Newsweek: FBI never interviewed Martino, says anonymous CIA source

[Wordie]

My head is spinning!

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/9938998/site/newsweek /
<snip>
Intel Probe: The Yellowcake Mystery

Nov. 14, 2005 issue - The FBI ended a two-and-a-half-year probe into the Niger uranium documents without resolving a key mystery: who forged papers used to bolster President Bush's case for war in Iraq? The bureau announced that the documents, purportedly showing attempts by Saddam Hussein's government to purchase yellowcake uranium, were concocted for financial gain rather than to influence U.S. foreign policy. But Sen. Jay Rockefeller, vice chair of the Senate intelligence committee, had questions. Without more info about the "thoroughness" of the bureau's efforts, he said, "I cannot make a judgment on the accuracy of the conclusions."

The forged documents are a backdrop to the CIA leak case involving the wife of ex-diplomat Joe Wilson. The CIA sent Wilson in February 2002 to look into the Niger uranium issue after Italy's military-intelligence agency, SISMI, got copies of the forged papers and sent reports about them to the CIA and other Western intel agencies. But a senior bureau official, requesting anonymity because of the matter's sensitivity, told NEWSWEEK the FBI never interviewed Rocco Martino, the Italian businessman who provided the documents to SISMI. Because there was no apparent violation of U.S. law, the bureau couldn't compel him to talk—even though he twice visited the United States last year to be interviewed by CBS's "60 Minutes." (The story never aired.) Last week Martino talked again, telling an Italian newspaper he played "a double, triple game"—working as a freelance agent for SISMI and French intelligence. Martino said he was instructed by a SISMI agent to pick up the docs from a woman at the Niger Embassy in Rome. "I was simply the deliveryman," he said, adding he had no idea the papers were fraudulent. Italian intel chief Gen. Nicola Pollari denied that his agency forged the documents, but claimed SISMI warned the United States the documents were fraudulent after Bush mentioned Saddam's interest in buying uranium from Africa in his January 2003 State of the Union Message.

Democratic frustrations about the Iraq war boiled over last week when Minority Leader Sen. Harry Reid forced the Senate into a rare closed session to demand progress on a stalled Senate intel-panel probe. Intel chair Sen. Pat Roberts then agreed to complete the investigation. The panel has assembled nearly 500 prewar public statements by officials of both parties about Saddam's weapons programs and terror links. Committee staffers have matched the pronouncements—which include statements by Dems and Clintonites as well as Bush spokesmen and Capitol Hill GOPers—with prewar intel reports. But Roberts says only senators—not staffers—should draft final conclusions about whether the public statements were hyped, a procedure that infuriates Dems. Critics say Roberts has also stymied an inquiry into whether Pentagon units "cherry-picked" intel reports on Saddam. Roberts turned that probe over to the Pentagon's inspector general; a spokesman for the Pentagon IG declined to comment.

—Michael Isikoff and Mark Hosenball

[aquart]

1. Does it seem to you that Martino needs to be "compelled" to talk?

Because it looks a whole lot more like he can hardly bear to keep it in.

Remind me: Did the WH embarrass Newsweek? Sometime in the recent past?

[Wordie]

3. LOL...good point. Seems like Martino has been blabbing all over!

On Saturday, he did an interview with an Italian newspaper (this was in a different thread) and said he DID NOT do the forgeries. This of course, was the day after he supposedly had told the Italian government that he HAD (or maybe they just decided that, I'm not entirely sure, at any rate, it was announced that he was the forger on Friday.)

I wonder if we will ever know the truth of this story. (Although, given some of the inconsistencies, such as you just pointed out, I think in the end we'll have a pretty good guess.)

[Erika]

2. We must know the truth behind the invasion

So it will never, never, happen again. Our economy is reeling and our troops are dying. For what?

[Garbo 2004]

4. I recall Josh Marshall previously said the FBI didn't even try to talk to

Martino while he was here in the US. Marshall was working on the story last year. (Recently he revealed that he also was collaborating with CBS on their Niger yellowcake 60 Minutes piece...the one that never ran.)

Here's Marshall's comments on the Newsweek story:

As those of you who are following my on-going series of installments on this story know, I spent time with Martino during both of those visits to the US. And this line about not being able to compel him to testify is a crock.

I don't know what the Bureau's authority would have been in such a case. But whether they had any power to compel Martino to talk is irrelevant because they didn't even try to contact him while he was here...

...There have now been a number of press reports about the alleged FBI investigation into the forgeries story. The Bureau has stated publicly that they have closed the investigation and that they did so after determining that there were no political motives behind the hoax, only a desire to make money. They made that determination without figuring out who forged them or even talking to the guy at the center of the story. And the reasons they're giving for not talking to him are, frankly, bogus. http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/006939.php

[Nothing Without Hope]

5. recommended and kicked n/t