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The so-called Italian letter is a package of allegedly forged documents that seem to be based on articles stolen from the Nigerian embassy in Rome in 2001. The document was nonetheless adopted by the Bush administration as a basis for going to war with Iraq, even though the letter has been widely dismissed by a variety of key players in the U.S. Intelligence Community years before President Bush cited it in his 2003 State of the Union speech.
Eiser, a Washington Post editor, and Royce, a legendary investigative reporter in Washington, have produced a work that takes readers from Italy, to Niger, to Iraq, and into the Washington offices of the National Security Agency, the Central Intelligence Agency, the Defense Intelligence Agency, and inside the White House itself, to show that the document was a forgery. They suggest that this was not a case of finding out too late that certain intelligence information was faulty, but rather that the Bush administration used information it knew to be false to convince the Congress and the American public that Saddam Hussein was seeking materials to make a nuclear bomb. While news accounts and several books have exposed bits and pieces of this effort, this is the first book to offer a comprehensive, detailed account, relying on sources within the American Intelligence Community along with documents and human sources from all over the world, many of them exposed for the first time.
Key players in a true-life drama that continues to unfold including Scooter Libby, Joseph Wilson, Dick Cheney, George Tenet, and even George W. Bush, occupy this stage with such lesser known figures as Italian journalist Elisabetta Burba and an intelligence freelancer named Rocca Martino.
Review:
"'The Italian Letter' refers not to a single item but to many documents, including one with a Niger presidential seal, that Peter Eisner and Knut Royce say were used by administration officials to support claims that Saddam Hussein was seeking material to build a nuclear bomb. On March 7, 2003, 12 days before the Iraq war started, the International Atomic Energy Agency's director general, Mohamed El... Washington Post Book Review (read the entire Washington Post review) Baradei, who later won the Nobel Peace Prize, said the Niger intelligence was based on forged documents and Hussein was not developing a nuclear arsenal. The story of the letter includes a shadowy figure who peddled state secrets; an ambitious journalist from an Italian newsweekly who purchased story leads; a source code-named La Signora. There are clandestine meetings, forged letters, seduction and, inevitably, betrayal — in short, all the makings of a spy novel. To help make sense of it all, Eisner, an award-winning newspaperman who has served as The Washington Post's deputy foreign editor, and Royce, an acclaimed investigative reporter, provide a timeline, starting with an October 1998 IAEA report stating there were 'no indications' of nuclear weapons production in Iraq and ending with Vice President Cheney's November 2005 denial that President Bush had 'distorted' prewar information. Along the way, Eisner and Royce recount how policeman-turned-intelligence-peddler Rocco Martino ('something of a mixed bag, providing poor intelligence on arms deals but decent information on Islamic fundamentalism') said he had met Laura Montini (a.k.a. La Signora), a Niger Embassy secretary in Rome, at a sculpture exhibit, eventually obtained the Italian documents from her and tried to sell them for about $10,000 to an Italian journalist. The letter, we discover, was 'stamped Confidential,' and it, along with other papers, seemed to have more in common with those Nigerian 'request-for-urgent-business-relationship' e-mails than with an authentic document from Niger. But it was the 'smoking gun' because it seemed to confirm a sale of 'pure uranium' to Iraq. Eisner and Royce explore various theories about who perpetrated the fraud, ranging from French intelligence to Britain's M16. In the end, they seem to believe it was the Italians — or at least rogue elements within the Italian intelligence service — who were behind the scandal. The authors write that 'U.S. intelligence officials confirmed that this letter, the only document detailing the amount of uranium to be delivered, was critical to the administration's successful public campaign warning Americans that Iraq was a nuclear threat.' In addition, they assert that the documents provided support for the infamous '16 words' about Hussein seeking uranium in President Bush's 2003 State of the Union speech. The 16 words were based on a Sept. 24, 2002, dossier compiled by the British, who — according to Eisner and Royce — had used intelligence based on the Italian documents. (It should be noted that this assertion, like most everything in the scandal, is disputed.) The amazing thing about 'The Italian Letter,' though, is that even with all the subterfuge and 'two-bit hustlers unencumbered by questions of morality,' it is dull. The book is marked by repetition (e.g., endless paragraphs about how documents were misread by the CIA and Defense Intelligence Agency) and an opaque writing style (e.g., 'forged documents, which underpinned — and undermined — (other) intelligence'). There is a still more serious flaw. 'The Italian Letter' fails to grapple with the obvious. As Eisner and Royce point out, the forgeries alone did not start the war. Yet the authors try — and never fully succeed — to make the case that the Italian letter and the accompanying documents played a pivotal role in the decision to go to war. The forged documents certainly bolstered a pro-war argument, but the authors do not marshal enough evidence for their thesis. In fact, there were multiple sources of information stating that Hussein had nuclear weapons — all of which, of course, were unfounded — and an array of complex forces that contributed to the U.S. decision to invade Iraq. 'The Italian Letter' has a catchy title that hints at alluring secrets. Ultimately, though, it proves to be sexed up and disappointing. Like the book, it is nothing more than a tease." Reviewed by Tara McKelvey, a senior editor at the American Prospect, and the author of 'Monstering: Inside America's Policy of Secret Interrogations and Torture in the Terror War', Washington Post Book World (Copyright 2006 Washington Post Book World Service/Washington Post Writers Group)
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Filled with headline-making revelations, this explosive account by two award-winning investigative reporters tracks the behind-the-scenes story of a forged intelligence document that they say the Bush administration used to push the nation into war with Iraq.
PETER EISNER is deputy foreign editor at the Washington Post. The Post's coverage of the 2004 Asian tsunami, which he coordinated, won an award from the American Society of Newspaper Editors. He is also author of The Freedom Line, a winner of the 2004 Christopher Award. He lives in Bethesda, Maryland.
KNUT ROYCE was a major contributor to three Pulitzer Prize-winning stories in three different decades before joining the Center for Public Integrity as a senior fellow. He has won numerous journalism awards and was named by the Washingtonian as one of the two best investigative print reporters in the nation's capital. He lives in Fairfax, Virginia.
"Synopsis"
by Libri,
Filled with headline-making revelations, this explosive account by two award-winning investigative reporters tracks the behind-the-scenes story of a forged intelligence document that they say the Bush administration used to push the nation into war with Iraq.
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