Italian Officials Questioned on Iraq Claim
ROME - Italian lawmakers questioned Premier Silvio Berlusconi's top aide and an intelligence chief Thursday about allegations that Italy knowingly gave the United States and Britain forged documents suggesting Saddam Hussein was seeking uranium in Africa.
Cabinet Undersecretary Gianni Letta and Nicolo Pollari, the director of Italy's SISMI intelligence agency, were questioned by members of a parliamentary commission overseeing secret services.
The hearing in Rome was not open to the public, but commission members were expected to talk to reporters later.
Pollari requested the hearing after the daily newspaper La Repubblica said last week that Italy gave the United States and Britain documents it knew were forged detailing a purported Iraqi deal to buy 500 tons of uranium concentrate from Niger. The uranium ore, known as yellowcake, can be used to produce nuclear weapons.
The United States and Britain used the claim to bolster the case for war. The intelligence supporting the claim later was deemed unreliable.
La Repubblica, a strong Berlusconi opponent, has alleged that after the Sept. 11 attacks Pollari was being pressured by Berlusconi — a strong U.S. ally — to make a strong contribution to the hunt for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.
Berlusconi's government has denied any wrongdoing, and the premier has personally defended Pollari in the face of calls for his resignation.
Berlusconi, in an interview with the conservative daily newspaper Libero published Thursday, said Italy had not passed any documents on the Niger affair to the United States. He added that La Repubblica's allegations were dangerous for Italy because "if they were believed, we would be considered the instigator" of the Iraq war.
The Niger claim also is at the center of a CIA leak scandal that has shaken the Bush administration, leading to last week's indictment of Vice President Dick Cheney's former chief of staff, I. Lewis Libby.
Libby was charged with lying to investigators about leaking the identity of covert CIA operative Valerie Plame, the wife of Bush administration critic Joseph Wilson.
Wilson accused the administration of covering up his inquiry into whether Iraq was trying to obtain uranium from Niger after he found the claim had no substance.
UPdate
Italy Warned U.S. About Uranium Documents
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20051103/ap_on_re_eu/italy_iraq_uranium;_ylt=AvxoxIMrufK9.moItHqyeWVvaA8F;_ylu=X3oDMTA5aHJvMDdwBHNlYwN5bmNhdA--
By ARIEL DAVID, Associated Press Writer
2 minutes ago
ROME - Italian secret services warned the United States months before it invaded Iraq that a dossier about a purported Saddam Hussein effort to buy uranium in Africa was fake, a lawmaker said Thursday after a briefing by the nation's intelligence chief.
"At about the same time as the State of the Union address, they (Italy's SISMI secret services) said that the dossier doesn't correspond to the truth," Sen. Massimo Brutti told journalists after the parliamentary commission was briefed.
Brutti said the warning was given in January 2003, but he did not know whether it was made before or after President Bush's speech.
The United States and Britain used the claim that Saddam was seeking to buy uranium in Niger to bolster their case for the war. The intelligence supporting the claim later was deemed unreliable.