes with regard to clandestine reporting. You can’t say that about satellite photography, and you can’t say that about signals intelligence. Satellite photography and signals intelligence really gave us a means of understanding what the Soviets were doing with very scarce resources in the way of military deployment.
Mr. Goodman’s love affair with satellites and signals intel is admirable except for one small detail. Both the Senate Intelligence Report on Pre-War Iraq Intelligence and the 9/11 Commission excoriated the CIA for their lack of human intel. These two intelligence failures – arguably the biggest failures since Pearl Harbor – along with missing the fall of the Soviet Union, would be puzzling except for this statement by Mr. Goodman that reveals a mindset prevelant at the time in the Soviet Affairs section at CIA about being able to glean Soviet capabilities from satellite and signals intel:
Curiously, Goodman also seems to have joined the tin foil hat brigade on 9/11. Appearing at Rep. Cynthia McKinney’s hearing on Friday that featured panelists who posited theories on 9/11 ranging from the Twin Towers coming down as a result of a “controlled demolition” to the Pentagon being blown up deliberately and not partially destroyed by a hijacked aircraft, Goodman was quoted as saying about McKinney that… “I hope someday her views will be considered conventional wisdom.”
LARRY JOHNSON
Claiming to be a “registered Republican who voted for Bush in 2000,” Johnson has emerged as Valerie Wilson’s #1 defender. His bio is also impressive; CIA, State Department, teacher, analyst, and businessman.
But it appears Mr. Johnson is living proof that brains doesn’t always equal judgement. Here’s what he wrote in July, 2001:
Judging from news reports and the portrayal of villains in our popular entertainment, Americans are bedeviled by fantasies about terrorism. They seem to believe that terrorism is the greatest threat to the United States and that it is becoming more widespread and lethal. They are likely to think that the United States is the most popular target of terrorists. And they almost certainly have the impression that extremist Islamic groups cause most terrorism.
None of these beliefs are based in fact.
I hope for a world where facts, not fiction, determine our policy. While terrorism is not vanquished, in a world where thousands of nuclear warheads are still aimed across the continents, terrorism is not the biggest security challenge confronting the United States, and it should not be portrayed that way.
This was written 60 days before 9/11. Is it any wonder that committee after committee and commission after commission have called our intelligence gathering capabilities dysfunctional?
It’s almost as if our policy makers would be better off without these analysts and pontificators. What’s at work here is institutional blindness brought about by the bureaucrat’s preconcieved notions that when challenged, cause a retreat into a shell of platitudes and conventional wisdom. The fact is that if you hold contrary views to those in ascendancy at the CIA you are punished. People like Johnson represent why the United States government has been surprised so many times in so many parts of the world over the last 50 years.
RAY MCGOVERN
To put it bluntly, Ray McGovern is a moonbat.
A 30 year man at CIA, McGovern has gone off the deep end on the Iraq war. Despite not being in the CIA for nearly 15 years, he has taken the hard left talking points on the reasons for going to war with Iraq and run with them.
In an interview with the Atlanta -Journal, McGovern had this to say about the lead up to the war:
A: We’re trying to spread a little truth around. I’ve just been watching very, very closely how intelligence has been abused in the lead up to the Iraq war and, now, after the war. I fear for what this will mean for a very crucial part of our government. If the president can’t turn to the CIA for straight answers, whether he knows it or not, he’s in bad shape. He has nowhere to turn for a straight answer. He can’t expect [Deputy Defense Secretary Paul] Wolfowitz or [Defense Secretary Donald] Rumsfeld to tell him, “Sorry boss, we didn’t think of A or B or C. We thought it would be a cakewalk.” He’s getting slanted advice from the people running the policy toward Iraq.
Sounds like he’s concerned for the President. Guess again:
Q: Do the American people care that they were misled on Iraq? Does Congress? The press?
A: There’s still a lot of torpor, but there are two new elements now. No. 1: The men and women who are being killed every day in Iraq. No. 2: The fact that no one—- not even the press—- likes to be lied to. I’m an American, and I never thought the president would lie so often and so demonstrably.
Which is it? Is the President being ill served or is he lying through his teeth?
Mr. McGovern also has this to say about Iraq and al Qaeda:
The other main thing, of course, was the alleged tie between Iraq and al-Qaida. CIA analysts spent a year and a half poring through each and every report and found none to be persuasive or reliable. Then [Secretary of State] Colin Powell made his speech to the United Nations on Feb. 5, where he produced some cockamamie evidence suggesting that al-Qaida types were roaming around Iraq with Saddam Hussein. In the period leading up to the war, the president would say that we have to go after Iraq because of 9/11. That is the way that the president played on the trauma of 9/11 to persuade the American people that we couldn’t take a chance on Saddam Hussein.
Stephen Hayes has done the best work on this subject and gives the lie to McGovern’s ridiculous assertion there was no Saddam-al Qaeda connection.
McGovern also gave an interview to Alexander Cockburn’s moonbat rag Counterpunch in which he talked about the forged document that outlined the Iraq-Niger yellowcake connection:
In retrospect, the train of thought in the White House at the time is clear: How long can we keep the forged documents from the public? A few months? In that case we can use the documents to get Congress to endorse war with Iraq and then wage it and win it before anyone discovers that the “evidence” was bogus.
The problem for Mr. McGovern is that the Butler Review discovered that the forged memo was not the entire basis for the intelligence estimate regarding Iraq and Niger. In fact, that body found that the President of Niger admitted that representatives from Iraq met with Niger government officials to seek access to yellowcake supplies. And of course, Bush never said that Iraq had purchased yellowcake, only that they “sought” the mineral. This was 100% true as confirmed by both the British and Niger governments.
In recent years, McGovern has worked for a radical left Christain group known as the ecumenical Church of the Saviour. Here’s a recent bio:
More at link.
I, too, am stunned that all this is so under wraps .. by the Washington Times or Weekly Standard...some national voice of truth and reason. Has Rush mentioned this at all, Mike? I wasn't able to listen much last week. It is painfully clear that this has been and is an orchestrated, treasonous conspiracy to damage and destroy this President. It is very very frightening and dangerous. Bad enough to deal with terrorists out there ..dear God, have mercy on us all. I pray Patrick Fitzgerald has begun peeling away the layers.
Fitzpatrick will make it very public when he hands down the indictments
I wish someone in the media would investigate this group further. They really deserve their own thread for compiling info. For example, I discovered a transcript where David Corn says he's known David MacMichael, another VIPS co-conspirator, for years. Could mean nothing, but you never know.
(Martino) I did not know that it was a hoax, and there is proof of what I say. I have been engaged in intelligence (previous word in English in original) for many years, offering my cooperation to various intelligence services including the French, about whom a great deal has been said and about whom we will be talking later on. The hoax began one day when a Nigerian (as published) Embassy source who had proven to be reliable on previous occasions and who had contacts also with the collaborator of a SISMI (Intelligence and Military Security Service) aide, passed on to me a whole lot of information. It is true that that information included some references to a uranium traffic between Niger and Iraq. What did I do at that juncture? I passed it on to the French secret service, with which I am in touch and by which I was remunerated. I passed it on also to Panorama, which assessed it in order to study it, dispatching a reporter to Niger and turning the file over to the US Embassy in Rome for cross-checking.
snip
(Martino) The female journalist told me that the trip to Niger had not produced any real confirmation, and also the French confirmed to me that the reports I had passed on to them were groundless. But at that juncture the beans had been spilled. The file was circulating, the reports contained in it were going around the world, and Bush and Blair were talking about those documents, albeit without actually mentioning them. I turned the television on and I did not believe my ears...
snip
(Martino) I reached a preliminary agreement with the Sunday Times for interview that was never conducted. We talked about this and that, including the SISMI, but only to say that my source on the uranium traffic was the same as the source of an Italian intelligence service aide. As far as I know, the SISMI has nothing to do with it. I never, and I repeat never, said that Forte Braschi (SISMI's Rome headquarters) was involved, and certainly not that the Italian Government was involved.
The truth is that I have been duped, manipulated, used. I would like to figure out why they chose me; I do have some idea, but without any evidence one gets nowhere.
FBI could talk to source of forged Niger papers. I did
By John Marshall
The Hill News
Why haven’t we found out yet who was behind the forged Niger-uranium documents caper?
One big reason is that the FBI — which is supposed to be investigating the case — has really never tried.
Back in March 2003, Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.), vice-chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, asked the FBI to investigate the matter. It was on the basis of that supposed investigation that the committee later decided not to look into anything about the forged documents before they showed up at the U.S. Embassy in Rome in October 2002. (See Page 57 of the committee report.)
But, despite claims to the contrary ........
If you've never strolled through his Open Society Institute, it's definitely worth a visit.
I'm was still on the forged documents that came from an Italian reporter.
3rd August 2004 : Rocco Martino: ’I am the Source of the False Niger/Iraq Uranium Story’
France ... those slimeballs. Not unpredictable at all ..putrid Jacques.
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