Posted on 02/22/2006 1:37:52 PM PST by DrC
An Italian man from the margins of the global spy game has emerged as a central figure in the FBI's probe into the faked documents behind the Niger 'yellowcake' scandal. Was Rocco Martino trying to aid the case for the Iraq war?
(Excerpt) Read more at users2.wsj.com ...
ping
FR has a long series of thread the breach this topic in its archives.
Yeah, but we hate having to register to read around here.
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?
And speaking of al Zahawie, he was also apparently clairvoyant:
JANUARY 2003 : (AL ZAHAWIE, "RETIRED IN JORDAN" - IS RECALLED BACK TO BAGHDAD, IRAQ; HE IS TAKEN TO MEET UN WEAPONS INSPECTORS) But last January, al-Zahawie was summoned back to Baghdad for what he had expected would be a request to help Iraq's Foreign Service plan for deputy prime minister Tariq Aziz's planned visit to the Vatican. Instead, upon landing in Baghdad, al-Zahawie was taken to meet with UN weapons inspectors. Five inspectors interviewed him in a 90-minute session, he says.
"They asked why I went [to Niger], why I was chosen, when I left Rome and whether there were any other Iraqi diplomats at the Vatican," he says. "But then they asked who had the seal of the embassy and where I had left it." That's when al-Zahawie got wind of some kind of foul play. Italy had handed over cables from al-Zahawie to the Niger government announcing the trip, and other documents had pointed to his presence in Niger. But the inspectors were particularly interested in a July 6, 2000, document bearing al-Zahawie's signature, concerning a proposed uranium transaction. The inspectors refused to show him the letter, he says, but al-Zahawie was sure he had never written it. "If they had such a letter, it had to have been a forgery," he says. The tell-tale signs of the forgery were quite obvious, he stresses. [* My note: How would he know the 'tell-tale sign' if they refused to show the letters to him? Shades of Joe Wilson's foreknowledge of the docs?]
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.
bttt
According to the article, where is this all leading?
I'm not sure you want to hear this. Apparently 60 Minutes flew Martino to NY twice in summer 2004 as "CBS journalists were reporting a story on what role the faked Niger documents may have played in the Bush administration's pursh for war in Iraq." "To date, CBS has yet to run the program, because of an ongoing debate over whether it is ready to air. Kevin Tedesco, a spokesman for 60 Minutes, says the news program's journalists continue to report the Niger stroy and that "we won't rule out airing this material in the future." END OF STORY!!!!!!!!!!! Does this sound nauseatingly familiar?
I'm still confused about the thrust of the story - does it tend to exonerate or incriminate the Bush admin? What are the implications for France? For Italy? For Joseph Wilson? For the CIA?
I also read that they "bumped" that story for the Bush NG story.
The story doesn't really take a position on Bush, Wilson etc. It's one of those "human interest" stories WSJ runs in the middle of their front page every day. It acknowledges the FBI investigation and that they are trying to figure out who forged the documents and whether Martino was trying to aid the case for war or was a pawn etc.
So the lion's share of the story consists of the details about how Martino got embroiled in this in the first place. But the most significant "factoid" I'd never known before (but maybe Ravingnutter's got it somewhere in his compilations) is that Martino was introduced by a SISMI "handler" to an Italian woman working in Niger embassy in FEBRUARY 2000. She began passing intelligence and "eventually" (no date given) provided the forged documents.
In short, the "game was on" even before Bush even got elected President, so unless you are the most fanatical neocon conspiracy theorist, this sequence of events fits far better with Ravingnutter's (I hope this is his theory and not someone else's: sorry I don't have time to check) claim that the French were trying to provide an eventual cover for illicit yellowcake sales by deliberately planting bogus intelligence etc. It also fits the 1999 timeline of a visit to Niger by Iraqi officials etc. But the article itself does not draw any of these dots.
No surprise if you're right about the NG story. It's pretty clear that they ran with whatever story appeared to pose maximal damage to Bush's chance at re-election. That it eventually blew up in their faces and that Bush won the election was an outcome CBS richly deserved.
FYI Ping....
Thanks for the update.
Thanks!
Sept. 22, 2005 - In its rush to air its now discredited story about President George W. Bush’s National Guard service, CBS bumped another sensitive piece slated for the same “60 Minutes” broadcast: a half-hour segment about how the U.S. government was snookered by forged documents purporting to show Iraqi efforts to purchase uranium from Niger.
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