Another piece to the puzzle?Here you have the bogus dossier on Saddam’s uranium
By Carlo Bonini and Giuseppe D’Avanzo, La Repubblica, July 16, 2003
(Original article in Italian, Ecco il falso dossier sull'uranio di Saddam.)
Like a spy story not too long on imagination, the
tale began with a break-in. The apartment was on the
sixth floor at 10, Via Antonio Baiamonti, in Rome's
Mazzini district. The door was sturdy and armored,
and it protected the offices of Niger's embassy in the
capital. A gloomy corridor ran between the political
adviser's offices and the ambassador's room. On a
night between 29 December 2000 and 1 January 2001, the
usual "persons unknown" were haphazardly hunting for
something, turning the embassy upside-down: papers
strewn everywhere, drawers turned inside-out, closets
opened. When the second secretary for administrative
affairs, Arfou Mounkaila, reported the theft to the
carabinieri at the Trionfale precinct, early in the
morning of 2 January, he had, nevertheless, to admit
that the thieves had behaved in a somewhat odd manner.
Much ado, and trouble, about nothing. With the
exception of a Breil steel watch and three small
phials of perfume, the "thieves" had taken nothing.
Or so it appeared. If you knock on the embassy's
door now and ask a few questions about that odd theft,
you get a smile from a courteous lady and the
following words: "It all began there; it all began
with that theft."
The Via Baiamonti break-in was the start of the
tale that was to lead George W. Bush 24 months later,
on 28 January 2003, to utter the 16 <17 in the[br />original]
words in the State of the Union address
("The British Government has learned that Saddam
has recently sought significant quantities of
uranium from Africa.") that are now holding him
dangerously poised on the edge of the "Iraqgate"
abyss, or "Nigergate," if you prefer. Either way,
the affair took shape in Italy, because it was in Rome
that four incidents that were to steer Bush in the
direction of those rash words occurred. . .
Much more: http://warincontext.org/editorials/bogusdossier.htm
TYY
Printer-friendly format
Email this thread to a friend
Bookmark this thread
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
