FBI closed investigation of forged Iraq/Niger uranium docs 7/20/05!
http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/002988.html

November 03, 2005

Investigation Over? This Italy-US Niger uranium story just gets
stranger and stranger. From the New York Times:

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/04/international/europe/...

... 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.

~~http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?
az=view_all&address=132x2222870

~~Source of Forged Niger-Iraq Uranium Documents Identified (FBI
closes case)

I liked Italian Senator Brutti revealing that in early 2003 around
the time of the SOTU, Italian intelligence had warned Washington 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," (Indeed Senator Brutti told reporters that
Sismi (Italian CIA) 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.???) LOL

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/04/international/europe/...

Intelligence
Source of Forged Niger-Iraq Uranium Documents Identified

By ELAINE SCIOLINO
and ELISABETTA POVOLEDO
Published: November 4, 2005
ROME, Nov. 3 - 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. Nicoḷ 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.
<snip>

~~~FBI: Financial Gain Drove Uranium Forgery

http://www.itemonline.com/articles/2005/11/04/ap/headli...

FBI: Financial Gain Drove Uranium Forgery

WASHINGTON - The FBI has determined that financial gain, not an
effort to influence U.S. policy, was behind the forged documents that
the Bush administration used to bolster its prewar claim that Iraq
sought uranium ore in Niger.

(snip)

The FBI had refused comment on the matter until Italian news sources
reported this week that FBI Director Robert Mueller sent the Italian
government a letter in July with the results of the bureau's
two-year investigation.

The investigation "confirmed the documents to be fraudulent and
concluded they were more likely part of a criminal scheme for
financial gain," FBI spokesman John Miller said Friday, describing
the contents of the letter.

Miller did not say what led the FBI to its conclusion or identify the
perpetrators of the hoax.

(snip)
complete story:

http://www.itemonline.com/articles/2005/11/04/ap/headli...

~They are spinning because there ass is in a sling...
...somethings about to break...they always ramp this crap up right
before they get busted.

~~Well, that's a fine Howd-ya-do. Just after the revelations in the
Italian press and Fitzgerald extending his investigation, the FBI
concludes it's investigation with a 2-bit con game explanation. Do
they really think this is going to fly? This is such bull!

Are they trying to head off Fitz's International Investigation?

http://bellaciao.org/en/article.php3?id_article=8926

snip>

Fitzgerald's team has been given the full, and as yet unpublished
report of the Italian parliamentary inquiry into the affair, which
started when an Italian journalist obtained documents that appeared
to show officials of the government of Niger helping to supply the
Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein with Yellowcake uranium. This claim,
which made its way into President Bush's State of the Union address
in January, 2003, was based on falsified documents from Niger and was
later withdrawn by the White House.

This opens the door to what has always been the most serious
implication of the CIA leak case, that the Bush administration could
face a brutally damaging and public inquiry into the case for war
against Iraq being false or artificially exaggerated. This was the
same charge that imperiled the government of Bush's closest ally,
British Prime Minister Tony Blair, after a BBC Radio program claimed
Blair's aides has "sexed up" the evidence on Iraq's weapons of mass
destruction.

There can be few more serious charges against a government than going
to war on false pretences, or having deliberately inflated or
suppressed the evidence that justified the war.

And since no WMD were found in Iraq after the 2003 war, despite the
evidence from the U.N. inspections of the 1990s that demonstrated
that Saddam Hussein had initiated both a nuclear and a biological
weapons program, the strongest plank in the Bush administration's
case for war has crumbled beneath its feet.

Whose financial gain - the so-caled Niger Embassy employee who was
suppposed to have received some paltry amount each month? Or the
financial gain of Cheney and Rumsfeld, plus PNAC and Halliburton
I'm sure I read in another article on DU the other day that
Rocco Martino had stated that the Italians gave the forgeries to the
Americans knowing fully what they were doing. Right around the time
of Stephen Hadleys visit. This may be the ace in the hole that
Senator Reid has. I certainly hope so.

~He had to know there was a marked for just this forgery
You don't just forge stuff like this from a whim. He knew there was
a market, and he knew who it was.

No doubt in my mind he had a contract from the neo-con/PNAC group.

~2000+ dead too late....We already knew...now IMPEACH BUSH!
There is money in forging political documents?

Is is widely known that the US Government is a sucker who pays top
dollar for misleading information?

So, this guy gets dumped on--as neither the US, the Italian gov wants
to take the blame. too convient for me.

This will not satify the Dems of Phase II--nor should it!

The investigation "confirmed the documents to be fraudulent and
concluded they were more likely part of a criminal scheme for
financial gain," FBI spokesman John Miller said Friday, describing
the contents of the letter.

Miller did not say what led the FBI to its conclusion or identify the
perpetrators of the hoax.

Italian officials earlier this week identified Rocco Martino,
described as a onetime informant for the Italian secret service, as
the source of the forged documents, according to Italian Sen. Massimo
Brutti.

Some U.S. and foreign officials disputed the authenticity of
documents, supporting Bush's contention, that showed Saddam Hussein
was seeking the uranium ore for a nuclear weapons program.

The FBI had refused comment on the matter until Italian news sources
reported this week that FBI Director Robert Mueller sent the Italian
government a letter in July with the results of the bureau's
two-year investigation.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20051105/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/f...

Who was PAYING for it then? Who wanted it done enough to pay
lots of $$$$$?

Not that I necessarily buy what they are selling but WHO would anyone
financially gain from - Chalibi, the exiles, Leeden, etc.?

Who????
~
Kucinich Demands IG Investigation Into FBI's Handling Of
Investigation Int
http://www.commondreams.org/news2005/1104-08.htm

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
NOVEMBER 4, 2005
4:26 PM

CONTACT: Congressman Dennis Kucinich
Doug Gordon (202) 225-5871(o); (202) 494-5141(c)

Kucinich Demands IG Investigation Into FBI's Handling Of
Investigation Into Forged Niger Documents

FBI Drops Investigation Just As Italians Make A Potential Break In
The Case; Kucinich Sends Department Of Justice A Letter Demanding
Investigation

WASHINGTON - November 4 - Congressman Dennis J. Kucinich (D-OH) today
sent a letter to the Department of Justice Inspector General (IG),
Glenn A. Fine, demanding an IG investigation of the FBI's
handling of the situation.

The letter, sent today, states:

Dear Inspector General Fine:

I am greatly dismayed to learn that without answering any of the key
questions pertaining to the forgeries known as the Niger-Iraq uranium
documents, the F.B.I. has closed its two-year investigation.

Firstly, while the Italian investigation has identified Mr. Rocco
Martino, an occasional informant, as the distributor of the
forgeries, the F.B.I. has decided to close its investigation without
determining who authored the forgeries. What basis did the F.B.I.
have to end its investigation with the author of the forgeries still
at large?

Secondly, while the F.B.I. closed its investigation based on its
conclusion that Mr. Martino distributed the forgeries for personal
profit, it is dismaying that the F.B.I. ended its investigation
without determining who compensated Mr. Martino.

It is further disturbing that based on evidence of official Italian
cooperation with the F.B.I.'s investigation, the F.B.I. closed its
own investigation because it concluded that the government of Italy
had not sought to manipulate U.S. foreign policy with the creation
and dissemination of forgeries.

It is nearly unbelievable that the FBI is satisfied with the non-
finding that the Italian government had no responsibility in
manipulating intelligence to influence U.S. foreign policy. What
about the more likely scenario of manipulation by Americans, Iraqi
nationals or combination of both and/or rogue elements within the
U.S. intelligence?

None of the questions regarding the origin of the forgeries has been
answered, nor will they be answered, by the Italian investigation. It
is unconscionable that the F.B.I. should abandon its investigation
without answering these key questions.

The forged documents may have surfaced in Italy, but they directly
impacted U.S. foreign policy, with serious repercussions. The
President used the uranium forgeries as evidence that Iraq was
producing nuclear weapons. He declared this evidence to the American
people in his 2003 State of the Union address as reason for military
intervention in Iraq.

I respectfully request that you review the F.B.I. investigation. How
extensive was the investigation? Were there sufficient numbers of
investigators and resources committed to the investigation? Did the
F.B.I. interview White House officials? Which ones? Did the F.B.I.
interview officials from the C.I.A. or other intelligence agencies?
Which ones? What were the findings of the investigation? What is your
overall assessment of the quality and thoroughness of the
investigation?

Furthermore, I request that you determine whether or not the
investigation was prematurely closed and recommend whether or not you
believe it should be reopened. I look forward to your response to my
requests.

~~Michael Ledeen-Connect the dots
Edited on Fri Nov-04-05

"The story of Italian military intervention in Iraq begins when the
resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, Michael
Ledeen, sponsored by Defense Minister Antonio Martino, debarks in
Rome with Pentagon men in tow to meet a handful of "Iranian exiles."
The meeting is organized by SISMI. In an Agency "safe house" near
Piazza di Spagna (however, other sources have told us it was a
reserved room in the Parco dei Principi Hotel).

Twenty men are gathered around a large table, covered by maps of
Iraq, Iran and Syria. The big cheese are Lawrence Franklin and Harold
Rhode of the Office of Special Plans, Michael Ledeen of the AIE, a
SISMI chief accompanied by his assistant (the former is a balding man
between 46 and 48 years of age; the latter is younger, around 38,
with braces on his teeth) and some mysterious Iranians.

Pollari confirms the meeting to La Repubblica...
http://nuralcubicle.blogspot.com/2005/10/sismis-war-in -...