Italian Journalist Says She Gave US Uranium Info

AP ^ | July 19, 2003

[nwrep]

ROME - A journalist for an Italian news magazine has come forward, saying it was she who turned over to U.S. diplomats some documents purportedly showing that Iraq (news - web sites) wanted to buy uranium from Niger. The documents turned out to be forgeries.

In an interview published Saturday, Corriere della Sera, a leading Italian daily, quoted Elisabetta Burba as saying her source "in the past proved to be reliable." The journalist, who writes for the weekly Panorama, refused to reveal her source.

[DoughtyOne]

I get them from time to time. There are some less conspicuous orgs that I sometimes forget and they bring it to my attention. Mistakes will happen, but it's important for us to be able to dig for information. The media counts on us not being able to do that. We need to be able to refute them with documentation. If we allow articles to die on us, we're prevented from doing so.

Thanks for the comment. I know what you're talking about.

[Tunehead54]

There needs to be an easy link to see which publications are the prohibited, "excerpt-only" links - maybe on the post page?

Also - I've suggested this before - why not allow a search on the article URL - on the Post page - to easily avoid duplicate posts? Its more than just WP/LAT - its whichever subsidiaries are owned by the parent companies and may include Time, Boston, Globe, etc. - Who knows?

---

Other than that the FR forum software is far superior to anything else out there. Thanks Jim & John! I explicitly give you permission to buy yourselves a case of Heineken out of my last contribution - for medicinal puposes only, of course. ;-)

[Howlin]

Everyone knew it originated with her. It was widely published and the debunked

By who? Got a link?

[OldFriend]

Hilarious to hear Carl Levin saying that now our credibility in the world has been diminished.

Forgetting they were only recently shrieking that we should be bombing North Korea instead of Iraq because NK had the bomb!!!

[OldFriend]

This article on Burba is an excellent find.

Thanks to the internet no one can assume their pretentions will go unchallenged.

[Brilliant]

This article seems at odds with the original story. I thought that a foreign goverment gave the documents to the Brits.

[shamusotoole]

Do you not also note that we have the who, the what, the where, but no when? Any body see a when?

[oceanview]

John Loftus spelled it all out on Batchelor & Alexander last night. The brits had 5 confirmed source of intel for the Niger uranium story. France was worried that the deal would be linked back to them, so they planted the false papers as a "poison pill" to discredit the whole story. The Brits stand behind the story because they know the other intel is solid, and they know why the poison pill was introduced.

[piasa]

And it's thicker than people think, when South Africa is pulled into the mix:

MAY 10, 2002 : (THE SPECTATOR'S MARK STEYN REPORTS THAT SOUTH AFRICA HAS BEEN SELLING ALUMINUM TUBES TO IRAQ) "Well, Mr Mandela's country has been busy selling aluminium tubes for uranium enrichment centrifuges to Saddam. The first secretary of the South African embassy in Jordan is serving as the local sales rep to Iraqi procurement agents. Thanks to these sterling efforts, they're bringing significantly closer the day when the entire Middle East, much of Africa and even Europe will be under the Saddamite nuclear umbrella and thus safe from Bush's aggression." - Mark Steyn, Spectator, May 10, 2002 via "SA reportedly assisting Iraq with nuclear weapons - DA requests clarity from govt," WOZA.com, October 8, 2002, http://www.woza.co.za/oct02/da08.htm

SPTEMBER 30, 2002 : (INSIGHT'S KENNETH TIMMERMAN REPORTS THAT IRAQ IS PROCURING MATERIALS FROM SOUTH AFRICA) "The Iraqi regime is turning increasingly to South Africa to procure nuclear materials and forbidden equipment needed for its weapons programs, INC [Iraqi National Congress] sources tell Insight. A top Iraqi intelligence official, Nadhim Jabouri, has been dispatched to the Iraqi embassy in Johannesburg to handle contacts with South African nuclear engineers. He also is in touch with Armscor, the state armaments directorate (also known as Denel), which supplied Iraq with advanced 155 mm howitzers during the Iran-Iraq war. To grease the skids and arrange travel documents, Iraqi procurement agents operating in Amman, Jordan, go through the first secretary of the South African embassy, Shoeman du Plessis. The willingness of the South African government to sell nuclear material and weapons to Iraq, and their fear of getting caught, could explain the virulent outburst by former South African president Nelson Mandela, who told Newsweek recently that the US - not Saddam Hussein - presents 'a threat to world peace.'" - Kenneth R Timmerman, Insight on the News, September 30, 2002 via "SA reportedly assisting Iraq with nuclear weapons - DA requests clarity from govt," WOZA.com, October 8, 2002, http://www.woza.co.za/oct02/da08.htm

[mewzilla]

Grrr....Now my head is starting to hurt. Does this mean that guy in Britain offed hiimself (supposedly) for nothing?

[jennyp]

I dunno. Michael Young's article perhaps makes a good point when he criticizes Burba for not investigating further the claim that the Marionite Christians were also celebrating the 9/11 attacks, but her description of all the Muslims celebrating seems pretty accurate.

IOW, it read like Burba was seeing muslim Lebanese all around her dancing & partying & rejoicing. She recounts several conversations with people who stated clearly that they were joyful over 9/11 because we got what we deserved.

When a reporter recounts an incident, I trust that it's representative of their experience - they don't have to tell me every little conversation they have with every native they meet. Clearly she saw crowds of Arabs celebrating the attacks.

Michael Young, OTOH, sneers that her descriptions of Lebanon sound like they were lifted from a pre-war travel guide. Fine. But when it comes to the Lebanese's reactions to 9/11, Young himself, who is based in Lebanon, does try to paint a different picture than Burba's - but he comes off sounding like some kind of apologist, with boilerplate assertions that "many Lebanese watched with horror what took place on September 11", and "Couldn’t it be that they were laughing for some other reason?" etc.

For Young's part, I read all his articles from 2001, and he never affirmatively reported anything different regarding Muslim celebrations. The only other place where he mentions Arabs celebrating in the streets is in the opening paragraph to this article:

The first images from the Middle East following the World Trade Center and Pentagon attacks showed Palestinian refugees exulting. However, assuming a Middle East angle to the attacks, there was a more compelling story from the region than what was, for all its crudeness, celebration by a defeated people for a perceived victory against an uncaring foe. The story was that the perpetrators of the attacks offered the U.S. no obvious message as regards its activities in the Middle East.

So, I'm still inclined to believe Burba's story (unless there's some other evidence to the contrary).

[piasa]

Timmerman may be mistaken about the location of the Iraqi embassy, since another source says it is in Praetoria. Or, Iraq may have had an office doing something in Johannesburg that was not an embassy, or Timmerman may have been Wilkersoned, too. I'm not sure who to believe on that, so I am going to keep digging around a bit.

[piasa]

Interestingly, there are some rumors that South Africa never completely destroyed its bioweapons research program.

[mewzilla]

Now that I can believe.

[piasa]

Well, it gets pretty interesting. The Iraqi front company that was involved in the deals between Iraq and South African suppliers in the aluminum tube deal was based in Jordan. It also happened to be considered by the UN to be a legit company in the Oil for Food Program. And its financial dealings ran through a French bank...

And France, China, Russia and Germany (and they inturn persuaded the US State Dept to go along) pressured the UN to loosen restrictions and change guidelines on sales to Iraq through that program- the new rules reduced the wait time for approval of sales from over a year to a mere ten days. If a sales wasn't stopped in ten days, it was automatically approved.

Timmerman's article is interesting:

http://216.239.53.104/search?q=cache:LpsxRU7QF0IJ:www.timmerman2000.com/news/insight_iraqwmd.htm+%22Nadhim+Jabouri%22&hl=en&ie=UTF-8

[mewzilla]

Ah, the Oilf For Food program again. Talk about a gift that kept on giving. And when one considers the kind of contraband that was making its way into Iraq on UN charted/approved flights...Thanks for the info and the link!

[Mitchell]

Batchelor & Alexander ping (#30).