The FBI's review of WMD forgeries looks like a sham
The FBI's review of WMD forgeries looks like a sham
As long as the Rove/Plame/Wilson saga is now back on the front pages, let’s remember some loose threads that could still use some pulling.
And not just ones about the legal particulars of what Karl Rove knew or when he did what — but the big story, the White House’s knowing use of phony intelligence about an Iraqi nuclear program to game the country into war. And behind even that, those pesky Niger uranium forgeries. Where did they come from? Who created them? And why?
This may seem like ground that’s already been thoroughly plowed. In fact it remains largely virgin earth.
Let’s review some of the details.
It’s been known since just before the outbreak of the war, almost two and a half years ago, that the prime “evidence” at the center of administration claims about an Iraq nuclear program was the work of forgers. This was announced by the International Atomic Energy Agency on the eve of the war, and in reaction Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.) called for an FBI investigation into the origins of the forgeries themselves.
Ironically, though, that right-minded request became an excuse for not getting to the bottom of the mystery.
As last year’s Senate intel report on Iraqi weapons of mass destruction states in a footnote at bottom of Page 57, it was because of this FBI investigation that the Intelligence Committee walled off everything about the documents prior to their arrival at the U.S. Embassy in October 2002. So everything about how those forgeries came into being and why they ended up in the hands of the U.S. government remained beyond the purview of the committee. Committee investigators simply didn’t look into it.
That might make sense if there were an active FBI investigation. But there’s every reason to think that the FBI’s investigation was a phantom probe from the start.
When my colleagues and I started investigating the Niger forgeries in early 2004, the word we got from FBI sources was that the file the bureau had put together on the forgeries was embarrassingly thin. Sources can be wrong, of course. And one would expect the true details of such a sensitive inquiry to be held very tightly. So we didn’t put that much stock in those claims.
But, as we began to investigate the story ourselves, the thought that our FBI sources might be right became more and more difficult to avoid.
For instance, first we talked to Elisabetta Burba. She’s the reporter for Italy’s Panorama magazine who first brought the papers into the U.S. Embassy in Rome back in October 2002.
The FBI had spoken to Burba. But Burba described an essentially cursory interview. One prime interest of the bureau was finding a way to make contact with the unnamed “security consultant” who had tried to sell her the documents.
The agent who interviewed Burba suggested possible ways that they could communicate with this Mr. X while still maintaining his anonymity. She was asked to follow up with the man and see if any of the proposed means of communicating would be acceptable.
She did that. But, according to Burba, the bureau’s agent never followed up. The next she heard from him was a courtesy call months later to tell her he was moving on to another assignment. That’s what Burba told us.
Later, through Burba, we did make contact with Mr. X. His name is Rocco Martino, a former agent of Italian military intelligence.
We even brought him to the United States to be interviewed — twice, in the summer of 2004.
As we moved ahead with our reporting and found more clues tying the forgeries to Italian intelligence, Martino’s name was leaked to a number of European newspapers. Whatever Martino’s role was in the whole caper, by the time we brought him to New York for the second time — in late August 2004 — he had been identified by name in major papers across Europe as the seller of the documents.
The revelation of Martino’s identity had created such a stir in Italy that for his second trip arrangements had to be made for him to leave the country before boarding a plane to the United States.
Martino, of course, traveled to New York under his own name. And given that his name was now known and that several press accounts had suggested that he was himself the forger, my colleague and I had a friendly bet as to whether FBI agents might be waiting at customs to speak with him when he got off the plane in New York.
As long as the Rove/Plame/Wilson saga is now back on the front pages, let’s remember some loose threads that could still use some pulling.
And not just ones about the legal particulars of what Karl Rove knew or when he did what — but the big story, the White House’s knowing use of phony intelligence about an Iraqi nuclear program to game the country into war. And behind even that, those pesky Niger uranium forgeries. Where did they come from? Who created them? And why?
This may seem like ground that’s already been thoroughly plowed. In fact it remains largely virgin earth.
Let’s review some of the details.
It’s been known since just before the outbreak of the war, almost two and a half years ago, that the prime “evidence” at the center of administration claims about an Iraq nuclear program was the work of forgers. This was announced by the International Atomic Energy Agency on the eve of the war, and in reaction Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.) called for an FBI investigation into the origins of the forgeries themselves.
Ironically, though, that right-minded request became an excuse for not getting to the bottom of the mystery.
As last year’s Senate intel report on Iraqi weapons of mass destruction states in a footnote at bottom of Page 57, it was because of this FBI investigation that the Intelligence Committee walled off everything about the documents prior to their arrival at the U.S. Embassy in October 2002. So everything about how those forgeries came into being and why they ended up in the hands of the U.S. government remained beyond the purview of the committee. Committee investigators simply didn’t look into it.
That might make sense if there were an active FBI investigation. But there’s every reason to think that the FBI’s investigation was a phantom probe from the start.
When my colleagues and I started investigating the Niger forgeries in early 2004, the word we got from FBI sources was that the file the bureau had put together on the forgeries was embarrassingly thin. Sources can be wrong, of course. And one would expect the true details of such a sensitive inquiry to be held very tightly. So we didn’t put that much stock in those claims.
But, as we began to investigate the story ourselves, the thought that our FBI sources might be right became more and more difficult to avoid.
For instance, first we talked to Elisabetta Burba. She’s the reporter for Italy’s Panorama magazine who first brought the papers into the U.S. Embassy in Rome back in October 2002.
The FBI had spoken to Burba. But Burba described an essentially cursory interview. One prime interest of the bureau was finding a way to make contact with the unnamed “security consultant” who had tried to sell her the documents.
The agent who interviewed Burba suggested possible ways that they could communicate with this Mr. X while still maintaining his anonymity. She was asked to follow up with the man and see if any of the proposed means of communicating would be acceptable.
She did that. But, according to Burba, the bureau’s agent never followed up. The next she heard from him was a courtesy call months later to tell her he was moving on to another assignment. That’s what Burba told us.
Later, through Burba, we did make contact with Mr. X. His name is Rocco Martino, a former agent of Italian military intelligence.
We even brought him to the United States to be interviewed — twice, in the summer of 2004.
As we moved ahead with our reporting and found more clues tying the forgeries to Italian intelligence, Martino’s name was leaked to a number of European newspapers. Whatever Martino’s role was in the whole caper, by the time we brought him to New York for the second time — in late August 2004 — he had been identified by name in major papers across Europe as the seller of the documents.
The revelation of Martino’s identity had created such a stir in Italy that for his second trip arrangements had to be made for him to leave the country before boarding a plane to the United States.
Martino, of course, traveled to New York under his own name. And given that his name was now known and that several press accounts had suggested that he was himself the forger, my colleague and I had a friendly bet as to whether FBI agents might be waiting at customs to speak with him when he got off the plane in New York. |
