Free Republic

NIGERGATE THE TRUTH: HOW THE FRENCH TRICKED THE USA “I was employed by the French since 1996. I handed the false documents on the uranium trade between the Africa and Iraq to them” –-- With this startling declaration Rocco Martino, the freelance spy at the centre of the false Niger dossier, has confirmed that France was responsible for some of the information later used by Britain and the United States to promote the case for war with Iraq. Before examining Martino’s deposition it’s worth taking a look at some of the details regarding France contained in the Senate Select Committee...

THE Sunday Times has tracked down a mysterious middleman who was a key figure in the notorious Niger uranium hoax before the Iraq war, writes Nicholas Rufford. Speaking to a reporter in a cafe in Brussels last week, he claimed he had been an unwitting dupe in the scam, which embarrassed both Tony Blair and George W Bush over Saddam Hussein’s phantom weapons of mass destruction. The middleman, an Italian who uses the name Giacomo, is a small-time tipster said to have worked for Italy’s armed forces and intelligence services. He says Sismi, the Italian foreign intelligence service, used him...