Breakthrough On The Niger Documents?

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Breakthrough On The Niger Documents?
By Larry C Johnson
Friday, 07 July 2006 at 18:35

The defeat of Silvio Berlusconi and the election of Silvio Prodi has changed the political dynamics in Italy and opened a door that may lead to some significant progress in identifying the origin of the fraudulent Niger documents.

Phil Giraldi, a retired CIA intelligence officer and longtime Italy hand, penned the following analysis (and has kindly given me permission to post here):

The arrest of two senior Italian intelligence officers and the issuance of warrants for four Americans, three of whom are presumed to be CIA, is an indication that the new Italian government of Prime Minister Romano Prodi is prepared to be more aggressive in its investigation of renditions from Italian soil, but the process will be carefully managed in true Italian fashion. As long as the judicial proceedings make former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi look bad, they will be allowed to continue, and it is likely that several officials will be punished and the head of military intelligence (SISMI) Nicola Pollari, a Berlusconi confident, will have to resign.

But as soon as the investigation begins to draw in others who are in a position to open additional cans of worms, it will undoubtedly be carefully restrained. SISMI, which operates as a semi-independent fiefdom, undoubtedly knows where a lot of bodies are buried, politically speaking, and will not hesitate to use such information if it feel threatened by the government. It could use Berlusconi’s media empire to circulate allegations about leading politicians if necessary, and Prodi is fully aware of that possibility. The new Prime Minister is also unwilling to pick a fight with the United States over the question of the American role. On a related issue, he is neither strong enough nor interested enough to get to the bottom of the question of the Niger yellowcake uranium documents, but there are signs that an investigation of sorts is taking place. Michael Ledeen, the American neoconservative who has been most closely linked to the forged documents, is now surveilled whenever he is in Italy, for example. If Prodi had a substantial majority in Parliament, which he does not, he might be willing to take risks to reveal the renditions program and the yellowcake story, but he is not able to do so at present. The courts could, of course, continue to pursue this matter independently of the government, but if the Ministries of the Interior and Defense do not cooperate, they will soon run into a dead end. The investigation and arrests relate to the abduction of Hassam Mustafa Osama Nasr from Milanin 2003. A second Italian court has already issued arrest warrants for twenty-two suspected CIA agents but the Italian Foreign Ministry has up until now rejected judicial requests for their extradition.

As Phil notes significant obstacles to ferreting out the truth remain. But, with Berlusconi no longer in place to keep the stonewall firmly intact, we can see some cracks and the light of truth could be on the horizon. At least Michael Ledeen has some "company" while running around Italy.