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Oct 28, 2005, 10:43:11 AM10/28/05

Democracy Now
October 27, 2005

Italian Media Reveals U.S. Officials Met With Italian Intelligence Officials To
Discuss Fake Documents Citing Niger Nuke Sales to Iraq

As the country waits to see whether indictments will be handed down to top White
House officials in the CIA leak case, reports are breaking that Italian intelligence
and Bush administration officials met in connection with the forged Niger documents
that were used to justify the 2003 invasion of Iraq. We get the latest from law
professor Scott Horton and journalist Laura Rozen.

Rumors continue to fly in Washington over whether any top White House officials will
be forced to resign for their involvement in the outing of CIA operative Valerie
Plame Wilson. On Wednesday special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald presented a summary
of his case to the grand jury, which could hand down indictments today or tomorrow.
According to the Washington Post, Karl Rove’s legal team has been engaged in a
furious effort to convince Fitzgerald that Rove did not commit perjury. The
D.C.-based newspaper Roll Call reporter Fitzgerald was spotted Wednesday at the
offices of Rove’s attorney.

Meanwhile on Tuesday a member of Fitzgerald’s team interviewed former White House
press aide Adam Levine about conversations he had with Rove on July 11 2003 -- just
days before Valerie Plame Wilson’s name first appeared in the press. The grand jury
is set to expire on Friday but there has been speculation that Fitzgerald might try
to extend the grand jury’s term.

On Wednesday White House press secretary Scott McClellan
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scott_McClellan) was questioned about the impact the
investigation has had on the White House.

Scott McClellan: “First of all, there’s a lot of speculation going around, and I
think there are a lot of facts that are simply not known at this point. It remains an
ongoing investigation, and we’ll let the special prosecutor continue to do his work.
And I’m sure he will have more to say in due course. In terms of the White House,
this White House is focused on the priorities of the American people. We’re working
on the priorities that the American people care about. The President has had a very
busy day. He started his morning focused on the highest priorities facing this
country by – which is winning the war on terrorism protecting the homeland”.
To discuss the latest news about the CIA leak investigation and to explain how grand
jury indictments work we are joined by:

* Scott Horton J.D., is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) and chairs
the Committee on the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) of the International
Law Committee at the New York City Bar Association
(http://www.nycbar.org/Committees/index.htm). He is also an adjunct professor of law
at Columbia University where he lectures on international law and international
humanitarian law. http://www.eurasianet.org/about/horton.shtml ,
http://www.law.columbia.edu/faculty/adjunct_faculty?&main.ctrl=contactmgr.list&main.view=profiles.list&main.startrow=11&main.rtrecycle=1&main.find=H

* Laura Rozen, a journalist who covers national security and foreign policy issues.
She is a senior correspondent for The American Prospect and she edits the widely read
blog War and Piece (http://www.warandpiece.com)

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RUSH TRANSCRIPT

AMY GOODMAN: On Wednesday, White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan was questioned
about the impact the investigation has had on the White House.

SCOTT McCLELLAN: First of all, there's a lot of speculation going around, and I
think there are a lot of facts that simply are not known at this point. It remains an
ongoing investigation, and we'll let the special prosecutor continue to do his work,
and I'm sure he will have more to say in due course. In terms of the White House,
this White House is focused on the priorities of the American people. We're working
on the priorities that the American people care about. The President has had a very
busy day. He started his morning focused on the highest priorities facing this
country, which is winning the war on terrorism and protecting the homeland.

AMY GOODMAN: That was White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan speaking Wednesday.
To discuss the latest news about the CIA leak investigation and to explain how grand
jury indictments work, we're joined by two guests. Laura Rozen is a Washington,
D.C.-based journalist, senior correspondent for the American Prospect
(http://www.prospect.org), frequently writes about national security and foreign
policy issues on her blog, "War And Piece" And we are joined in our New York studio
by Scott Horton, Chair of the International Law Committee at the New York City Bar
Association; he’s also Adjunct Professor of Law at Columbia University where he
lectures on international law and international humanitarian law. Laura Rozen, let's
begin with you. Can you tell us the latest at point of this broadcast?

LAURA ROZEN: I'm afraid I can't. I was really preparing to speak more on these Niger
forgeries, and I -- --

AMY GOODMAN: Go ahead.

LAURA ROZEN: I'm not up on latest from over night really on the leak investigation. I
apologize.

AMY GOODMAN: No, that's fine. Why don't you talk about exactly what you're referring
to when you talk about how Niger fits into this story?

LAURA ROZEN: Yes. You know, the outing of Valerie Plame Wilson
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plame_affair) is kind of the end of this long process
that began with these documents, these forged documents that came into the possession
of the U.S. government that purported to show a contract for Iraq to purchase vast
quantities of yellow cake uranium in the African country of Niger
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellowcake_forgery). So, in Italy this week, an
investigative reporting team has made great headway in actually identifying who were
the people who actually set this whole forgeries in motion that, you know, the Bush
administration cited as one of the reasons they thought that Iraq was reconstituting
its nuclear weapons. And it turns out to be various current and ex-officials from the
neo-fascist Italian military intelligence organization, SISMI
(http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/2005_10.html). And that's quite interesting,
because, you know, the Italian prime minister
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silvio_Berlusconi) was very supportive -- is a
supporter of President Bush and was one of the few European allies to support the
U.S. invasion of Iraq. And they kept, through various channels, trying to channel
this false intelligence to the U.S. and British intelligence.

JUAN GONZALEZ: Many Americans here are not familiar with this angle, this Italian
angle to the entire situation here of the false information given out about the --
about Niger and nuclear weapons. Could you talk about -- a little bit about the "La
Repubblica" articles? And exactly what is the connection between the officials in the
Bush administration and the -- this Italian -- the forgeries that originated there?

LAURA ROZEN: Right. Well, Vice President Cheney asked his CIA briefers in February
2002, that says that he had heard something about this Niger yellow cake claim and
asked them to find out more. They sent ambassador Joseph Wilson on the trip to Niger.
He didn't -- Cheney's office apparently didn't know anything about this. You know,
seven, eight months later, September 2002, just as Andy Card
(http://www.nndb.com/people/646/000024574) is saying, you know, now is the time for
the White House to make its sales pitch to the country for the war, and, you know,
Vice President Cheney is going on TV saying -- talking about Iraq reconstituting its
nuclear weapons, now we find out that the head of Italian military intelligence came
to meet with a White House official, which is very unusual. He met with Stephen
Hadley (http://rightweb.irc-online.org/ind/hadley/hadley.php), who has also been
someone who has been identified as part of a kind of alleged conspiracy in the White
House to eventually out ambassador Joseph Wilson's wife to the media as a CIA
operative, kind of as retaliation for ambassador Joseph Wilson
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_C._Wilson) pushing back on these false Niger
uranium claims (http://www.commondreams.org/views03/0706-02.htm). Does that tie the
two things together? Does that make clear how the leak investigation is tied in some
ways to these documents?

JUAN GONZALEZ: Yes. But also, in terms of Steve Hadley's then role in the Bush
administration putting out this information?

LAURA ROZEN: It's not clear. He was Deputy National Security Council adviser
(http://www.whitehouse.gov/nsc) at the time. He’s National Security Adviser now. He
met with the head of Italian military intelligence (SISMI), September 9, 2002. The
NSC spokesman told me, you know, that meeting’s not necessarily secret, it's just
that Hadley's schedule is not public. On the Italian side, my colleagues at "La
Repubblica" tell me that the head of Italian military intelligence doesn't admit to
having met with Steve Hadley.

AMY GOODMAN: And so, you have -- Stephen Hadley goes to Italy --

LAURA ROZEN: No, no. director of SISMI Lieutenant General Nicolo' Pollari comes here.

AMY GOODMAN: He comes here. They have the meeting.

LAURA ROZEN: They have the meeting.

AMY GOODMAN: And explain again how this information then got out in the Italian
publication and the connection of that Italian publication to Silvio Berlusconi.

LAURA ROZEN: The other thing – right. The other thing -- so then a month after
Stephen Hadley and the head of Italian military intelligence (SISMI) meet in
September 2002, a reporter for an Italian magazine owned by the Italian Prime
Minister Silvio Berlusconi gets passed by a shady middleman in Italy a bunch of
documents that turn out to be the Niger forgeries. And her editor who is kind of the
favorite in the Silvio Berlusconi media empire tells her, “Take these immediately to
the U.S. embassy in Rome”, which she does, and they get cabled back to Washington.
So, even though the CIA originally dismissed these whole Niger uranium claims at
several points, as had the State Department, as being unsubstantiated, and ambassador
Joe Wilson went on his trip to Niger and also found the claims to be unsubstantiated,
you find the President, you know, in January 2003 citing Iraq's alleged efforts to
acquire uranium in Niger as being one of his – you know, in his State of the Union
address.

AMY GOODMAN: So, Scott Horton, you have this story of a top Bush administration
official meeting with Italian intelligence (SISMI), and then soon a publication owned
by the prime minister of Italy, Silvio Berlusconi, who is a close Bush ally,
publishes this information that Saddam is getting 500 tons of yellow cake uranium
from Niger; the significance of this?

SCOTT HORTON: Well, it's actually a bombshell, because it shows this entire
investigation doubling back and coming to the very beginning, to the original case of
the yellow cake forgeries. People have been asking for a long time, “Why is it that
people in the Vice President's staff were so concerned about Ambassador Wilson and
his debunking of the yellow cake forgeries?” I mean, many people have thought that it
just doesn't make sense that they would be so deeply engaged. Of course, one thing we
know from the investigation, what's come out from it to date, is that they were very
deeply involved from the top of the staff to the bottom of it. And this shows the
first glimmers of a real explanation for that by linking key figures from the White
House and what Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson has called the “cabal” around Vice
President Cheney to the forgeries themselves.
http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/archives/001020.html

AMY GOODMAN: Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson being the former Chief of Staff of Powell.

SCOTT HORTON: Exactly right. I mean, there's no evidence that has come out that
suggests that these people uttered the forgeries, but it does suggest they had a
great interest in them. They knew about them from a very early date, and they knew
they were forgeries from very early on and nevertheless showed great interest in
getting these documents out and into the public. And there was a very, very high
level complicity between White House figures and Prime Minister Berlusconi and senior
confidants of his.

AMY GOODMAN: I want to go to break, and then we're going to come back. Laura Rozen,
thanks very much for being with us. And your website, your blog, "War And Piece"
writing for The American Prospect. Scott Horton, I'd like you to stay on to talk also
about Vice President Dick Cheney, the Washington Post editorial yesterday saying
“Vice President for Torture”, Maureen Dowd saying "Just say vice".

[break]

AMY GOODMAN: Our guest is Scott Horton, who is a law professor here in New York City.
Scott Horton, the issue of this grand jury. What -- it has been impaneled for how
long? Who are they, and what happens now?

SCOTT HORTON: Well, we have 23 citizens from the District of Columbia, who are
serving, and they have been in session now for a very long time. I think more than a
year.

AMY GOODMAN: Full-time?

SCOTT HORTON: No, it's not full-time. They meet several times in the course of a
month. I think this grand jury has been meeting pretty regularly on Fridays in the
afternoon. But it's a tremendous amount of service that they're providing. And Friday
is the last day of their scheduled term; or is it? That's one of the questions we
have got, because what happened yesterday that has attracted a lot of interest from
lawyers is that the special prosecutor, Patrick Fitzgerald, had a 30 to 45-minute
meeting with Chief Judge Hogan.

Now, why would he have had that meeting? It could have been a courtesy call. That's
not terribly likely. More likely, he was either seeking to arrange special meeting
times for the current grand jury, seeking to extend its term or seeking to have
indictments that have been voted or about to be voted put under seal. And that
suggests very strongly that the investigation is, in fact, not completely wrapped up
now. We may have charges announced today, but that there's an important slice of it
remaining to be completed.

JUAN GONZALEZ: From the perspective of the Bush administration, would it be better
for this grand jury to be extended, for this to drag out, or would it be better for
them to have -- if these indictments are going to come down, have them come down now
and begin the process of adjustment into the new conditions?

SCOTT HORTON: Well, I think, surely, they would like to get this behind them, and
having an open portion of it is going to create an ongoing public distraction. I
think most commentators looking at the White House in the last month see it as nearly
incapacitated by this scandal. I mean, you already referred earlier in the broadcast
to withdrawals and reversals, the Miers nomination is floundering. This is a
political low point for the White House, no doubt about it.

AMY GOODMAN: So, could you have some indictments handed down today, others announced
later?

SCOTT HORTON: Absolutely. And we could have a number of indictments handed down today
that won't be announced.

AMY GOODMAN: Sealed?

SCOTT HORTON: They will be under seal.

AMY GOODMAN: For what reason?

SCOTT HORTON: Well, there are a number of reasons why you would put -- it's a rather
unusual process, putting indictments under seal. We should state that up front. The
most traditional cause for it is that -- is to not let slip the fact that someone's
going to be indicted so they can be apprehended. You're afraid that they're going to
flee. That doesn't make sense when we are dealing with public officials, frankly.
What would make sense with public officials is that the fact of the indictment would
tip people to the fact that they and people who are working with them are targets of
the investigation. And, you know, and I think, obviously, of all the things we’ve
seen, the Italian side of this is the most intriguing. I think it's most likely that
that part of the investigation hasn't been finished. But this is just speculation.

AMY GOODMAN: Can a vice president be indicted?

SCOTT HORTON: Well, vice presidents have been indicted. In fact, Aaron Burr was
indicted twice and Spiro Agnew was indicted. But there is a question of executive
immunity. And how far does executive immunity go? And on that issue, actually, the
leading authority is probably Robert Bork, a former judge and Yale Law professor who
wrote quite in great detail about this, saying that the vice president does not have
immunity, that that's really limited to the president. But that's not really a
settled question.

JUAN GONZALEZ: But how would it be possible to have sealed indictments? Would the
actual people indicted be notified, or even they would not know that they had been
indicted?

SCOTT HORTON: They would not be notified of the fact that they’d be indicted, and
neither would the public.

AMY GOODMAN: We're talking to Scott Horton, who is the Chair of International Law
Committee at the New York City Bar Association, also Adjunct Professor of Law at
Columbia University.
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/10/27/1451223