One is delicious.....the other, not so much.
Posted on 04/10/2006 10:49:30 AM PDT by parnasokan
The following is a very interesting article that was published by the Sunday Times yesterday. The truth at last.
'Forgers' of key Iraq war contract named Michael Smith
TWO employees of the Niger embassy in Rome were responsible for the forgery of a notorious set of documents used to help justify the Iraq war, an official investigation has allegedly found.
According to Nato sources, the investigation has evidence that Niger’s consul and its ambassador’s personal assistant faked a contract to show Saddam Hussein had bought uranium ore from the impoverished west African country.
The documents, which emerged in 2002, were used in a US State Department fact sheet on Iraq’s weapons programme to build the case for war. They were denounced as forgeries by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) shortly before the 2003 invasion.
The revelation spawned a series of conspiracy theories, most alleging that the British, Italians, or even Dick Cheney, the American vice-president, had had a hand in forging them to back the case for war.
The story was still reverberating around Washington last week with claims that President George W Bush had authorised the leaking of the identity of a CIA agent whose husband cast doubt on the Niger link.
According to the sources, an official investigation believes Adam Maiga Zakariaou, the consul, and Laura Montini, the ambassador’s assistant, known as La Signora, forged the papers for money.
They allegedly concocted their scheme as reports reached western intelligence agencies, including MI6, that Saddam Hussein had been trying to buy uranium ore, known as yellowcake, from Niger. The agencies had no evidence he had succeeded. The pair are alleged to have copied a real contract to look like an agreement with Iraq under which Niger would supply Saddam with 500 tons of yellowcake.
The story of the fake deal had begun with a meeting in a Rome bar in February 2000 set up by Antonio Nucera, an officer in the Sismi, the Italian intelligence agency, between two of his former agents, Rocco Martino and Montini.
However, unknown to the Sismi, Martino, a former policeman turned spy, had been working for the French intelligence service, the DGSE, since 1996. He was controlled by the DGSE head of station in Brussels, who paid him a retainer of between £1,050 and £1,400 a month.
“Nucera asked if I was interested in meeting a person who worked in an African embassy and who had been able to supply [Nucera with] documents and information, including the embassy’s cipher,” Martino told an investigating magistrate during an Italian inquiry.
Montini is understood to have agreed to work for Martino, who paid her £350 a month as a “sub-agent”.
In the spring of 2000, she handed him a document relating to a visit to Niger by Wissam al-Zahawie, the Iraqi ambassador to the Vatican. Martino passed it to his French handler.
The French, who were watching for an attempt by Saddam to obtain uranium from Niger, showed great interest and told Martino they wanted more information. Martino asked Montini if she could get a copy of a contract for Niger to supply Iraq with uranium.
“Martino told me that if he was able to obtain a copy of a contract then he would have earned a lot of money from an unspecified ‘intelligence’ organisation,” she told the magistrate.
The lure of the money was apparently too much. “She was [the ambassador’s] trusted personal assistant. The consul Zakariaou . . . needed money. He would help her forge the documents,” the Nato sources claim.
Martino passed the contract to his French handlers, but they spotted it was a fake and refused to pay.
Some time in 2002, however, they obtained another apparently incriminating document, the source said. This was a letter purporting to be from al-Zahawie relating to a visit to Niger in 1999 to discuss the possible supply of uranium. This did not constitute evidence that Niger had agreed to supply yellowcake but it did indicate Saddam was trying to obtain it.
The letter, deemed “credible” by the Butler inquiry into Iraq intelligence, appears to be the evidence that led to Bush’s claim in January 2003 that the British had “learnt that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa”.
The French passed copies to MI6 with caveats to protect their source. The British could tell the CIA Iraq had tried to obtain yellowcake from Niger but not about the actual letter.
In the autumn of 2002, Martino passed the documents allegedly faked by Zakariaou and Montini to an Italian journalist. She then took them to the American embassy and they were passed on to Washington.
After the IAEA had dismissed the forged documents, the Americans disowned all the Iraq-Niger uranium claims. But the latest allegations are unlikely to end the row.
This springs from the mission of Joseph Wilson, a former American ambassador, who was sent to Niger to check the uranium claims.
Wilson dismissed the possibility of Iraq obtaining uranium and publicly attacked Bush’s claims. The White House retaliated, with officials briefing journalists that Wilson’s wife, Valerie Plame, was a CIA agent. Naming an undercover agent is illegal in America.
Last week, Lewis “Scooter” Libby, a former aide to Cheney, told the inquiry into the leak that the vice-president ordered the briefings and that Bush had authorised them.
Zakariaou, now a Niger representative to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation in Rome, said: “If you really want the truth you must look somewhere else. You should deepen your inquiries elsewhere."
For further Niger coverage see Michael Smith's weblog, www.timesonline.co.uk/mick_smith
Still don't know who forged the SeeBS National Guard memos.
Outright lies or sheer stupidity by the Times?
Buried amidst the lies are a few kernels of truth.
ping
No, he didn't you wanker. And, Joe Wilson's account was deemed to be lacking in credibility by the Senate.
Last week, Lewis “Scooter” Libby, a former aide to Cheney, told the inquiry into the leak that the vice-president ordered the briefings and that Bush had authorised them.
Trying to mislead the reader into believing that the "briefings" president Bush authorized was the illegal naming of an undercover agent.
One is delicious.....the other, not so much.
So Saddam was trying to buy yellowcake from Niger. He was dealing with people who would/will do anything for money, including forging the mentioned documents. How was it then that he wasn't able to buy yellowcake? The whole thing seems strange. Maybe he did make the purchase and the forged documents are just cover up. But then the Nigers told Joe Wilson that they didn't sell to Saddam. Surely the Nigers or Joe Wilson wouldn't lie.
Nigergate ping...we have the forger's names!
According to the sources, an official investigation believes Adam Maiga Zakariaou, the consul, and Laura Montini, the ambassador’s assistant, known as La Signora, forged the papers for money.
Wow!
Ping!
In a follow-up article on July 19th, Bonini and D’Avanzo revealed that a second break-in had occurred on January 31st, 2001, this time in the apartment of Adam Maiga Zakariaou, the embassy Counsellor.Source...a second burglarly followed the first in via Baiamonti. On January 31st, Adam Maiga Zakariaou, an embassy functionary, returned to his apartment to find it ransacked after a break-in. ... He declared today to Repubblica, “I don’t know if the theft in my apartment has anything to do with the infraction at the embassy and therefore the mysteries behind the construction of this false uranium dossier. I would like to know. But frankly, I don’t think so. I think it was only a coincidence. At that time there had been several thefts in apartments in my neighborhood...”
This is the police report as published by il Giornale.
“Around 5 PM, I left my house situated in Rome, in via (...), with my family. I closed all windows and locked them, as well as the front door. I declare that I had not informed anyone that I would be going out at that time. Around 7:10 PM on January 31, 2001, I returned home and found that during our absence unknown individuals had torn open and removed the metallic grating that protected the window in my bedroom. In order to do so they had also pulled out the plastic shutters as well as the window which were protected by the aforementioned metal grating. Once inside they ransacked all the rooms of my apartment. In particular they went through the drawers in my bedroom, in that of the children and those in the closet next to the front door. The doors of the bookshelf in the living room had also been opened by the thieves. On a first assessment, I found missing two old watches of scarce commercial value and a gold ring also of little value. I add that only the bedroom window showed signs of infraction. I have no suspicions on anyone.”
Hmmm...looks like he staged the second burglary to cover his tracks on the first one, where the letterhead and seals were stolen for the forgeries. Not much other info on him out there. Will see what I can find out about the woman...
Exactly. It's impossible to put any faith into any "factoid" contained in this rambling and incoherent article when the author has so obviously botched this...
This is pretty complex but I think what the article infers later is that this second letter was also determined ultimately to be a fake. If in fact the quoted statement above is true then the British were also duped. The fact of the matter is however that the British still stand behind their claim and it has been known (I believe) that this second document was identified as a forgery fairly early on.
So what's going on here? Was this the ONLY evidence the Brits had? We need to hear from some loyal British Freepers. Are there any?
Fake, but accurate.
But .. according to Tony Blair - that report of the Niger yellowcake was not the only report the UK has - and even after this was reported as a "forgery" - I saw Blair on TV stating that they had another report.
This "forgery" has Clinton fingerprints all over it.
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.