Posted on 04/20/2006 10:33:05 AM PDT by parnasokan
NIGERGATE: BUSH DIDN’T LIE TO THE AMERICANS REGARDING URANIUM FROM AFRICA
Today’s Il Foglio newspaper from Italy reports on the recent scoop by The Sunday Times and a follow-up article, “Clueless Joe Wilson” published by Slate. The piece in today’s Il Foglio, signed by top investigative reporter Christian Rocca, examines the true reason why the famous ‘16 words’ were included in the 2003 State of the Union address: President George W. Bush didn’t lie to the American public regarding Saddam Hussein’s attempts to procure uranium from Africa, Saddam had been out trying to do his shopping in Niger. The left leaning liberals of the anti-3B league still don’t want to accept it but, as the article points out, even the French, who did all in their power to oppose the invasion of Iraq, were, and still are, convinced that Saddam had been seeking uranium in Niger. The piece goes on to describe how the French had obtained evidence that “explicitly details the visit to Niger of Saddam’s envoy charged precisely with the scope of obtaining uranium”. The time has come to bury all of the absurd and oft offensive conspiracy theories once and for all, including those expressed by some readers here at Free Republic. There is no logical point or purpose in continuing to point accusing fingers at certain parties be they foreign, national or Martian. Anyone who really wants to know the truth now has it, unfortunately there will always be those who, for reasons best known to themselves, prefer to deny it. The bottom line is that the President didn’t lie: Saddam had attempted shopping for uranium in Niger and as regards the source of this precious information we can all say, once and for all and in chorus, a loud ‘merci’.
The article can be accessed at the following URL: http://www.ilfoglio.it/uploads/camillo/sundaytimesnigergate.html
IL FOGLIO -- 20/04/2006
The Time’s scoop buries La Repubblica’s Nigergate: Iraq sought uranium in Africa
Nato sources reveal that the French gave the British (and the British Bush) a letter that proved Saddam’s attempts at procurement.
Milan. What little remained of the Nigergate so dear to La Repubblica has sunk under the force of the clamorous revelations of the Sunday Times of London and Slate, the online review of the Washington Post group. Now the names, and motives, of those who fabricated the dossier containing a false supply contract in Saddam Hussein’s name for Nigerien uranium are known. Now there is also the certainty that the ex policeman, Rocco Martino, was in the service of the French and not the Italians. It can also be seen that around the case, which dates back to 2000, that is long before the war in Iraq and September 11, a well organised disinformation campaign was implemented even though, as we now know, the information was true, that it had been verified and that to date is still confirmed by the French and British Intelligence Services.
The truth is he following: Saddam tried to buy uranium from Niger, sending, to this end, Wissam al-Zahawie, Saddam’s ex representative to the Atomic Agency of the United Nations and to the Conference on Non Proliferation of the United Nations, to the central African nation. The contract was never formalised but the attempt was carried out and the proof of this exists. The ex ambassador, and decisively anti-Bush, Joe Wilson, at the centre of the Ciagate scandal that has rocked Washington, was sent to Niger by the Cia and his wife Valeria Plame in order to investigate the attempts at procurement didn’t uncover them and is now obliged to give evasive replies on American talk shows.
The Sunday Times, citing Nato sources close to the official Nigergate investigation, has for the first time revealed the existence of a letter dating back to the year 2000, obtained by the French in 2002 but not from Rocco Martino or the authors of the false dossier, which explicitly details the visit to Niger of Saddam’s envoy charged precisely with the scope of obtaining uranium. This letter – and only this letter, not the false dossier so dear to La Repubblica – is at the origin of the famous 16 words pronounced by George W. Bush in his January 2003 State of the Union address. On the occasion Bush said that the British government had information regarding Saddam’s attempts at procuring uranium in Africa. The interpretation given by the ex-ambassador Wilson, La Repubblica and a couple of radical journalists hired by CBS, the authors of the false anti-Bush scoop, is that the American president made his statement on the basis of false documents ‘cooked’ in Rome and disseminated with the complicity of Sismi in order to do a favour to Neocon friends in Washington. Il Foglio has on more than one occasion demonstrated, graphically and logically, how the reconstruction of La Repubblica didn’t stand-up (demonstrations agreed upon and shared by the Ds, Margherita and Rifondazione Comunista who, through the Trotskyist Senator Luigi Malabarba, went as far as to define the Repubblica’s articles as ‘fantasies’).
A letter from 2000
Up to this point the numerous contradictory versions offered by Wilson, the bipartisan American inquiries, and all of the possible imaginable denials have not been sufficient to halt the flow of speculation. Not even the conclusions of the British Butler Commission’s report, which clearly explained how Bush’s words referred to indications supplied by the British that were not based on the false ‘Italian’ documents but on ‘well founded’ evidence in possession of the British Government, have been enough. Up to here there was always a slight doubt: exactly what was the ‘well founded’ evidence in possession of the British. The Sunday Times has finally revealed the answer: the letter from the year 2000 detailing the visit to Niger by Wissam al-Zahawie. Proof that does not originate in Rome or in Washington, quite the contrary, evidence that comes from the French Intelligence services and thus from the Intelligence services of a country which opposed the Iraq war. Proof which the French still continue to consider well founded and based on facts. In 2002 the Dgse in Paris passed the documents that were the evidence of Saddam’s interest in procuring uranium to MI6 in London with the caveat that they could not be shown to any other Intelligence service (a procedure quite common amongst Intelligence services) because they would have put the source’s life at risk. In addition to the British the inspectors of the Iaea saw the letter, albeit through a French official and hidden from the attention of the Parisian delegation, and judged it, on the contrary of the dossier ‘cooked’ in Italy, true. The British limited themselves to transmitting an overview of the contents of the letter to the Cia and from there the information ended up in the President’s State of the Union Address. Thus in synthesis: Bush did not lie and the evidence that Saddam sought uranium in Niger was supplied by the French and confirmed by the United Nation’s nuclear agency.
The scoop in the Sunday Times is by Michael Smith, a ferociously anti-Bush English journalist. This fact rules out any accusations of his being ‘in the service’ of the White House. Smith revealed the names of the two officials from the Niger embassy in Rome who prepared the false documents, one is an Italian and the other is a Nigerien Diplomat. The Italian, assistant to the Nigerien ambassador until now know as ‘la Signora’ (The Lady), is called Laura Montini. The other is the consul Adam Maiga Zakariaou.
This is how things really went. A Sismi agent, Antonio Nucera, was transferred to another division and in February 2000 put his ex source, Laura Montini, in contact with the ex-agent Rocco Martino. Nucera did this as a favour to his ex-source, in his new role he no longer required ‘La signora’ and in order to help her economically he created the link to Rocco Martino. Since 1996, according to the Sunday Times, Martino had been a French spy under the control of the chief of the Dgse station in Bruxelles who paid him 2.000 euro a month. Montini became a sub-agent to Martino, a role for which Martino paid her 500 Euro every month. The French were seeking information relative to the movements of uranium in Niger, Martino and Montini supplied them with documents, including one regarding the visit to Niger by al-Zahawie (not however the most consistent one which was transmitted to the British by the French). The Intelligence services in Paris asked Martino for additional information and promised conspicuous sums of money should he be able to procure a copy of the sales contract between Sadam and Niger. Attracted by the money, and in agreement with the consul, Montini put together the false contract, something that she kept Martino in the dark about. Martino then passed the false contract to his French bosses. According to the Sunday Times the French told Martino that the documents were false almost immediately however intelligence sources have told Il Foglio that from various inquiries it has emerged that Martino was only informed at the beginning of 2003, that is months after he had attempted to sell them to a journalist from Panorama and in the new context of the ‘war on terrorism’.
This is the interpretation of Christopher Hitchens of Slate. In 2000 the French came into possession of both the real documents and false documents regarding the attempts by the Iraqis to procure uranium in Niger. After September 11, and in the months proceeding the invasion of Iraq, the French passed the real document to the British but allowed one of their agents, Rocco Martino, to disseminate an obviously false dossier which, if discovered, would have raised doubts in regards to Iraq’s real attempts to procure uranium, this operation would, in addition, carry Italian ‘fingerprints’ and not French ones. Panorama didn’t fall for it but other media organisations did.
-- Christian Rocca
ping
Good one
ping
added some keywords
Ergo, it is impossible for Bush to have lied.
In other words, if you told me that the sun was green and I told somebody else, "parnasokan told me that the sun was green", then that would be the truth regardless of whether or not the sun was green. If somebody called me a liar I'd smash his teeth down his throat.
So, surprise, surprise - - the "Bush lied" Democrats are themselves morally corrupt liars.
This is because they are lazy and weak and incapable of linear thought.
They are liberals.
Please see post #5.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_statement
Written by yours truly, so don't suspect any liberal bias from Wikipedia.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2087-2125630.html
The London Sunday Times April 09, 2006
'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.
A 'lie' is a knowingly false statement. This part is what the dimbulbs won't acknowledge. Bush may have been wrong (which I don't think he was) about the WMD (quantities, composition, location, etc.)but to assert that he 'lied' when what we didn't find what we expected to be there is deception on their part, pure and simple. What was the amount of yellowcake in Iraq that the UN had documented? I seem to recall around 600 tons. What did they use that for? Paint pigment? Yeah, right!
What Lancey wrote is true. The British government did learn those things. That's true, not false.
Thanks Howlin... they left out that Rocco and she were friends of Joe's ex who was also at the embassy in France.
Remember the dem outrage when Al Qaqaa was raided?
bttt
whenever I hear/see the phrase yellow-cake I think of Homer Simpson drooling.
Yep, we agree. "The sun is green" is a false statement, but "Somebody told me the sun is green" is a true statement if indeed somebody told me the sun was green. Congratulations - - you are capable of linear thought and understand basic logic.
Regards,
LH
The same with Katrina.
waiting............
waiting...........
still waiting...........
{insert sounds of crickets chirping}
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