 |
|
Berlusconi's office says the September 9, 2002 meeting that Sismi director Nicolo Pollari attended at the White House was actually principally with then national security advisor Condoleezza Rice, and that Stephen Hadley just attended as her deputy. Which is pretty close to what the Berlusconi-friendly Il Foglio reported yesterday, saying that a delegation of other Sismi officials was also in attendance. Separately, have been told that the Sismi delegation did not visit Langley on the trip as would happen under normal protocol, but Il Foglio reported that a senior CIA official attended the meeting at the White House. The story gets stranger and stranger. Any other foreign country intelligence chiefs dropping in on the White House we should know about? Esp. when the White House is assembling discredited claims from those governments in making its case for war to the Congress and the American public? (Thx to reader T for the heads up).
Update: Berlusconi now says he was against the Iraq war:
Did anyone mention that Berlusconi is up for elections next year? Posted by Laura at October 29, 2005 02:05 PMIn a television interview to be aired next week, Premier Silvio Berlusconi says he repeatedly tried to convince American President George W. Bush not to invade Iraq .
In the lengthy interview to be shown on private TV channel La7 on Monday, Berlusconi says that: "I was never convinced that war was the best way to make a country democratic and to bring it out of a bloody dictatorship .
"I tried many times to convince the American president not to wage war... I tried to find other ways and solutions, even through joint action with African leader (Libya's Muammar) Gaddafi .
"We didn't succeed and there was a military operation but I believed military action should have been avoided." The comments were released by La7 two days before Berlusconi was due to visit Washington. ...