Raw Story: American Says He Wrote for Mag That "Found" Niger Documents

[No Exit]

American who advised Pentagon says he wrote for magazine that found forged Niger documents

Larisa Alexandrovna

Published: January 17, 2006

A controversial neoconservative (Michael Ledeen) who occasionally consulted for the Bush Defense Department has confirmed that he was a contributor to the Italian magazine Panorama, whose reporter (Elisabetta Burba) first came across forged documents which purported that Iraq was seeking to obtain uranium from Niger. The bogus documents became the basis for the infamous sixteen words in President Bush's 2003 State of the Union Address, in which he detailed his case for war. Their origin has been one of the most persistent mysteries in how American intelligence on Iraq was so wrong.

(snip)

"I've said repeatedly, I have no involvement of any sort with the Niger story, and I have no knowledge of it aside from what has appeared in the press," Ledeen said.......
.......A closer look at the series of overlapping relationships and events, however, suggests that Ledeen may have been connected, even if inadvertently, to the Niger forgeries.

Panorama has been in the crosshairs since late 2002, when one of its journalists, Elisabetta Burba, was handed a set of documents -- including contracts -- purporting to show that Saddam Hussein had purchased 500 tons of yellowcake uranium from the African nation of Niger. These documents were critical in supporting the administration's claims that Iraq had reconstituted its nuclear weapons program.

(snip)

Burba says she got the documents from former Italian intelligence asset Rocco Martino. Martino handed the documents off to Burba in the fall of 2002, initially demanding money and then simply providing them. After investigating the documents for an article and finding them to be suspect, Burba suggested to her editor, Carlo Rossella, that she take a trip to Niger to investigate further. Rossella diverted her to the U.S. embassy in Rome instead. She never ran the article. Burba dropped off the forgeries to the US embassy on Oct. 9, 2002.

(snip)

(emphasis added)

http://rawstory.com/news/2005/American_who_consulted_for_Pentagon_says_0117.html

Why was a reporter (Burba)-- for the same magazine for which Ledeen wrote-- given this set of documents (the Niger forgeries)? Why, when she suggested to her editor that she investigate further by going to Niger, did her editor instead tell her to take the forged documents to the U.S. embassy? Could Ledeen have helped create the Niger forgeries?

Incidentally, the owner of the Italian magazine Panorama is Bush's fellow war-lover, Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi.

[TayTay]

1. Hey lalawawa, nice work!

Larisa, good job here! Let's just hope that someone in the media picks up a little of this and puts two and two together. (What am I saying? This is our frightened little cowering media. I forgot about the big coward factor.)