This sounds like Italian government disinformation to me. As I reported in The American Prospect recently, "La Signora" almost certainly got the Niger forgeries from the Italian intelligence agency Sismi, for which she had worked as a Sismi mole inside two African embassies in Rome for decades:

Until now, press reports have indicated that La Signora concocted these documents in the Niger embassy with the help of an official from Niger. But new evidence suggests she got them from officers within SISMI itself.

The Prospect has independently confirmed that [forgeries middleman Rocco] Martino identified two other SISMI agents, along with [SISMI colonel Antonio] Nucera, who were involved in the forgery scheme from the beginning. According to a source who checked out the names Martino provided with SISMI contacts, the second agent “was a major in the [Italian] Army, and he is now a SISMI branch chief,” and the third was brought to SISMI from the Guardia di Finanzia [fiscal police] by SISMI director Nicolo Pollari. “Because of this, he can do no wrong,” this source said. Nucera and a second SISMI official involved in the Niger scheme work in SISMI’s eighth directorate on weapons-of-mass-destruction counterintelligence, while the third SISMI official works in the agency’s first directorate.

After the Italian elections Sunday, more is likely to come out on this.

Posted by Laura at April 8, 2006 06:05 PM