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Source of Forged Niger-Iraq Uranium Documents Identified
By Elaine Sciolino and Elisabetta Povoledo
The New York Times
Friday 04 November 2005
Rome - Italy's spymaster identified an Italian occasional spy
named Rocco Martino on Thursday as the disseminator of forged documents
that described efforts by Iraq to buy uranium ore from Niger for a
nuclear weapons program, three lawmakers said Thursday.
The spymaster, Gen. Nicolò Pollari, director of the Italian military
intelligence agency known as Sismi, disclosed that Mr. Martino was the
source of the forged documents in closed-door testimony to a
parliamentary committee that oversees secret services, the lawmakers
said.
Senator Massimo Brutti, a member of the committee, told reporters that
General Pollari had identified Mr. Martino as a former intelligence
informer who had been "kicked out of the agency." He did not say Mr.
Martino was the forger.
The revelation came on a day when the Federal Bureau of Investigation
confirmed that it had shut down its two-year investigation into the
origin of the forged documents.
The information about Iraq's desire to acquire the ore, known as
yellowcake, was used by the Bush administration to help justify the
invasion of Iraq, notably by President Bush in his State of the Union
address in January 2003. But the information was later revealed to have
been based on forgeries.
The documents were the basis for sending a former diplomat, Joseph C.
Wilson IV, on a fact-finding mission to Niger that eventually exploded
into an inquiry that led to the indictment and resignation last week of
Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff, I. Lewis Libby.
Mr. Martino has long been suspected of being responsible for peddling
the false documents. News reports have quoted him as saying he obtained
them through a contact at the Niger Embassy here. But this was the
first time his role was formally disclosed by the intelligence agency.
Neither Mr. Martino nor his lawyer, Giuseppe Placidi, were available
for comment.
Senator Brutti also told reporters that Italian intelligence had warned
Washington in early 2003 that the Niger-Iraq documents were false.
"At about the same time as the State of the Union address, they said
that the dossier doesn't correspond to the truth," Senator Brutti said.
He said he did not know whether the warning was given before or after
President Bush's address.
He made the claim more than once, but gave no supporting evidence. Amid
confusing statements by various lawmakers, he later appeared to
backtrack in conversations with both The Associated Press and Reuters,
saying that because Sismi never had the documents, it could not comment
on their merit.
There had long been doubts within the United States intelligence
community about the authenticity of the yellowcake documents, and
references to it had been deleted from other presentations given at the
time.
Senator Luigi Malabarba, who also attended Thursday's hearing, said in
a telephone interview that General Pollari had told the committee that
Mr. Martino was "offering the documents not on behalf of Sismi but on
behalf of the French" and that Mr. Martino had told prosecutors in Rome
that he was in the service of French intelligence.
A senior French intelligence official interviewed Wednesday in Paris
declined to say whether Mr. Martino had been a paid agent of France,
but he called General Pollari's assertions about France's
responsibility "scandalous."
General Pollari also said that no Italian intelligence agency officials
were involved in either forging or distributing the documents,
according to both Senator Brutti and the committee chairman, Enzo
Bianco.
Committee members said they were shown documents defending General
Pollari, including a copy of a classified letter from Robert S. Muller
III, the director of the F.B.I., dated July 20, which praised Italy's
cooperation with the bureau.
In Washington, an official at the bureau confirmed the substance of the
letter, whose contents were first reported Tuesday in the leftist
newspaper L'Unità. The letter stated that Italy's cooperation proved
the bureau's theory that the false documents were produced and
disseminated by one or more people for personal profit, and ruled out
the possibility that the Italian service had intended to influence
American policy, the newspaper said.
As a result, the letter said, according to both the F.B.I. official and
L'Unità, the bureau had closed its investigation into the origin of the
documents.
The F.B.I. official declined to be identified by name.
After the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, Italy's military intelligence
service sent reports to the United States and Britain claiming that
Iraq was actively trying to acquire uranium, according to current and
former intelligence officials.
Senator Brutti told reporters on Thursday that indeed Sismi had
provided information about Iraq's desire to acquire uranium from Niger
as early as the 1990's, but that it had never said the information was
credible.
Thursday's hearing followed a three-part series in La Repubblica, which
said General Pollari had knowingly provided the United States and
Britain with forged documents. The newspaper, a staunch opponent of
Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, also reported that General Pollari
had acted at the behest of Mr. Berlusconi, who was said to be eager to
help President Bush in the search for weapons in Iraq.
Mr. Berlusconi has denied such accounts.
La Repubblica said General Pollari had held a meeting on Sept. 9, 2002,
with Stephen J. Hadley, then the deputy national security adviser. Mr.
Hadley, now the national security adviser, has said that he met General
Pollari on that date, but that they did not discuss the Niger-Iraq
issue.
"Nobody participating in that meeting or asked about that meeting has
any recollection of a discussion of natural uranium, or any
recollection of any documents being passed," Mr. Hadley told a briefing
on Wednesday in Washington. "And that's also my recollection."
At the time, Mr. Hadley took responsibility for including the faulty
information in Mr. Bush's State of the Union address.
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