 |
|
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?
Here's where an article by La Repubblica's Carlo Bonini and Giuseppe D'Avanzo, from July 16, 2003, becomes worth revisiting. The Repubblica article asserts, among other things, that the director of Sismi, Niccolo Pollari, actually told an Italian parliamentary committee back in November 2002 that Sismi was in possession of the Niger documents themselves:
It was SISMI Director Niccolo Pollari who, in November 2002, gave the Parliamentary Supervisory Committee on the Intelligence Services confirmation of the fact that "the service is in possession of documentary evidence of the trade in pure uranium between a central African country and Iraq."
The not so final analysis? It's a bit hard to believe that Sismi suddenly hasn't the faintest clue about the origins of the Niger documents. Among other sources, Pollari is on record in front of the Italian parliament intelligence oversight committee in November 2002 saying that the Italian services were in possession of such documents. Secondly, all of these articles that suggest the French intelligence service were Martino's customer for the Niger documents are interesting for reasons other than their champions may realize: for it just bolsters the evidence that the "other sources" the British and others have cited for claims about Iraq seeking uranium in Niger were in fact based on what we know to be the forged Niger documents.