The investigative reporting team at Italy's La Repubblica has an explosive story out today, on the Italian angle on the Nigergate mysteries. In it they report that Nicolo Pollari, the chief of Italian military intelligence Sismi, met with then deputy national security advisor Stephen Hadley in September 2002 -- just as the White House was assembling the evidence it would use to convince the American public and Congress of the need for war, in large part, the White House claimed, to prevent Saddam from reconstituting his nuclear arsenal. The meeting could help explain why despite numerous attempts by the CIA to get the White House to take out the Niger yellowcake claims from its speeches, the claims made their way back into Bush's 2003 State of the Union speech. The unusual meeting may also help explain the seemingly hysterical overreaction of the White House to Joseph Wilson's pushback on the Niger yellowcake claims, several months later. I'm reporting on the case over at The American Prospect and Tapped.

Update: An NSC spokesman has just confirmed to me the Pollari-Hadley meeting on September 9, 2002. Would not disclose what the topic of discussion at the meeting was, as a general rule.

Posted by Laura at October 25, 2005 11:25 AM