Posted on 10/28/2005 9:40:00 AM PDT by Ernest_at_the_Beach
ROME — Secret meetings. Spies. Forged documents. Government denials. Burglary.
As Washington braces for the possible indictment of some of its most powerful officials, Italy is reliving its own small but significant role in "Niger-Gate," the scandal that surfaced as the Bush administration made its case for war in Iraq.
If all roads lead to Rome, so do the rumors: Washington's problem with the leak of a CIA officer's identity has tentacles here.
Former U.S. diplomat Joseph C. Wilson IV, whose wife was the covert CIA operative whose identity might have been leaked by White House officials, was dispatched in February 2002 to investigate a claim that Iraq was attempting to buy uranium from Niger after documents asserting exactly that surfaced in Rome.
The documents were determined to be forgeries, and Wilson said he found little evidence to back the claim.
Yet the claim was used in late 2002 by British Prime Minister Tony Blair and in early 2003 by President Bush to illustrate the threat posed by the Iraq of Saddam Hussein.
Who forged the documents, which included letters and purported contracts, remains one of the great unsolved mysteries of the affair.
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
"Yet the claim was used in late 2002 by British Prime Minister Tony Blair and in early 2003 by President Bush to illustrate the threat posed by the Iraq of Saddam Hussein."
Heavy disinformation environment.
Brits said they did not rely on the Niger docs. They had other information. Don't know how good it is, but it was not the Niger docs.
Dates; how about dates. The article implies that Wilson went to Niger because of the documents. Wilson went to Niger months before the documents surfaced.
French intel commissioned the documents, and the Niger embassy provided them. Since both French Intel and the Niger embassy would know who was in office when, the fact that they were produced with the signatures of people out of office a decade indicates they were intended to be obvious forgeries, and they were intended to be discovered.
How hard, if you are forging documents, would it be to fake the signature of someone currently in office? As opposed to someone out of office 10 years?
It was a setup. Wilson claimed he had seen the documents before he went to Niger, but they weren't handed over until months later. Someone pointed out the discrepancy, and he backtracked, but you wouldn't know it from reading this article. If he had seen them, he was in on the setup from the beginning. I'm sure that isn't the impression he wants to give.
They wanted to forge the documents and entice the US so later they could say that the US went into Iraq on trumped up charges.
What deepens the possibility is that Joe Wilson's 2nd wife was apparently French and worked in the Embassy. Because of this Joe had lots of French connections.
Therefore, Wilson did not lie when he said he saw the documents.
Per a thread by Fedora:
French intelligence soon began a campaign to discredit the US case for war against Iraq. In 1999, French intelligence had begun investigating the security of uranium supplies in Niger, where uranium production was controlled by a consortium led by the French mining company COGEMA, a division of the French state-owned nuclear energy firm AREVA. At that time, Italian businessman Rocco Martino provided French intelligence with genuine documents revealing that Iraq was planning to expand trade with Niger. French intelligence took an interest in the documents and asked Martino to provide more information. In 2000 he used a contact in the Niger embassy in Rome to provide French intelligence with documents purporting that Iraq had purchased uranium from Niger. These documents were later exposed as forgeries;
< snip >
Since it is now also known that French intelligence was trying to push Martino’s forgeries on US and British intelligence, as simultaneously the Democratic National Committee was planning to discredit President Bush’s Iraq policy by accusing his administration of manufacturing evidence against Hussein’s regime, heightened suspicion is cast on Wilson’s use of the Niger investigation to discredit the Bush administration’s case for war.
What Wilson Didn’t Say About Africa
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.
Hersch also claims in the above linked article:
Another explanation was provided by a former senior C.I.A. officer. He had begun talking to me about the Niger papers in March, when I first wrote about the forgery, and said, “Somebody deliberately let something false get in there.” He became more forthcoming in subsequent months, eventually saying that a small group of disgruntled retired C.I.A. clandestine operators had banded together in the late summer of last year and drafted the fraudulent documents themselves.A more reliable source, Joe diGenova claims it was a possible CIA coup as well. As does James Lewis in two articles, here and here
Two other names just crept into this...Niger Ambassador Adamou Chekou, who was in charge at the Embassy when the break-in and forgeries occurred and Wissam al-Zahawiah, Iraqi Ambassador to the Holy See. Seems Italian Intelligence was eavesdropping on these two and discovered their "hotline".
Did you read that carefully. Holy See? As in Vatican? Where Vincent Cannistraro is the security advisor?
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. She is now an advisor to Bongo, her picture from a 2005 conference can be found here That makes it very clear that there are connections to oil-for-food. No wonder Wilson can afford his lifestyle.
I am following up on the Libya angle that was brought up in another article, but I sincerely doubt it has much merit as I suspect that is also a bone thrown to the media to cover this all up. Cannistraro also blamed Libya for the Lockerbie bombing and has aggressively fought to keep the truth hidden on that matter, so this is SOP for him.
Do you happen to know how long Wilson was married to the somewhat secretive wife #2, Jaqueline?
1986 to 1998 = 12 years.
You and a few others on this site are doing this nation a great favor by putting two and two together on this!
If only we had a decent media to tell a little truth. And, I am pretty damn disappointed in the conservative media in not exposing the truth of the Wilson matter.
But thanks again to you good people here at FR for putting it all together. Keep digging, please.
****
The old established/liberal/socialist media is America's most ruthless, relentless, and destructive enemy.
***
Got to ask, are some fingers being pointed to Rome not by location but because of who and what is located there???
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.