SISMI Was Gooey With Yello Cake

Talking Points Memo: by Joshua Micah Marshall: October 30, 2005 - November 05, 2005 Archives:

"Italian intelligence officials and parliamentarians put on a dog and pony show yesterday in Rome claiming that the Italian intelligence agency SISMI had no connection to the forgeries and did not pass on any of the bogus information contained in them to any other countries, including the United States.

But that's simply not true. Landay confirms what we first reported more than a year ago: that in late 2001 and early 2002 Italian intelligence sent reports to the US alleging that Niger was selling yellowcake uranium to Iraq. Those reports were based on the notorious forged documents, in some cases they were text transcriptions of the documents."

From the article:

One of the reports passed by SISMI contained language that turned out to have been lifted verbatim from crudely forged documents that outlined the purported uranium-ore deal, the U.S. officials said.

"SISMI was involved in this; there is no doubt," said a U.S. intelligence official who's closely followed the matter.

The United States obtained complete copies of the forgeries in October 2003; the International Atomic Energy Agency had determined that the documents were fakes in March 2003, shortly before the invasion of Iraq, and the White House later conceded that Bush shouldn't have made the allegation.