Treasongate: The Niger Forgeries v. the CIA Intel Reports - Part 6: The Role of Rocco Martino
by eriposte
This is the next part of a series (see Introduction, Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4 and Part 5) focused on comparing the CIA intel reports on Niger to the corresponding contents of the relevant Niger documents (mostly forgeries) to understand how the forgeries were "mainstreamed" and to what extent Italian intelligence (SISMI) was complicit in this affair.
In this part, I shift my focus a bit to address the role played by former SISMI spy Rocco Martino in the creation and/or dissemination of the forged Niger documents. This is important because the Italian Government has made Martino a scapegoat in this whole affair in order to obscure the important second dimension of Uraniumgate - namely, how (and why) the forgeries got "mainstreamed" (the first dimension being, how and why the documents were forged).
The Italian Government's position was cited a few days ago in this New York Times article (bold text is my emphasis):
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.
To be clear, Martino was not employed by SISMI at the time that he was disseminating the forgeries (2001-2002). He was, at that time, an ex-SISMI spy who was an informant for several Western intelligence agencies. Having said that, the Italian claim is deliberately misleading and an attempt to whitewash SISMI involvement, and I explain why in this post (NOTE: I reserve the right to update this post as more information becomes public).
The issues/questions I address in this post are:
1. Was Rocco Martino acting alone or did he get some "help" from SISMI?
2. Was Rocco Martino the actual forger of the documents?
3. Was Rocco Martino disseminating the forgeries for personal profit?
4. Was Rocco Martino disseminating the forgeries on behalf of the French Government, as insinuated by the Italian Government?
5. Was Rocco Martino aware of the extent of the forgeries?
6. Was Rocco Martino the source for the CIA's three intel reports on Niger in late 2001-early 2002?
7. Based on what we know about Rocco Martino's role, what do we infer about the dismissive claims from the Italian Government (SISMI) regarding the origin and dissemination of the forged documents?
DETAILS
1. Was Rocco Martino acting alone or did he get some "help" from SISMI?
Martino was NOT acting alone and he clearly did get some "help" from people working for SISMI. As to what that "help" constituted is a matter of dispute, but his forgery operation was linked directly or indirectly to SISMI.
Laura Rozen at War and Piece has summarized in a nutshell a lot of what is known about the forgery caper:
You have an ex-Sismi agent (Rocco Martino), a current Sismi vice captain (Antonio Nucera), and a long-time Sismi mole in the Niger embassy Rome involved in assembling the Niger forgeries. You have a former Sismi agent (Rocco Martino) trying to selling them, to the French, to the British, to an Italian journalist. Sismi itself issued reports to the CIA and MI6 with the information on Iraq supposedly contracting to purchase 500 tons of yellowcake from Niger that turned up in the forgeries. You have the head of Sismi Nicolo Pollari admitting to Repubblica in an interview published Monday that Sismi knew what Rocco Martino was up to in 2001 and offering to show them a photo of Martino passing the dossier to British intelligence. I am not sure how the Berlusconi government can plausibly deny that Sismi didn't have a direct role in the Niger yellowcake claims to western intelligence, and a very cozily indirect role to the forgeries themselves. Unless it's the kind of denial that Rove and Libby meant when they told the grand jury that they hadn't told journalists about Wilson's wife or her place of employment.
For those want to know more, the most expansive treatment (so far) of the group behind the forgery operation has come from the Italian newspaper La Repubblica (translation into English by Nur Al-Cubicle; bold text is my emphasis unless otherwise noted):
Unmasked by the British press (The Financial Times, The Sunday Times) in the summer of 2004, Rocco Martino spills the beans: It’s true, I had a hand in the dissemination of those (Niger uranium) documents, but I was duped. Both Americans and Italians were involved behind the scenes. It was a disinformation operation.
...
Rocco Martino is a dishonest cop and a double-crossing spy. He’s got the aura of a rogue about him even if you are not familiar with his background. A captain of politico-military intelligence between 1976 and 1997, he was let go for unethical behavior. In 1985, he was arrested for extortion in Italy. In 1993, he was arrested in Germany in possession of stolen checks. Nevertheless, according to a Defense Ministry official, Martino worked for SISMI until 1999 as a double agent.Martino rents a place at No. 3 rue Hoehl in Sandweiler, Luxemburg. He gets a fixed salary from French intelligence and uses a consulting firm as cover: Security Development Organization. In other words, he also works for French intelligence. Serving two masters, Rocco tries his best. He sells information on the Italians to the French and information on the French to the Italians. That’s my job. I sell information.
In 1999, the pleasure-seeking Rocco is running out of cash. When he’s down to his last dime, he hatches a plot of his own. He's convinced that he’s got a brilliant and risk-free idea. What illuminates the light bulb is the problem the French are encountering in Niger.
In brief, between 1999 and 2000 the French realize that someone is working abandoned mines to generate a brisk clandestine trade in uranium. Who is purchasing the smuggled uranium? The French are looking for an answer and Rocco Martino senses an opportunity.
So he asks for help form an old colleague at SISMI: Antonio Nucera. A Carabinieri (cop) like Rocco, Antonio is the Deputy Chief of the SISMI center in viale Pasteur in Rome. He’s chief of the 1st and the 8th divisions (weapons and technology transfers and WMD counterproliferation, respectively, for Africa and the Middle East).
This section is very busy section at the end of the 1980s tailing the many agents whom Saddam has deployed around the world prior to the invasion of Kuwait. “With some success”, according to an Italian intelligence official who at the time worked for the division. The official recalls: We succeeded in getting our hands on Niger code books and a telex from Ambassador Adamou Chékou to the Niger Foreign Ministry informing Niamey that Wissam al-Zahawie, the Iraqi Ambassador to the Vatican, would be coming to Niger as a representative of Saddam Hussein.
...
Nucera decided to give a hand to his old friend, Rocco. Rocco quickly briefs him on the job. Isn’t there anything you can give me—Info? A good Niger contact? I’ll take anything you have! The French are as dry as trekkers lost in the desert. They want to know who is buying their uranium under the table. I’m prepared to pay well to find out.In the archives of Nucera’s SISMI division, there are documents that could be useful in pawning off a half-baked frittata and making a few bucks. There’s the telex from the Niger ambassador. Further needs might be met at the Niger Embassy at No. 10 via Baiamonte in Rome. SISMI director Nicolò Pollari confirms to La Repubblica: Nucera wanted to help out his friend. He offered him the use of an intelligence asset—no big deal, you understand--one who was still on the books but inactive--to give a hand to Martino. The asset worked at the Niger Embassy in Rome. She was in bad shape. She barely eked out a living in the back of the espionage shop. She didn't get a monthy stipend from Italian intelligence. In other words, she was a contractor.
...
La Signora [emphasis in original article].You should have seen her, "La Signora". Sixty years old if she was a day! A face that once was pretty—now it looked a crinkled leaf. You could call her a gofer for the Niger Embassy. She looked like my old auntie. A French accent. A complicit wink. Always spoke in a whisper. Even when she said “hello”, her voice was like a tiny, mysterious flute, ready to reveal a thousands secrets. But even "La Signora" was in need of cash.
Nucera arranged the meeting. Rocco and La Signora don’t take long. He going to get what he came for. But wasn’t Nucera her official contact at SISMI? Then why wasn’t she supposed to know that it was SISMI who wanted the favor? And why was the item useful to the Agency?
With the blessing of Nucera, Rocco and La Signora, a pair of clever snake oil vendors, conclude a bargain. There would be a few sheets of paper available for sale. But the help of a Niger national was needed. La Signora points him to the right man. He’s First Embassy Counselor Zakaria Yaou Maiga. As Pollari told us, that Maiga spent six times more than he earned.
The gang of spendthrift bunglers, short on cash, is ready to go into action. Rocco Martino, La Signora, Zakaria Yaou Maiga. Nucera retreats into the shadows. They wait for the embassy to close its doors for New Years 2001. They simulate a break-in and burglary. When on January 2, 2001, bright and early, the Second Secretary for Administrative Affairs Arfou Mounkaila reports the burglary to the Carabinieri of the Trionfale station, he has to admit with a grin that the burglars were half asleep. A lot of trouble and effort for nothing. Mounkaila is unable to report missing what he doesn’t know is gone: Letterhead, and official stamps. In the hands of the snake oil vendors, useful stuff with which to assemble a dodgy dossier.
In fabricating the dossier, stale documents, such as code books, are extracted from the SISMI's division archives (where Nucera serves as deputy chief of section). To this are added the sheets of stolen letterhead that have been used for forged letters, contracts and a memorandum of understanding between the government of Niger and Iraq “concerning the supply of uranium on 5 and 6 July 2000 in Niamey”. The memorandum has a 2-page attachment entitled “Agreement”. Rocco hands over the “package” to agents from the French Direction Générale de la Sécurité Extérieure. They hand him some banknotes which he spends in Nice. Rocco loves the Cote d’Azur.
Up to this point, a caper worthy of Stan Laurel, Goofy and Cruella deVille. But it's an innocuous swindle. The French take the documents and pitch them in the rubbish. One of the agents remarks, Niger is a French-speaking place and we know how they do things there. But no one would have mistaken one minister for another in they way they did in that useless piece of garbage.
Case closed, then? No! The burlesque imbroglio is transformed into a very grave matter—along comes September 11th and Bush immediately starts to think about Iraq and requests proof of Saddam’s involvement in the attacks.
SISMI recalls the via Baiamonti squad to into action. A new director, Nicolò Pollari, arrives at Forte Brasco. And Col. Alberto Manenti, the new man on the job, is placed in charge of WMD. A well-prepared officer but completely incapable of saying "No" to a superior, says a SISMI official who worked with him. Col. Manenti had Nucera on his staff for a time and knew him well. Manenti, who knows that Nucera is about to retire, asks him to stay on as a consultant.
As of 11/6/05, Antonio Nucera was trying to shift the blame to La Signora. As Laura Rozen notes:
Sismi colonel Antonio Nucera gives an on the record interview to Il Giornale, published today. In it, Nucera confirms that it was he who called Rocco Martino, but says that he was urged to do it by the 60 year old Italian lady who worked as a Sismi asset at the Niger embassy in Rome, known by her Sismi codename "La Signora." Nucera says La Signora was eager to make some money and was "fed up with Sismi for not using her any more as in the past." Nucera is quoted, "I tought that she might be interested in cooperating with Rocco." He adds, "It's like when you introduce a bricklayer to a friend who needs him to refurbish his house. I cannot take the blame if, at the end of it, the bricklayer screws everything up." In other words, according to Nucera, the whole Niger forgeries scandal was dreamed up by La Signora.
This explanation is highly deceptive. Even if this caper was cooked up by La Signora, it doesn't explain why and how SISMI used information from La Signora and peddled it to more than one Western intelligence agency. As this report in The Independent (via Laura Rozen) also notes:
Sismi has acknowledged informing other intelligence services, including the CIA, in a letter on 15 October 2001, of "evidence of intelligence" on Iraqi efforts to procure uranium from Niger.
The information came from a woman who worked at the Niger embassy in Rome, given the code name of La Signora by Sismi. She also provided Niger's cryptographic codes and other internal documents.
The CIA questioned the report, and General Pollari says he also recorded his doubts in writing at the time. But he does not appear to have told his counterparts in other countries, where La Signora was still "a reliable source".
2. Was Rocco Martino the actual forger of the documents?
The answer to this is UNCLEAR.
The fact is that he was a source for the forgeries. He was a disseminator of the forgeries. But, whether or not he directly participated in the document-forging is not clear. Did he simply provide some materials to one of his "partners" and let them do the forging? Did he participate in creating the forged documents? Did he simply act as a messenger for his "partners" without knowing the bogus nature of the documents he was disseminating? I can't say just yet.
Martino has denied that he was the forger and has repeatedly claimed that he did not know that the documents were fake/forged. (Apparently, and scandalously, the FBI has not interviewed Rocco Martino yet even though they have closed the investigation into the forged Niger documents).
Seymour Hersh's New Yorker piece:
President Bush’s State of the Union speech had startled Elisabetta Burba, the Italian reporter. She had been handed documents and had personally taken them to the American Embassy, and she now knew from her trip to Niger that they were false. Later, Burba revisited her source. “I wanted to know what happened,” she said. “He told me that he didn’t know the documents were false, and said he’d also been fooled. ”
As this Los Angeles Times piece notes (emphasis mine):
[Martino] has told reporters over the last few years that he obtained the papers through a contact at the Niger Embassy in Rome (which, incidentally, was burglarized in 2001) with the help of another officer from Italian military intelligence, and that he sold them to a French intelligence agency with which he occasionally traded.
Through his lawyer, Martino declined an interview this week. "The less I say, the better," the lawyer, Giuseppe Placidi, quoted Martino as saying. The lawyer would only say that Martino, who was questioned by Italian prosecutors, did not realize the material was fake and did not obtain it from military intelligence.
There was a similar report in The Telegraph in the U.K. (emphasis mine):
[Martino] was also said to have claimed that he had obtained the documents from an employee at the Niger embassy in Rome, before passing these to French intelligence, on whose payroll he had been since at least 2000.
However, he reportedly also added that he had believed that the documents in question were genuine, and to have never suspected that they had been forged. "Martino has clarified his position and offered to deliver to the magistrates the documents which confirm his declarations," his lawyer, Giuseppe Placidi, told Ansa.
Laura Rozen mentions another interview:
Il Giornale, a newspaper owned by Paolo Berlusconi (the prime minister's brother), has published a story today based on an interview with Niger forgeries middleman Rocco Martino. And what does Martino say? The same thing Repubblica reported before. That he was a freelance ex Sismi agent. That it was Sismi colonel Antonio Nucera who called him saying to go to the lady at the Niger embassy in order to get "something." And that he didn't know the documents he received were forgeries, when he sold them on, originally to the French. So two big points here: According to Martino, his Sismi colonel friend Antonio Nucera *came to him* and set him up with the Sismi asset at the Niger embassy. And secondly, Rocco Martino says, he didn't forge the documents, he was just the postman.
Is it possible the 8th division of Sismi, the counterproliferation division, of which Nucera is reportedly the #2 guy, was doing its own kind of operation? Also keep in mind, that in all of the interviews he has given, Martino has been consistent in saying that this whole transaction was set in motion as early as 1999/2000. In fact, as I understand, he received the documents/forgeries *over time* from the Sismi asset at the Niger embassy in Rome. All of it occurring before Nicolo Pollari became Sismi director in October 2001.
In what appears to a translation of an older interview (also with Il Giornale) posted at the Cryptome website , Martino had this to say (via C&L, bold text is my emphasis):
(Chiocci) You speak of total good faith, but the file which you slipped to Panorama and which the weekly failed to publish after checking the affair out, was a spectacular hoax.
(Martino) I did not know that it was a hoax, and there is proof of what I say. I have been engaged in intelligence (previous word in English in original) for many years, offering my cooperation to various intelligence services including the French, about whom a great deal has been said and about whom we will be talking later on. The hoax began one day when a Nigerian (as published) Embassy source who had proven to be reliable on previous occasions and who had contacts also with the collaborator of a SISMI (Intelligence and Military Security Service) aide, passed on to me a whole lot of information. It is true that that information included some references to a uranium traffic between Niger and Iraq. What did I do at that juncture? I passed it on to the French secret service, with which I am in touch and by which I was remunerated. I passed it on also to Panorama, which assessed it in order to study it, dispatching a reporter to Niger and turning the file over to the US Embassy in Rome for cross-checking.
(Chiocci) What happened then?
(Martino) The female journalist told me that the trip to Niger had not produced any real confirmation, and also the French confirmed to me that the reports I had passed on to them were groundless. But at that juncture the beans had been spilled. The file was circulating, the reports contained in it were going around the world, and Bush and Blair were talking about those documents, albeit without actually mentioning them. I turned the television on and I did not believe my ears...
In an interview, Antonio Nucera appears to confirm one aspect of Martino's narrative (which is not to say that Martino and Nucera are both telling the truth). As Laura Rozen notes:
Sismi colonel Antonio Nucera gives an on the record interview to Il Giornale, published today. In it, Nucera confirms that it was he who called Rocco Martino, but says that he was urged to do it by the 60 year old Italian lady who worked as a Sismi asset at the Niger embassy in Rome, known by her Sismi codename "La Signora." Nucera says La Signora was eager to make some money and was "fed up with Sismi for not using her any more as in the past." Nucera is quoted, "I tought that she might be interested in cooperating with Rocco."
Now, Martino's claim that he did not know the documents were fake does seem implausible at face value. But he has one argument in his favor. The fact that he kept trying to openly sell the documents (including to French intelligence) suggests that he may have thought the claims in the documents were authentic. Why make yourself out to be loser and build a bad reputation that could ruin you forever by publicly going around and shopping obvious fakes to one group after another? Especially considering that his career as an informant could be significantly compromised.
Also, even if he did know the documents were forged, it seems doubtful that he knew the extent of the forgeries (how poorly they were forged). More on this in #5 below.
3. Was Rocco Martino disseminating the forgeries for personal profit?
It appears the answer is YES.
As discussed above, the evidence strongly points to this inference. Martino does not seem to have denied that he was doing this for money. Yet, he has also indicated that that is not the whole story. After all, there is no indication that SISMI's Antonio Nucera was "helping" Martino for money. And how about other (known or unknown) players who may have been involved in this - and their motives?
4. Was Rocco Martino disseminating the forgeries on behalf of the French Government, as insinuated by the Italian Government?
NO.
The evidence shows that he was working partly for the French Government but only as a source for them. He wasn't hired by the French to disseminate his materials to other agencies or groups. He was trying to sell them the information. Also, this claim deliberately obscures the fact that the French intelligence was not the source of the CIA's first three Niger intel reports, it was SISMI.
Laura Rozen at War and Piece has written a nice summary on this (emphasis mine):
A few people have sent me the recent Sunday Telegraph story about the Italian Niger docs middle man, Rocco Martino, asking for comment. First off, let me make clear that I am analyzing only already published articles here. Secondly, let me focus for the moment instead on a synopsis of a related story, from the Italian paper, Messaggero, that came out September 18, 2004 "La spia ritratta: innocenti i servizi italiani":
[emphasis added]Rocco Martino has been interrogated by the magistrate Franco Ionta, assisted by his attorney Giuseppe Placidi. He says that the interview of the Sunday Times was a misunderstanding. He said that he received the material from the Nigerien diplomatic officials and passed it to the French. He said that he did not realize that the dossier was a recycled one, prepared during the first months of year 2000. Police officials of the DIGOS went to his home in Formello to acquire further documents.
There's a lot here, but for the moment, the key line here is that Martino is allegedly telling the Italian magistrate that he received the documents from someone at the Niger embassy in Rome, and then sold them to the French. In fact, the spate of recent articles has all been consistent about the source of where Martino himself got the documents: the Niger embassy in Rome, which is located in an apartment at 10 Via Antonio Baiamonti, near Rome's Piazza Mazzini.
The recent articles, including this Messaggero one, the Sunday Telegraph one, and recent ones in the FT, have been interpreted by some to suggest that somehow the French were responsible for Martino's acquisition of the documents. But if you read carefully, the articles allege that French intelligence was instead Martino's customer -- not the cook. According to these articles, Martino was on their payroll to bring them information. Why would the French buy from Martino what they had produced? They wouldn't. And we already knew that Martino was trying to sell the Niger docs: after all, it's been clear from the very first reports since July 2003 that Martino had also tried to sell the package of forged Niger documents to Italian journalist Elisabetta Burba as well, back in October 2002.
So what's the point? All of these articles focus on who was the customer, but fail to get at, who was the cook? And what was the identity and motivation of the Niger embassy official who allegedly handed off the documents to Martino?
Hence, the French Government's predictable response, as captured in this New York Times article (bold text is my emphasis):
... 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."
5. Was Rocco Martino aware of the extent of the forgeries? [updated 12/18/05]
The answer is not completely clear but the evidence suggests that he was not may have not been aware of the full extent of the forgeries (i.e., how clearly bogus they were). [updated 12/26/06]
If you read my previous post "Treasongate: A Reminder - The Niger Forgeries Were Obvious Fakes" I explain how explicitly bogus the Niger documents were. They had obviously false names and dates that one could easily discern with rudimentary fact checking, or sometimes, just by looking at the documents - e.g., received date on an alleged letter that was earlier than the sent date. The fact that Martino tried again and again to sell the documents to his customers or potential customers (intelligence agencies, reporter) suggests that he probably was not aware of how seriously bogus the stuff was. Considering that his livelihood dependened on the credibility of material he was selling to intelligence agencies, I am inclined to think (for now) that he did not know a whole lot about the blatantly bogus stuff in the documents.
In fact, Martino even tried to sell the documents (which he had at the time) to the U.S. embassy in Rome in Fall 2001. Here's Laura Rozen's first post on this, which she updated in a following post (emphasis mine):
Just confirmed with a former US intelligence official who was briefed on it at the time that a surprising claim in this Washington Post story tonight is indeed true: that Rocco Martino was a walk-in to the US embassy Rome and tried to sell the Niger forgeries to them, months before the Italian reporter Elisabetta Burba brought them to the embassy at the direction of her editor at her Berlusconi-owned magazine. (My source thought he remembered Martino's walk in occurring in the early spring of 2002, but wasn't positive). The CIA Rome station chief reportedly threw Martino - and the forgeries - out.
In fact I'm a bit chagrined to realize that a source had already told this to me, but I had somehow dismissed it at the time as a slight misunderstanding of how the Niger forgeries got to the US embassy (as they later did from the Italian reporter Elisabetta Burba who was passed the forgeries by the same Rocco Martino). Apparently, when Burba brought the Niger docs in October 2002 to the US embassy in Rome, it was the Resident Security Officer, not the CIA station at the embassy, who met with her.
We know Martino sold the dossier to the French, and to the British.
Here's the follow-up from Rozen on the above that mentions that the Martino walk-in occurred in Fall 2001 (emphasis mine) - although it is not clear if this is before or after SISMI's first report to the CIA on the Niger forgeries:
Just learned that the Rocco Martino walk-in to the US embassy in Rome with the forgeries was in the fall of 2001. (He was thrown out by the CIA station chief at the time, along with the forgeries). The walk-in to the US embassy in fall of 2001 fits with the timeline of when he sold the forgeries to the British.
On the other hand, Barton Gellman of the Washington Post (whose article Rozen cites) appears to suggest that Martino's walk-in occurred prior to the first SISMI Niger uranium report to the CIA (emphasis mine):
The chain of events that led to Friday's indictment can be traced as far back as 1991, when an unremarkable burglary took place at the embassy of Niger in Rome. All that turned up missing was a quantity of official letterhead with "Republique du Niger" at its top.
More than 10 years later, according to a retired high-ranking U.S. intelligence official, a businessman named Rocco Martino approached the CIA station chief in Rome. An occasional informant for U.S., British, French and Italian intelligence services, Martino brought documents on Niger government letterhead describing secret plans for the sale of uranium to Iraq.
The station chief "saw they were fakes and threw [Martino] out," the former CIA official said. But Italy shared a similar report with the Americans in October 2001, he said, and the CIA gave it circulation because it did not know the Italians relied on the same source.
UPDATE 6/11/06: Note that Gellman's article has since been corrected on one important date (h/t de Gondi at European Tribune):
An Oct. 30 article about the disclosure that Valerie Plame was a CIA operative gave an incorrect date for a burglary at Niger's embassy in Rome, when official letterhead stationery was stolen. The burglary occurred in 2001, not 1991.
The details are sparse here, but both Rozen and Gellman are reporting that Rocco Martino did walk-in to the U.S. Embassy in Rome sometime in 2001 to try and sell them the forged Niger dossier. At least in the case of Gellman, the source for this information is a former CIA official.
Tom Hamburger et al. of the Los Angeles Times confirmed the 2001 Martino walk-in with their source - also a former CIA official. Here's the relevant snippet from their article (emphasis mine):
More than a year before President Bush declared in his 2003 State of the Union speech that Iraq had tried to buy nuclear weapons material in Africa, the French spy service began repeatedly warning the CIA in secret communications that there was no evidence to support the allegation.
The previously undisclosed exchanges between the U.S. and the French, described in interviews last week by the retired chief [Alain Chouet] of the French counterintelligence service [DGSE] and a former CIA official, came on separate occasions in 2001 and 2002.
...
Chouet recalled that his agency was contacted by the CIA in the summer of 2001 — shortly before the attacks of Sept. 11 — as intelligence services in Europe and North America became more concerned about chatter from known terrorist sympathizers. CIA officials asked their French counterparts to check that uranium in Niger and elsewhere was secure. The former CIA official confirmed Chouet's account of this exchange.Then twice in 2002, Chouet said, the CIA contacted the French again for similar help. By mid-2002, Chouet recalled, the request was more urgent and more specific. The CIA was asking questions about a particular agreement purportedly signed by Nigerian officials to sell 500 metric tons of uranium to Iraq.
...
Still, Chouet said in the interview that the question from CIA officials in the summer of 2002 seemed to follow almost word for word from the documents in question. He said that an Italian intelligence source, Rocco Martino, had tried to sell the documents to the French, but that in a matter of days French analysts determined the documents had been forged."We thought they [the Americans] were in possession of the documents," Chouet said. "The words were very similar." The former CIA official said that in fact the U.S. had been offered the same documents in 2001 but had quickly rejected them as forgeries.
6. Was Rocco Martino the source for the CIA's three intel reports on Niger in late 2001-early 2002?
Absolutely NOT.
This simple fact is what the Italian Government wants to obscure by making Martino a scapegoat.
It is well known that the CIA's source was the Italian intelligence service (SISMI). Numerous news reports, citing U.S. intelligence officials, have confirmed this. Here's a recent article from Knight-Ridder:
Contrary to Italian government denials, a powerful Italian military intelligence agency passed bogus allegations to the United States of an Iraqi effort to buy uranium ore from the African nation of Niger for a nuclear bomb program, U.S. officials said Friday.
...
Four U.S. officials said the Italian military intelligence agency known as SISMI passed three reports to the CIA station in Rome between October 2001 and March 2002 outlining an alleged deal for Iraq to buy uranium ore, known as yellowcake, from Niger. Yellowcake is refined into the uranium fuel that powers nuclear weapons.The U.S. officials spoke on condition of anonymity because portions of the matter remain classified.
One of the reports passed by SISMI contained language that turned out to have been lifted verbatim from crudely forged documents that outlined the purported uranium-ore deal, the U.S. officials said.
"SISMI was involved in this; there is no doubt," said a U.S. intelligence official who's closely followed the matter.
...
Two of the U.S. officials said SISMI passed similar reports about the alleged deal, based on the forgeries, to the intelligence services in Britain, France and Germany.
Although the SSCI Report studiously avoids mentioning that the source of the first three Niger intel reports was Italy, it does openly mention British and French intelligence as being the source for some other claims. It would therefore be unnecessary to hide British or French involvement as the sources for the initial, three Niger intel reports - if that had been the case. The fact that the source was hidden in the report is revealing because it shows that a deliberate attempt was made to prevent more embarassment for the Italian Government (which is now, "scandalously", trying to implicate the French). After all, the fact that the source was Italian intelligence had been reported publicly in newspapers prior to the appearance of the Senate Report. (Moreover, the French admitted that the only intel they gave the U.S. - in Nov 2002 - was based on the forgeries, as the Senate Report acknowledged; in contrast the Italians have obfuscated and deceived the public repeatedly).
As this report in The Independent (via Laura Rozen) also notes:
Sismi has acknowledged informing other intelligence services, including the CIA, in a letter on 15 October 2001, of "evidence of intelligence" on Iraqi efforts to procure uranium from Niger.
The information came from a woman who worked at the Niger embassy in Rome, given the code name of La Signora by Sismi. She also provided Niger's cryptographic codes and other internal documents.
The CIA questioned the report, and General Pollari says he also recorded his doubts in writing at the time. But he does not appear to have told his counterparts in other countries, where La Signora was still "a reliable source".
UPDATE 12/26/06: In his book "A Pretext For War", James Bamford writes:
In the fall of 2001, as George W. Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair began working together to build a coalition of support for a war in Iraq, a shadowy meeting took place amid the noisy espresso bars and busy trattorias in central Rome. A few days earlier, a mysterious call had been received at Italy's Military Intelligence and Security Service, the SISMI. Someone was offering to sell information on Iraq's efforts to regenerate its nuclear weapons program through the purchase of tons of uranium from Niger, a small West African country known for its poverty and expensive rocks. [page 298-299]
He continues:
In any case, the SISMI passed on details of the supposed Iraq-Niger deal to the Executive Committee of the Intelligence and Security Services (CESIS), which in turn passed it on to the Farnesina, the Italian Foreign Ministry, and to Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi at his office in Rome's Palazzo Chigi. Only the Farnesina raised "strong objectives" and "reservations" about the report - primarily from the African Countries Directorate. They were greatly concerned about the reliability of the information.
Nevertheless, the SISMI quickly got in touch with their British MI-6 liaison and, following a number of meetings in Rome and London, passed on a summary of the information, indicating that the source was "reliable." "The British bought it without assessing it in any way," said one SISMI official. Both MI-6 and the SISMI then passed the same summary on to the CIA. [pages 303-304]
7. Based on what we know about Rocco Martino's role, what do we infer about the dismissive claims from the Italian Government (SISMI) regarding the origin and dissemination of the forged documents?
The Italian Government's denials are highly deceptive and deliberately misleading.
They (and SISMI) have issued multiple denials about any SISMI role in the forging or dissemination of the bogus Niger documents. They have instead pointed fingers at Rocco Martino and the French Government. Let's start with some of the deliberately grossly statements they have made:
New York Times (bold text is my emphasis):
... 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.
...
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.
Italy's spy chief Nicolo Pollari firmly denied on Thursday passing bogus documents to the United States before the Iraq invasion that purported to show Baghdad had sought uranium from Niger.
But it was not clear whether his Sismi military intelligence agency had warned allies about the forgeries.
Lawmakers emerging from the closed-door parliamentary session with Pollari said that the so-called Niger dossier was being peddled by an ex-Sismi collaborator, who has been investigated by Italian magistrates.
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.
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.
Now, it is certainly possible that SISMI neither forged nor disseminated the forgeries as-is. But there is no doubt that the Niger intel that SISMI fed to the CIA was based on extracts/contents from the forged documents. That is a fact confirmed by the CIA.
In other words, even if SISMI did not pass around the bogus Niger documents themselves, they did pass around translations/transcriptions of some of the claims that were present in those documents.
It is no surprise then that U.S. intelligence officials corrected SISMI's denials. Here's Knight-Ridder:
Contrary to Italian government denials, a powerful Italian military intelligence agency passed bogus allegations to the United States of an Iraqi effort to buy uranium ore from the African nation of Niger for a nuclear bomb program, U.S. officials said Friday.
...
Four U.S. officials said the Italian military intelligence agency known as SISMI passed three reports to the CIA station in Rome between October 2001 and March 2002 outlining an alleged deal for Iraq to buy uranium ore, known as yellowcake, from Niger. Yellowcake is refined into the uranium fuel that powers nuclear weapons.The U.S. officials spoke on condition of anonymity because portions of the matter remain classified.
One of the reports passed by SISMI contained language that turned out to have been lifted verbatim from crudely forged documents that outlined the purported uranium-ore deal, the U.S. officials said.
"SISMI was involved in this; there is no doubt," said a U.S. intelligence official who's closely followed the matter.
...
Two of the U.S. officials said SISMI passed similar reports about the alleged deal, based on the forgeries, to the intelligence services in Britain, France and Germany.
As Laura Rozen commented:
You have an ex-Sismi agent (Rocco Martino), a current Sismi vice captain (Antonio Nucera), and a long-time Sismi mole in the Niger embassy Rome involved in assembling the Niger forgeries. You have a former Sismi agent (Rocco Martino) trying to selling them, to the French, to the British, to an Italian journalist. Sismi itself issued reports to the CIA and MI6 with the information on Iraq supposedly contracting to purchase 500 tons of yellowcake from Niger that turned up in the forgeries. You have the head of Sismi Nicolo Pollari admitting to Repubblica in an interview published Monday that Sismi knew what Rocco Martino was up to in 2001 and offering to show them a photo of Martino passing the dossier to British intelligence. I am not sure how the Berlusconi government can plausibly deny that Sismi didn't have a direct role in the Niger yellowcake claims to western intelligence, and a very cozily indirect role to the forgeries themselves. Unless it's the kind of denial that Rove and Libby meant when they told the grand jury that they hadn't told journalists about Wilson's wife or her place of employment.
La Repubblica's Giovanni D'Avanzo (translation by Nur Al-Cubicle) asks:
1. The forged dossier is assembled by Rocco Martino (SISMI agent), La Signora (SISMI asset), Antonia Nucera (SISMI colonel in the employ of Italy’s clandestine services at least until the beginning of 2002, if a story in the newspaper L’Unità is correct). What did Italy’s intelligence officials know of this activity (former SISMI director Admiral Gianfranco Battelli, current director Nicolò Pollari)? The dossier that the con man puts together included stale intelligence from the 1980s. How and by whom was this information removed from the SISMI archives at Forte Braschi? Was there an internal investigation? Were there any conclusions? If no such investigation was opened, then why?
2. On October 15, 2001, SISMI claims that La Signora is a “creditable source” but then it turns around and questions the information which she passes to them. How can a source be “creditable” if it passes only dubious information? What kind of checks and verifications did SISMI perform on La Signora’s reliability and the trustworthiness of the intelligence which she gathers? Did Colonel Antonio Nucera have a hand in the operation, assuming he was there? What were the results?
This story is far from over.