More on the Silberman-Robb Report. As we noted below, the SR Report begins by stating that the commissioners were not authorized to investigate the use which policy-makers made of Iraq WMD intelligence.
At other points, however, they say things that sound rather different. For instance, at any point in the report, the commissioners state that they "found no evidence of political pressure to influence the Intelligence Community's pre-war assessments of Iraq's weapons programs."
The issue here, I think, is an extremely finely cut distinction. The commissioners say they found no analysts who would tell them they faced any political pressure to alter their analyses. At the same time, the commissioners say they did not investigate what policy-makers did with those analyses.
A good illustration of this distinction, in practice, is the Niger canard. If you look closely at what the analyses were inside the Intelligence Community, they were at best mixed. Some were certain that the documents were forgeries and the earlier reports were fraudulent. Others didn't put much credence in the reports but weren't willing to rule them out completely either. When push came to shove in October 2002 and January 2003, the CIA fought strenuously to keep the president from publicizing the allegation.
What did the administration do? They tried to air the charge every chance they got and gave no indication whatsoever that there was any doubt about its credibility.
There's your distinction.
--Josh Marshall
Bill Kristol, 11/14/2005: "After all, the bipartisan Silberman-Robb commission found no evidence of political manufacture and manipulation of intelligence."
Silberman-Robb Commission Report, 3/31/05: "[W]e were not authorized to investigate how policymakers used the intelligence assessments they received from the Intelligence Community. Accordingly, while we interviewed a host of current and former policymakers during the course of our investigation, the purpose of those interviews was to learn about how the Intelligence Community reached and communicated its judgments about Iraq's weapons programs--not to review how policymakers subsequently used that information."
Bill ... Bill, Bill, Bill ...
Late Update: On the basis of many TPM Reader emails it seems that this canard is now part of the official talking points being churned out at 'winger central command, with various folks spouting this line about the Robb-Silberman report on the airwaves over the last couple days. So, a couple requests. First, does anyone know of any reason not to take the report's own words at face value? That is, that they were simpy not authorized to examine potential political manipulation of intelligence, only mistakes within the IC itself? Secondly, if you've seen someone in print or on the airwaves spouting this line and you have a link or a transcript, let us know. Send it in to the comments email address and we'll put together a list.
--Josh Marshall
"SISMI was involved in this; there is no doubt."
That's what "a U.S. intelligence official who's closely followed the matter" told Knight-Ridder newspapers' Jonathan Landay for this article out this evening about the Niger forgeries.
Italian intelligence officials and parliamentarians put on a dog and pony show yesterday in Rome claiming that the Italian intelligence agency SISMI had no connection to the forgeries and did not pass on any of the bogus information contained in them to any other countries, including the United States.
But that's simply not true. Landay confirms what we first reported more than a year ago: that in late 2001 and early 2002 Italian intelligence sent reports to the US alleging that Niger was selling yellowcake uranium to Iraq. Those reports were based on the notorious forged documents, in some cases they were text transcriptions of the documents.
What does that mean? That the whole Niger-Iraq uranium fairy tale started with bogus intelligence from Italy.
The Italian governmnet is spinning like crazy on this one. But the real story seems ready to bubble out.
--Josh Marshall
WaPo: "President Bush has ordered White House staff to attend mandatory briefings beginning next week on ethical behavior and the handling of classified material after the indictment last week of a senior administration official in the CIA leak probe."
Add your own joke, stir, etc.
--Josh Marshall
Yesterday, we brought you the news that in a closed-door Italian parliamentary hearing into whether Italian intelligence officials were involved in the Niger forgeries hoax, intelligence chief Nicolo Pollari brandished a letter from FBI Director Robert Mueller, which provided him and the Italian government with a full and complete exoneration of any role in the affair.
Today the FBI publicly confirmed the story. The FBI closed its investigation in July and concluded that the production and dissemination of the forgeries were not part of an attempt to influence US foreign policy but only a money-making scheme.
FBI spokesperson John Miller told the AP that the investigation "confirmed the documents to be fraudulent and concluded they were more likely part of a criminal scheme for financial gain."
The AP writes that "Miller did not say what led the FBI to its conclusion or identify the perpetrators of the hoax."
At least until late in 2004 the FBI had never interviewed the man who tried to sell the documents, Rocco Martino -- despite the fact that he came to the United States twice in the summer of 2004.
The FBI now says it concluded its investigation in July of this year. So did the FBI interview Martino before making its determination?
Also, did the FBI interview the two other people Martino identified as playing a central role in moving the documents into the circulation? Those would be the female Italian national who works in the Niger Embassy in Rome and SISMI Col. Antonio Nucera?
(ed.note: It is worth noting that the very definitive headline running with the AP story actually does not match the quote from the FBI spokesman, who seems merely to say that it seems likely the scheme was a money-making scheme rather than an effort to influence foreign policy.)
--Josh Marshall
According to the AP, when war-trickster Ahmad Chalabi comes to DC next week he'll get a face to face meeting with Secretary of State Condi Rice and "probably other senior Bush administration officials." Apparently, he's also angling to get a meeting with Dick Cheney.
Shouldn't this guy be a tad more radioactive?
Can he find time to sit down with investigators probing manipulation of pre-war intelligence?
--Josh Marshall
Turn of the screw? Or just plain screwed?
This just out from Rep. Ney's office ...
I wanted to tell you directly that this week the Department of Justice asked the Congressman's office to provide documents related to the government's investigation of Jack Abramoff. Consistent with the Rules of the House of Representatives, the Congressman has informed the Speaker of this request and this request will be handled consistent with House Rules.The Congressman has not been notified that he is the target of an investigation and we do not believe that there would be any grounds to do so. There have been a litany of unfounded allegations made against the Congressman by the Washington media in recent months and he looks forward to addressing them as thoroughly and expeditiously as possible with the appropriate entities looking into the Abramoff matter.
Congressman Ney has made the following statement regarding this matter: "As I have said repeatedly, we will cooperate fully with any inquiry. I voluntarily provided information to the Senate Indian Affairs Committee last year and I have offered to make myself available to meet with the House Ethics Committee. I believe, however, that although the government's investigation of Mr. Abramoff has been well-publicized through other sources, it is inappropriate for my office to comment in any detail about an ongoing investigation."
Can you say 'subpoenaed'? Apparently Ney's press secretary can't.
Here's what The Hill and Roll Call (sub.req.) have to say about Ney getting subpoenaed.
--Josh Marshall
Yesterday morning we noted that Ahmad Chalabi is being feted next week at the American Enterprise Institute. Set aside the fact that little more than a year ago he was implicated in sharing US intelligence with Iran. What we know pretty much conclusively now is that Chalabi connived at gaming the US into war by cooking up all manner of bogus intelligence and unsubstantiated claims about WMD and terrorism. It is almost a cliche at this point -- Chalabi, the Iraqi emigre behind most of the outlandish bogus intel.
One extreme view would have it that Chalabi is an Iraqi patriot and, as such, any lying and cheating and stealing in America is just a means to the end of getting the previous regime overthrown. As it happens, I think the guy is more just a gamer and an opportunist. But be that as it may, what sort of American organization would be hosting and celebrating such a man after all we know today, after all the bad acts we know he has committed against this country.
The organization is, of course, AEI. And how can it be that their feting of him, as they are to do next week, does not amount to a big 'who cares' or 'ends justify the means' or 'we knew what he was up to all along anyway' about all the phoney baloney he pulled in the lead up to the war?
Will any politician, Republican or Democrat, stand up and speak out against this outrage? Does anyone plan to protest?
--Josh Marshall
A note from TPM Reader SL ...
All the focus seems to be on how bad second terms have been for 2-term presidents. But unless I'm mistaken, the underlying events to the scandals invariably took place in the first term (Nixon, Reagan, Clinton, Bush II). Question: is there a correlation between not being reelected and being the kind of guy who doesn't do or countenance that sort of bad behavior in the first term. 2 test cases: Carter and Bush I. Bush I would probably have had problems in the second term because he wouldn't have pardoned Weinberger et al if he hadn't been on the way out. That leaves Carter, and I suppose he a particularly morally scrupulous guy. Otherwise, it's all of a piece.Also, it's not that the cover up is worse than the crime, or even that the cover up is what's punished and not the underlying crime. It's that the cover up keeps the investigators away from the underlying crime so it can't be prosecuted. For example, North's paper shredding; Libby's sand in Fitzgerald's eyes.
I think this is exactly right, certainly it applies to Watergate. But there's another dynamic. And that is how much these cover-ups aim not simply to avoid detection permanently, which is of course the ultimate goal, but to push exposure out past reelection. That's Watergate certainly. In a very different set of circumstances that is what Clinton's lawyers were trying to do with the Jones suit -- at least push it out past the '96 election. And I think we'll find more and more that is what happened here.
--Josh Marshall
Finally, some good reporting on the Niger-Uranium-Italy story.
There are a slew of nice nuggets in this piece in the Times.
But this one may take the cake. This passage describes what happened at that closed-door parliamentary hearing in Rome today ...
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.
So back in July, Director Mueller sent a letter to the Italian government providing them with a complete and definitive exoneration of any involvement with the forgeries. A year ago Newsweek reported that the US hadn't received permission from the Italian government to interview Martino -- that despite the fact that Martino travelled to the US twice in the summer of 2004.
Did the FBI interview Martino before making a conclusive judgment about the forgeries, who created them and why?
--Josh Marshall
Curiouser and curiouser and curiouser and ...
Remember how early today an Italian parliamentarian said that in January 2003 the Italian government had warned the US that the Niger docs were forgeries. Well, just out from AP ...
Commission member Sen. Massimo Brutti told reporters after the closed-door session that that the commission was told that the Italian secret services warned the United States in January 2003 that the dossier was fake.But later, the senator called The Associated Press to retract that statement. He said that the commission was not told that the Italians had warned the Americans.
Brutti said he was confused by the barrage of reporters' questions when the lawmakers emerged from the briefing. He said when he had the opportunity later to check his briefing notes, he realized he had misspoke.
Brutti said what he meant to say was that the commission was told that a SISMI official, contacted by the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna, Austria, about the dossier, told the U.N. agency that "those documents didn't come from Sismi, they weren't produced nor supplied by Sismi."
"Our (intelligence services) were not involved," Brutti said the briefing was told. The Italian news agency ANSA quoted Brutti as saying that the commission was told that the U.N. agency queried Sismi about the dossier in January 2003.
And from Reuters ...
Sen. Massimo Brutti initially told reporters that Sismi had warned the United States about the bogus documents around the same time as U.S. President George W. Bush gave his 2003 State of the Union address, making the case for war."At around that time, they (Sismi) said that the dossier did not correspond to the truth," Brutti said. He later backtracked, telling Reuters that since Sismi never had the documents, it could not comment on their merit.
Your guess is as good as mine.
--Josh Marshall
Let me suggest a few other questions to be posed in response to the new story the Italian government rolled out today to explain their involvement with the Niger uranium hoax.
The current story, detailed in this updated report from the Associated Press is that Rocco Martino forged the documents, that no one at SISMI (Italian military intelligence) was involved in any way and that at some point in January 2003, the Italians warned the United States that the documents were forged.
For the sake of discussion, let's stipulate to those facts.
So these questions.
1. If Martino forged the documents with no involvement by SISMI personnel, how did SISMI end up distributing transcriptions of the forgeries to the United States and other countries?
2. The Italian government now says they warned the Americans that the documents were forgeries in January 2003. But what exactly did they warn them about? According to the current story, the documents that the Americans had went from Martino to Elisabetta Burba to the US Embassy in Rome to the State Department. When exactly did the Italian government come into the picture in that chain of custody and how did they know we had the documents?
What Italian intelligence had done is give us reports in 2001 and early 2002 that were summaries and transcriptions of the documents. Was it their own earlier reports that they told us were based on forgeries? And if so, when did they learn that the information they gave us was based on forgeries?
3. If it is certain that Martino is the forger, and that he was acting on his own account, why has no action ever been taken against him?
--Josh Marshall
The AP story we noted earlier is now up on the web ...
Italian secret services warned the United States months before it invaded Iraq that a dossier about a purported Saddam Hussein effort to buy uranium in Africa was fake, a lawmaker said Thursday after a briefing by the nation's intelligence chief."At about the same time as the State of the Union address, they (Italy's SISMI secret services) said that the dossier doesn't correspond to the truth," Sen. Massimo Brutti told journalists after the parliamentary commission was briefed.
Brutti said the warning was given in January 2003, but he did not know whether it was made before or after President Bush's speech.
The United States and Britain used the claim that Saddam was seeking to buy uranium in Niger to bolster their case for the invasion, which started in March 2003. The intelligence supporting the claim later was deemed unreliable.
So that's the new story.
The problem is that this puts Italian intelligence in the odd, though not impossible, position of being both the purveyor and the debunker of the Niger uranium hoax.
Remember, the original reports about a Niger-Iraq uranium sale came in from Italy in late 2001 and early 2002. Those were the reports that caught Cheney's attention and subsequently sent Wilson on his trip. But, as we've noted here many times, those reports, which Wilson was briefed on before he left for Niger, were later determined to have been based on the forgeries.
If you don't want to take my word for it, listen to the conclusion which the president's own WMD commission came to ...
"The October 2002 NIE included the statement that Iraq was “trying to procure uranium ore and yellowcake” and that “a foreign government service” had reported that “Niger planned to send several tons” of yellowcake to Iraq. The statement about Niger was based primarily on three reports provided by a liaison intelligence service to CIA in late 2001 and early 2002 ... When it finally got around to reviewing the documents during the same time period, the CIA agreed that they were not authentic. Moreover, the CIA concluded that the original reporting was based on the forged documents and was thus itself unreliable." -- Robb-Silberman Commission Report, page 78.
If the Italians gave this warning to the US in January 2003, who'd the warning go to?
Something does not add up.
--Josh Marshall
We're hiring. The job announcement is here and I've reprinted it below ...
TPM Media LLC, owner of Talking Points Memo (talkingpointsmemo.com) and TPMCafe (tpmcafe.com), is hiring its first reporter-blogger. Primary responsibility will be reporting and posting for a new TPM Media blog focusing on Capitol Hill, Congressional Corruption, the 2006 Elections and Everything in Between. Applicants should be able to write well and write fast, as well as have a knack for distilling complex stories into clear and meticulously factual prose.Reporting experience is a definite plus, as is experience blogging. But other relevant qualifications will be considered.
Interested applicants should send a cover letter and resume to talk@talkingpointsmemo.com.
No deadline for applications. We'll hire when we've found the right person.
Hours: Endless.
Salary: Decent.
Opportunity: Priceless
More news to come on our new project.
--Josh Marshall
Their hands may be dirty, but they don't want to get stuck with the blame.
Just off the AP Wire ...
Italian secret services warned the United States months before it invaded Iraq that a dossier about a purported Saddam Hussein effort to buy uranium in Africa was fake, a lawmaker said Thursday after a briefing by the nation's intelligence chief.
More to follow ...
--Josh Marshall
Two can play that game.
Just out from the Austin American-Statesman: "Earle challenges Republican judge. DA wants DeLay judge Schraub out and new judge to name replacement. More to come."
--Josh Marshall
Returning to the scene of the crime?
Ahmad Chalabi comes to Washington to provide a "foreign policy briefing" at AEI on November 9th.
--Josh Marshall
Newsweek: "President Bush last week appointed nine campaign contributors, including three longtime fund-raisers, to his Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board, a 16-member panel of individuals from the private sector who advise the president on the quality and effectiveness of U.S. intelligence efforts."
--Josh Marshall
Some White Housers apparently think Rove's got to go for the president to get his groove back. But maybe he'll get his security clearance pulled first?
--Josh Marshall
Raleigh News & Observer, Oct. 29th: "President Bush's approval rating in North Carolina continues to decline, according to a poll released Friday by Elon University. The poll found that 41 percent of those questioned approve of Bush's handling of the job of president. That is down from 45 percent in a poll Elon did in April and 52 percent from a poll the university did in March."
--Josh Marshall
Steve Hadley Niger Uranium Mumbojumbo update.
At his press briefing today, National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley was asked about his meeting on September 9th 2002 with Italian intelligence chief Nicolo Pollari. And his answers were close to non-responsive if you look closely at what he said. Note that, like Scott McClellan earlier in the day, he seemed to go out of his way to deny allegations that no one is actually making -- namely, that he himself received the forged dossier on that day (emphasis added) ...
Q On September 9th, 2002, you met in Washington with Nicolo Pollari, the head of the Italian Intelligence Agency, SISMI. According to the Italian daily, La Republica, Mr. Pollari came to the meeting to discuss an alleged attempt by Iraq to purchase uranium from Niger. Is that claim false?MR. HADLEY: We'd looked at this issue. We had both looked at our documentary record -- I have -- we have talked -- I've searched my own recollection; we have also talked to other people on the NSC staff at the time who might have a recollection of that meeting. I can tell you what that canvassing has unearthed. There was a meeting in Washington on that date. I did attend a meeting with him. It was, so far as we can tell from our records, about less than 15 minutes. It was a courtesy call. 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. And that's also my recollection. I have very little recollection of the meeting, but I have no recollection there was any of that discussion, or that there was any passing of documents. Nor does anybody else who may have participated in that meeting. That's where we are.
Q Can you say what you did discuss with Mr. Pollari?
MR. HADLEY: I told you I have very little recollection of the meeting, and it was in the order of a courtesy call, getting to know a person who is going to be a colleague going forward. And you can tell that from the relative briefness of the meeting. And I think what the Italian authorities have said is very consistent with what I just said.
Now, I know I'm giving these comments pretty tight scrutiny. But consider these points.
First, no one ever said that Hadley got the documents during that meeting. It is a matter of public record that they appeared in Rome a month later and made their way back to Washington via the State Department.
Second, it is also a matter of public record that the Niger/Uranium story was a matter of intense interest and discussion at the White House at precisely that time. Remember, Hadley and colleagues at the NSC were trying to get the claim inserted into the president's upcoming speech in Cincinnati.
Hadley also knew -- then and now -- that the foreign intelligence service reports which had started the suspicion about the Niger/Iraq claims had come from Italy -- from Pollari's own agency, SISMI.
Given all that, it strains credulity to believe that we have to make do with 'searchings of recollections' or the like. Given the time and the topic, if this came up it would have been a big deal. People would remember. It would have been noted in minutes, etc.
It's certainly accepted practice for a president's national security advisor not to discuss what he or she discusses in meetings with foreign intelligence chiefs. Those sorts of exchanges are seldom fair game for public comment. But Hadley is talking. And maybe nothing to do with Niger or Iraq came up at all. But his answers sound supiciously vague.
It is well worth pushing for a clearer, less dodgy answer.
--Josh Marshall
Something really important just happened out in Colorado. Ed Kilgore explains.
--Josh Marshall
Wow. I saw this mentioned on Atrios's site, but without the link. But now it's up on the CBS News website: Bush at 35%.
By one measure you have to concede that the joke is really on the 65% of us who think he blows. Because no matter how unpopular he is, he's still president.
But once you get down below, say, 40% you've really, really gotta earn every new lost point on the way down.
More concretely, I'm interested to see where the president is in individual states. Ohio? Missouri?
--Josh Marshall
Wasn't Frist the one who broke tradition and campaigned against his opposite, then-Minority Leader Tom Daschle, in his home state of South Dakota? I mean, free country and all. And many of these traditions are meant to be broken. But Mr. Comity and Sweetness and Nice, he ain't.
--Josh Marshall
ThinkProgress has posted a copy of this morning's White House gaggle. And it contains this passage about the Berlusconi/Niger story ...
Q After his meeting with the President on Monday, Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi was asked whether the Italian government had provided the United States with intelligence on alleged Iraqi purchases of uranium, or from Niger. Berlusconi replied, “Bush, himself, confirmed to me that the U.S.A. did not have any information from Italian agencies.” Does the White House stand by that statement?MR. McCLELLAN: Stand by what — say the statement again.
Q Berlusconi replied — he replied in Italian, this is a translation, “Bush, himself, confirmed to me that the U.S.A. did not have any information from Italian agencies.”
MR. McCLELLAN: I think I addressed that question yesterday. I responded to that. You’ve got to go back and look at exactly what I said.
Q So your answer is, “yes”?
MR. McCLELLAN: I’m sorry? I addressed that question yesterday. I responded to it.
Q So the answer is, “yes”?
MR. McCLELLAN: Yes, if you’re talking about — because there have been some Italian reports about a meeting that took place here at the White House, and I pointed out yesterday that there were no documents provided relating to Niger and uranium at that meeting, much less –
Q Not just –
MR. McCLELLAN: — much less was it even discussed.
Q — no, not just at the meeting –
MR. McCLELLAN: And in terms of going back to the issue of Niger and uranium, I mean, we briefed on that and we talked about the basis for the statement in the remarks. And it was based on the National Intelligence Estimates and the British intelligence.
This is sort of maddening since the same thing happened yesterday. Reporters ask whether the president is really claiming that the US didn't get any of its Iraq/Niger intelligence from Italy -- a claim that is certainly false. Then McClellan chooses to answer a completely different question. McClellan answers by referring to their vague response to reports that then-Deputy National Security Advisor Steve Hadley discussed the Niger-uranium story with Italian intel chief Nicolo Pollari at a meeting in Washington in September 2002.
That September meeting is another part of the puzzle. But these are two completely different questions. But this funny business has allowed McClellan to duck answering the question for two days running.
--Josh Marshall
The Italian Connection, Part II
In the previous installment I described early reporting I did on the origins of the Niger forgeries – reporting which pointed strongly toward an Italian government role in the Niger uranium hoax.
I started reporting on the story in earnest in January 2004, when I still had a writing contract with The Washington Monthly, where I then did most of my long-form magazine reporting. So after the preliminary reporting I described earlier, I told the magazine’s editor, my friend Paul Glastris, that I would write my next piece on the Niger story. I also asked Laura Rozen to join me in reporting the story.
Soon, however, it became clear to me that we simply wouldn’t have the clout or the resources to break open the story, either in Washington or in Italy. We were also crossing paths with various unpleasant characters as we tried to piece together clues about the identity of the man who had sold the documents -- which, honestly, isn't fun without a large news organization in the mix.
So I approached a producer at 60 Minutes who had earlier expressed an interest in working together on a project. We came up with an arrangement in which we would share sources. They would have access to the sources and leads I developed and I to theirs. They’d produce their television segment. I’d write my article. Both would be separate. Our only agreement was that we wouldn’t scoop each other. I wouldn’t write my article until their TV segment aired.
Before approaching CBS we’d already come up with the name of a man we thought might be the one who had first peddled the documents to Elisabetta Burba, the Panorama journalist who’d first gotten hold of the forgeries in October 2002. The next step was to go Burba herself and see if we were right. Only she could provide the confirmation. Only she knew who it was we were looking for.
That was in the first week of April 2004.
We talked to Burba. And we asked. And, quite simply, we were wrong. Dead wrong. It wasn’t him. A huge amount of legwork was simply a bust. I've never been sure whether the original lead about the identity of the documents peddler was just a bum steer or a fragment of the real story which we had somehow misinterpreted. Regardless, for us it was a dead end.
But things didn’t end there.
Burba proceeded to do what she’d never done before. She told us about the unnamed security consultant, without revealing his name. And she went on to describe what had happened in the year and a half since the forged documents had first come into her possession.
Ever since Panorama had established the documents were unreliable, Burba had wanted to pursue the story behind the forgeries. But her editors at Panorama decided not to publish anything.
Nevertheless, she confronted her source and demanded to know where he had gotten the documents.
In response to her demands, he began to describe a murky story involving an Italian intelligence officer and a woman working at the Embassy of Niger in Rome.
Later we learned the name of her source: Rocco Martino. Martino was an information peddler, a former member of Italian military intelligence (SISMI) who, after retiring from SISMI in the early 1980s, had worked as a supplier of information and sometimes agent-for-hire for other intelligence agencies in Europe and the Middle East. His specialty, he would later tell us, was work on Islamic fundamentalist groups around the southern Mediterranean. He recounted trips over the years to countries across the Arab Middle East and North Africa.
The story began, as Martino later told us, when a former SISMI colleague had approached him with a proposition. The man’s name was Antonio Nucera, a SISMI colonel. The two had remained in professional contact over the years since Martino had left the service.
Nucera pointed Martino’s attention to a female Italian national who worked as a secretary at the Nigerien Embassy in Rome. The woman had been a long-time source for SISMI, a SISMI asset, apparently stealing documents from the Nigeriens and possibly from others and then passing them on to SISMI. Martino would later tell us that she had once worked at the embassy of another African nation in Rome -- apparently then too as a plant for Italian intelligence.
Nucera told Martino, somewhat contemptuously, that SISMI was washing its hands of the woman. But he suggested that she could provide Martino with documents and information that he could make use of, selling to his various clients, often to the highest bidder. It was from this woman working at the Niger Embassy that he had gotten the dossier of Niger uranium documents he later tried to sell her in October 2002. Later, he would come to believe that Nucera had himself provided the dossier to the woman at the Niger Embassy .
And there it was, a first account of what had happened from two of the players at the center of the drama, at least a rough outline -- from Nucera, the SISMI colonel, to the woman at the Niger Embassy to Martino.
Next we would have to try to talk to these three players themselves.
(ed.note: The text above is a revised version of the post that appeared late Tuesday evening -- jmm.)
--Josh Marshall
Sen. Trent "Long Memory" Lott questions whether Karl Rove should keep his post at the White House?
--Josh Marshall
Well done. Reid forces Frist and Roberts to stop blocking the senate investigation into White House manipulation of WMD intel prior to the Iraq war. Details to follow ...
Late Update: The details I'm told involve a November 14th deadline for a report from a group of three Republican and three Democratic senators on the status of the phase two inquiry. Also, do not miss the piece Mark Schmitt just posted at TPMCafe on what this victory may mean. It's good stuff, don't miss it.
--Josh Marshall
I'm told Sen. Reid has taken the senate into closed session to discuss the senate's failure to "phase two" of the Senate Select Committee on Inteligence report on the Iraqi WMD intelligence failure. Phase two, you'll remember, was to examine alleged administration manipulation of intelligence.
Click here to read the statement Reid gave before taking the senate into closed session.
--Josh Marshall
The name of Stephen J. Hadley (first term Deputy National Security Advisor and now National Security Advisor) has come up again and again in the Niger-uranium story.
In early 2002 Hadley was tasked with shutting down the unauthorized meetings Harold Rhode, Larry Franklin and Michael Ledeen were holding with Iraqi and Iranian exiles, and Italian intelligence figures including the head of SISMI, Nicolo Pollari, in Rome in late 2001.
On September 9th, 2002, Hadley met with Pollari in Washington. According to the Italian daily La Repubblica Pollari was there to press the details of the Niger-uranium story. The NSC has now confirmed that the meeting took place but claims it was a brief meeting and that no one present remembers the yellowcake story coming up.
In other words, it's a quite hazy denial if it's even a denial at all.
Less than a month later Hadley and others at the NSC tried but failed to get the Niger story into President Bush's October 7th WMD speech in Cincinnati, Ohio.
Days later copies of the forgeries surfaced in Rome.
Three months later Hadley and the same colleagues at the NSC succeeded in getting the Niger story included in the president's 2003 State of the Union address.
In July, Hadley took personal responsibility for allowing the bogus claim to be included in the State of the Union address and apologized publicly to the president.
Much of what I've just laid out here has been known for some time. But Hadley is doing a press briefing tomorrow afternoon at the White House to discuss the president's upcoming visit to Latin America.
It would certainly be welcome to get some clarification directly from Mr. Hadley about just what he discussed with Pollari at that September 2002 and whether the claims contained in the La Repubblica article is in fact false.
--Josh Marshall
What did the president say to Berlusconi?
From this morning's gaggle ...
QUESTION: Thank you. Any more explanation of the Berlusconi-President discussion about Italian intelligence on Iraq -- is this to say that Mr. Fitzgerald's finding that the Niger claim had its genesis in Italian intelligence was wrong?SCOTT McCLELLAN: Mr. Fitzgerald's -- I'll have to look back at what his finding was. I don't recall the specifics of that.
QUESTION: Fitzgerald found that what we had been calling British intelligence, the document -- the forged document --
SCOTT McCLELLAN: Maybe I missed that. I don't think so. I don't think so.
QUESTION: -- alleging an Iraq --
SCOTT McCLELLAN: Okay, I don't think he did.
QUESTION: I'm wrong on this?
SCOTT McCLELLAN: Maybe I'm wrong. But I don't think he --
QUESTION: That's not ringing any bells.
SCOTT McCLELLAN: Yes.
QUESTION: It's not ringing any bells with other people either.
QUESTION: No, it is, it is. And I can't remember if it's Fitzgerald or somebody else, but there's this is the central issue is --
QUESTION: The central issue was --
QUESTION: -- the source of the --
QUESTION: The source of the forged document was Italy, who handed it to --
SCOTT McCLELLAN: No, the -- we actually briefed on the source of the information back in July of 2003, and the source was the National Intelligence Estimate and British Intelligence. That was the basis for the reference in the President's State of the Union address.
QUESTION: Fitzgerald found an Italian tie, and I presume this is what the discussion between the President and Berlusconi was about.
SCOTT McCLELLAN: Yes, they -- like I said they -- Prime Minister Berlusconi brought it up, and as they indicated, that there wasn't any documents that were provided to us on Niger and uranium by --
QUESTION: Wait, no documents or no intelligence?
SCOTT McCLELLAN: I'm sorry?
QUESTION: The press report out of Italy is a transcription -- it's a transcription of the forged documents, not the actual documents themselves. But Berlusconi said yesterday was, no information passed from Italy to the United States.
SCOTT McCLELLAN: Yes, I think he was accurately reflecting what he indicated in the meeting.
QUESTION: So that accurately characterizes the President's position, that the United States never received any intelligence --
SCOTT McCLELLAN: Well, Prime Minister Berlusconi was reflecting that within the meeting, and we've previously said in regards to a question that came up about a meeting here at the White House that no one here has any recollection of Niger and uranium being discussed at that meeting, much less any documents being provided.
More to come.
--Josh Marshall
Possible Correction: Yesterday I reported that the Bush-Berlusconi press conference had been cancelled and I suggested that it had happened because both were worried about taking questions about the brewing Niger-Uranium controversy. The two also refused to take any questions when they appeared in front of reporters before their meeting in the White House.
The report of the cancellation came out of the Italian press. But I'm now told, by a reliable source, that there was actually no press conference scheduled. I think what this means is that the decision not to hold a press conference was made before it ever made it on to the schedules handed out to reporters. So I think the underlying issue is the same. But I just wanted to clear that up.
--Josh Marshall
A great experiment in student journalism: warnewsradio.com, exploring the many dimensions of the war in Iraq.
--Josh Marshall
In Washington today, at a session with members of the Italian press, PM Silvio Berlusconi said, "Lo stesso Bush mi ha confermato che gli USA non hanno avuto alcuna informazione dai servizi italiani." That loosely translates to "Bush himself confirmed to me that the USA did not have any information from Italian agencies." And the answer was reference to whether the United States had gotten any of the Niger intelligence from Italy.
The claim here is simply a lie. US suspicions about Niger and Iraq began with intelligence reports from Italy in October 2001. Those reports were based on the forged documents. Did President Bush really say that? Berlusconi must know this is false.
--Josh Marshall
Question of the day.
Italian PM Silvio Berlusconi is in Washington today.
Later this week Berlusconi's intelligence chief will be questioned before a closed session of a committee of the Italian parliament about allegations he was responsible for using back channels to funnel the Niger uranium forgeries to the White House.
Last week a top White House official was indicted on five counts stemming from the Niger scandal.
Please let us know if any journalist in Washington today puts a question regarding Italy's role in the Niger caper to Bush, Berlusconi or spokespersons for either man.
It won't be as easy as it might have been: their scheduled joint press conference was cancelled and reporters were not permitted to ask questions after the two gave brief statements today at the White House.
The White House doesn't want to answer any questions about this story; and few reporters seem inclined to press the point.
--Josh Marshall
Just out from the veep's office ...
The Vice President today appointed David S. Addington of Virginia to be the chief of staff to the Vice President. The Vice President also appointed John P. Hannah of the District of Columbia as the Assistant to the Vice President for National Security Affairs.Mr. Addington has served in the position of Counsel to the Vice President since January 20, 2001. In prior Federal service, Mr. Addington served at the Central Intelligence Agency, the Department of Defense, the White House, and four congressional committees. In the private sector, he headed a multicandidate political action committee, practiced law with two firms, and headed the law department of a trade association. Mr. Addington is a graduate of the Georgetown University School of Foreign Service and the Duke University School of Law.
Mr. Hannah has served on the national security staff in the Office of the Vice President since March 2001 and is currently the Principal Deputy Assistant to the Vice President for National Security Affairs. In prior Federal service, Mr. Hannah served at the Department of State. In the private sector, Mr. Hannah practiced law in Washington, D.C. and served as a senior official of a Washington-based foreign policy research organization. Mr. Hannah is a graduate of Duke University and the Yale Law School.
Circling the wagons.
--Josh Marshall
The Italian Connection, Part I
(ed.note: At various points over the last two years, I've discussed here at tpm reporting I've done on the origins of the Niger forgeries. I've never put all the reporting in one place; and until now there was still a good bit of information I wasn't at liberty to report. This is the first of a series of installments I'm going to publish here at TPM in which I will lay out the story as I understand it based on my own reporting and research.)
On March 7th, 2003, on the eve of the Iraq War, Mohamed ElBaradei, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, told the UN Security Council that documents purporting to show that Iraq had purchased uranium ore from Niger were in fact forgeries. The documents had been provided to the IAEA by the United States. "Based on thorough analysis," said ElBaradei, "the IAEA has concluded, with the concurrence of outside experts, that these documents - which formed the basis for the reports of recent uranium transactions between Iraq and Niger - are in fact not authentic."
As the world would soon learn, the documents had first emerged in Rome in October 2002 when an unnamed ‘security consultant’ had tried to sell them to Elisabetta Burba, a journalist working for the Italian magazine Panorama. From there, the documents made their way to the American Embassy in Rome and finally back to Washington. In early 2003, the IAEA had demanded that the US provide whatever evidence it had to support its claims that Iraq had reconstituted its nuclear weapons program. And in response the US handed over copies of the documents.
Ever since ElBaradei’s revelation, the story had been one that interested me greatly, as it did many others. And my interest only grew that summer when renewed controversy erupted over the claims retired Ambassador Joe Wilson made about his fact-finding trip to Niger. But the following winter, two streams of information opened up to me which suggested that the forgeries story went well beyond this unnamed Italian ‘security consultant’ and that the US government appeared less than interested in discovering the identities of either the forgers or those who had used the documents to deceive the American people.
One stream of information came from sources within the US government itself.
According to US government sources I spoke to in the course of my reporting, there was far more tying the forgeries to Italy than the mere fact that they had first emerged in Rome in October 2002. Almost a year earlier, US suspicions about an illicit uranium trade between Iraq and Niger had begun with intelligence reports from Italy. Soon after the September 11th attacks, the Italian military intelligence agency SISMI sent its first report to the US government including details of an alleged Iraqi purchase of 500 tons of lightly-processed uranium ore from Niger.
Details of this and a subsequent SISMI report formed the basis of a reference to alleged Iraq-Niger uranium sales which was included in a CIA briefing Vice President Cheney received in early 2002. It was that briefing that prompted Cheney's request for more information on the Iraq-Niger sale. And that request led, in turn, to the CIA's decision to dispatch Joe Wilson on his trip to Niger. The Italian reports had set the whole process in motion.
But there was another key detail: The reports out of Italy were not a separate source of intelligence from the forgeries. They were the forgeries. To be precise, the intelligence reports from Italy were actually text transcriptions and summaries of the forged documents. The reports from Italy and the forgeries were one and the same. The distinction is rather like saying you haven't seen the PDF of a letter only the text from the letter that someone copied down from the PDF. The fact that the Italian reports came from as-yet-to-be-revealed forgeries of course could not be known at the time. That only became clear to intelligence officials much later when these post-9/11 Italian reports and the forgeries were compared. But looking back in retrospect, it was clear that the whole Niger uranium canard seemed to lead back to those forgeries.
Just what that meant for Italy's role wasn’t clear. Indeed, it still isn’t entirely clear. What was quite clear, however, was that the Italian government would be a key place to start to get to the bottom of the forgeries’ mystery.
And there was more.
I also learned of the existence of a Joint State Department-CIA Inspectors General report on the “16 words” and the Niger forgeries which was produced in the fall of 2003. Much of the report detailed information later revealed in the Senate intelligence committee report. But there were other briefly noted but intriguing details.
For instance, the State-CIA IG report briefly noted a murky story about contacts between SISMI and the CIA in the summer of 2002. That summer SISMI had approached the CIA about an operation they intended to run against the Station Chief of Iraqi intelligence in Rome. The plan was to send disinformation about the Iraqi Station Chief back to Baghdad via a third country. And the subject of the disinformation was to be trade between Iraq and Niger. (The Americans did not object but declined to participate.)
That was certainly interesting.
Later, from other US government sources, I learned another detail. When the forgeries arrived at the US Embassy in Rome in October 2002, the first reaction of the CIA Station chief was to wonder whether this wasn’t the same story the Italians had suggested using against the Iraqi only months before.
As you can see, quite a lot of information seemed to suggest that the Italian government played a large role in the story of the Niger forgeries, even if it might be an innocent or unwitting one. Yet neither the CIA nor the FBI, a knowledgeable source told me, seemed intent on getting to the bottom of what had happened.
In addition to these clues, there was one more piece of information. And here is where the two streams of information I noted above flowed together. A US government source pointed me toward a series of suspicious points of overlap between the forgeries story and a series of unauthorized meetings between Italian intelligence figures, two Pentagon employees working under Doug Feith, other Americans and the disgraced Iran-Contra figure Manucher Ghorbanifar. These meetings were the subject of an article ("Iran-Contra II?") I published with Laura Rozen and Paul Glastris in the Washington Monthly in early September 2004. Around the same time, another source -- this one outside the US government – told me a murky series of details about the meetings which purported to connect them to the emergence of the forgeries in Rome in October 2002.
These were the details -- some quite specific and solidly-sourced, others murky but intriguing -- that led me to start reporting on the Niger forgeries in earnest in early 2004. In the second installment, how the Washington Monthly, Laura Rozen, and finally 60 Minutes came into the picture, and new information pointing toward the role of Italian intelligence.
--Josh Marshall
Larry Johnson sets the record straight about Joe Wilson, the senate intel report and the Fitzgerald indictments.
--Josh Marshall
More information on Dick Cheney's counsel David Addington, and his role in Plamegate, just out from Murray Waas and Paul Singer at National Journal.
--Josh Marshall
From the current version of the Gellman article in today's Washington Post ...
On July 12, the day Cheney and Libby flew together from Norfolk, Libby talked to Miller and Cooper. That same day, another administration official who has not been identified publicly returned a call from Walter Pincus of The Post. He "veered off the precise matter we were discussing" and said Wilson's trip was a boondoggle set up by Wilson's wife, Pincus has written in Nieman Reports.
From the original version now saved in the Nexis database...
On July 12, the day Cheney and Libby flew together from Norfolk, the vice president instructed his aide to alert reporters of an attack launched that morning on Wilson's credibility by Fleischer, according to a well-placed source.Libby talked to Miller and Cooper. That same day, another administration official who has not been identified publicly returned a call from Walter Pincus of The Post. He "veered off the precise matter we were discussing" and told him that Wilson's trip was a "boondoggle" set up by Plame, Pincus has written in Nieman Reports.
More soon.
--Josh Marshall
At the Washington Post online yesterday, Jeff Morley raised the possibility that last year's Dan Rather/National Guard papers scandal may have prevented CBS's 60 Minutes from airing a story on the origins of the Niger forgeries. Referring to Elisabetta Burba, the Italian journalist who was offered the forgeries in October 2002, Morley writes ...
Burba "has also been interviewed by the CBS investigative show '60 Minutes ' for a piece on the documents that was pulled in the wake of the problems that brought down Dan Rather," according to the LAT.But after suffering a major black eye last year for relying on forged documents for a story about President Bush's National Guard service, CBS would risk controversy if it aired a story about how the Bush administration allegedly relied on doctored intelligence in the run-up to the Iraq war. CBS's coverage would seem to be handcuffed, at least temporarily, by Rather's 2004 election mistake.
This account is incomplete and substantially incorrect. But that's no criticism of Morley because the actual story has never been publicly aired.
Allow me to explain.
By the late spring of 2004, 60 Minutes had interviewed Burba, the Italian journalist, Rocco Martino, the 'security consultant' who had attempted to sell her the documents in October 2002, and the SISMI asset (the female Italian national) who works in the Nigerien Embassy in Rome. The interviews implicated Antonio Nucera, a colonel from the Italian intelligence service SISMI, as the immediate source of the documents. After an initial conversation, Nucera himself refused all contact with the reporters working on the story.
After this, a string of problems delayed the airing of the story.
First, given the nature of the story, CBS, understandably, felt it was necessary to have an administration official interviewed to provide the administration's side of the story. Yet after initial arrangements had been made to interview mid-range administration officials for the story, they later declined to be interviewed. Eventually, it became clear that no Bush administration officials would agree to be interviewed for the story.
That delayed the story. But eventually, Sen. Roberts (R-KS), chairman of the senate select committee on intelligence, himself agreed to provide an interview. His only condition was that he would only speak on camera after the senate intelligence committee issued its report that summer.
That necessitated a further delay. But it also appeared to clear the way for the airing of the story mid-summer. The story was held until the senate report was released.
However, after the senate intel report appeared in early July, Roberts first equivocated and then finally withdrew his promise to provide an interview for the story.
Again, the story was held up because there was no administration official or Republican congressional figure who agreed to be interviewed. And that is where the matter stood late in the summer of 2004.
Over the next two months, in response to the interviews noted above and other reporting implicating SISMI, a series of leaks began to emerge out of SISMI that were picked up in sympathetic Italian dailies as well as the Financial Times and the Daily Telegraph. In response to these reports and, for the first time, the publication of his name, Martino again travelled to the United States for another round of interviews.
Eventually, a version of the Niger story was produced. But it had the interviews with Martino and the SISMI asset who works in the Nigerien embassy removed. While the segment provided a compelling narrative of the story of the infamous "sixteen words", it contained little or no information that had not already been reported in major newspaper coverage of the story. The reporting implicating the Italian government and SISMI were set aside for a possible follow-up report.
The produced segment was scheduled to be aired on Wednesday, September 8th, 2004. Several days before the airing, however, the possibility was raised that the Niger story would be bumped in favor of Dan Rather's segment on President Bush and the National Guard. As late as the day of airing itself, a final decision had yet to be made on which segment would run.
Once the scandal over Guard memos erupted, CBS decided that it could not run a story about forged Niger memos while it was embroiled in a scandal about forged National Guard memos. Later, CBS announced it would not run the story because it was too soon before the November election. After the election was over, no plans were made to run the piece, either in the expurgated or complete form.
--Josh Marshall
