Nigergate: A new layer of disinformation

I'm a couple of weeks late, but better late than never: If you have any interest in the Niger forgeries which helped to sire the current war, download Ian Masters' interview with Laura Rozen.

I hate disagreeing with so formidable and talented a writer as Laura Rozen. Her work is vital. Her blog is a must-read. She has researched the Niger matter "on the scene" in Italy. (Will I get in trouble if I say her voice is kinda sexy? Probably. So I won't.) But I think she is wrong about the key issue of how the forgeries entered the Iraq debate. Judging from his tone of voice, Masters may also have a few doubts.

More on that later. Right now, I want to talk about a related issue.

Rozen raps the noses of bloggers -- such as yours truly -- who discussed reports that an Italian Parliamentary Commission had investigated the necon cabal behind Nigergate. We were told that Fitzgerald had obtained a copy of this report.

Rozen says that this commission never existed, and that Italy's parliament has been irritatingly inactive on these questions. Fitzgerald cannot have read a report that never saw ink.

She labels the story a "fantasy."

But Rozen misses a key point. Not all untrue stories should be thoughtlessly stashed in the file cabinet marked "rumor." To cite a relevant example: The so-called Bulgarian connection to the shooting of the Pope may have been a lie, but it was no mere rumor. Anyone using that term does history an injustice. That story was disinformation -- a different beast altogether.

Many of the same people involved with that disinfo campaign returned to work in Niger-gate.

I first read of this "Italian parliamentary commission report" by way of Larry Johnson, an associate of Vincent Cannistraro's. Both are respected CIA veterans. These are serious men, frequently quoted by mainstream news organizations. They have long kept an eye on the antics of Ledeen and company.

Justin Raimondo had his own source for the story -- apparently someone working in an Italian embassy; Raimondo has never revealed the name. In his reply to Rozen (here) he notes that Rome Public Prosecutor’s office was investigating Rocco Martino in 2003. Although Raimondo believes that this investigative effort may be at the heart of the story, I'm not sure that I can agree.

A fairly detailed version of the story is this French-language report from a group called La Voix des Opprimes:

En Italie, le parlement vient de conclure une étude sur les origines et les conséquences des faux, et selon certaines sources, le rapport mentionne parmi les principaux suspects Michael Ledeen, Dewey Clarridge, Ahmed Chalabi et Francis Brookes.

Finally, a "mainstream" news organ offered confirmation, by way of this UPI story:

...NATO sources have confirmed to United Press International that Fitzgerald's team of investigators has sought and obtained documentation on the forgeries from the Italian government.

Fitzgerald's team has been given the full, and as yet unpublished report of the Italian parliamentary inquiry into the affair...

"NATO sources" What, I wonder, does that mean?

Did Larry Johnson -- or Raimondo, or anyone else relaying this data -- deliberately lie? No.

Were they lied to? Possibly. Whoever did that job must have known how to deceive a pro.

I place the UPI report in a special category, because UPI is owned by the notorious Reverend Moon. When UPI cites a "NATO source" to confirm the existence of a report later proven non-existent, we have exited Fantasyland and entered a darker realm. Remember how a squabble over the Burkett documents deep-sixed the larger discussion of Bush's service in the National Guard? A similar tactic could explain the UPI article.

We must maintain a distinction between rumor, fantasy and disinformation. "The Vanishing Hitchhiker" is a rumor. Harry Potter is a fantasy. False accounts of the Tonkin Gulf incident were part of a disinformation effort. Of those three examples, which one begat a war?