NIGERGATE: A FRENCH 007 ACCUSES THE CIA AND SISMI

Il Giornale’s Marco Chiocci takes a look at the accusations made by the disgraced ex DGSE agent, Alain Chouet, in yesterdays Repubblica. The ex Spy master from Paris got his facts, faces and dates completely wrong. It’s interesting to see how a French socialist jumps at the opportunity to accuse the USA of deception. Unfortunately for Chouet the following article explains and exposes his and the Repubblica’s lies one by one.

The ex DGSE officer, fired for having spied on President Chirac, gets names, dates and circumstances wrong.

The Niger-gate pot continues to boil but the meal somebody’s trying to cook still contains the wrong ingredients. Before taking a look at the latest home-made stew from La Repubblica some news regarding the International Atomic Energy Agency (Iaea). This week saw a group of Iaea inspectors in Niger, not on a holiday but on a somewhat delicate mission: the UN officials are charged with training the Niger border guards in the art of detecting and stopping the smuggling of uranium (the countries principal export alongside goats) thus avoiding it’s ending up in the hands of terrorists of foreign countries attempting to build nucler bombs.

Until just the other day the sustainers of the ‘neocon conspiracy’, aimed at starting a war, denied that Niger suffered any problems in the control of it’s uranium. Il Giornale published an article evidencing the opposite: the transport of uranium was to say the least insecure, only two guards escorted the yellowcake along it’s thousnad mile journey. An easy prey for any armed and well organised group. Who extracts the uranium in Niger? France, who controls the extraction via the Cogema company.

This weeks arrival of the Iaea officials in Niger reproposes, one again, the question of nuclear security and the role of the French in the period leading up to the invasion of Iraq. A role which until yesterday La Repubblica had never mentioned. After days of embarassing silence the paper discovers that in Paris there’s someone who claims to know a lot about Iraq, about Niger and about uranium.

The problem is that the source, Alain Chouet, isn’t just an ex Dgse officer (the French service who paid Rocco Martino, the postman of the forgeries), but is also one of the two officials (the other is Gilbert Flam) who found themselves at the centre of the scandal surrounding the plot against Chirac, a plot ordered by the «deviated» French services. The French Presidents private life was studied in detail by the service in order to favour the left wing of Lionel Jospin. An insignificant detail for La Repubblica who presenting Chouet as an immaculate figure ommited all detail other than the fact that the gentleman «who left the service at the end of the summer of 2002 following internal disputes and the reorganisation ordered by Chirac». Mr. Chouet is a source to be handled with care, far from being a fountain of truth Chouet belongs to, as Sismi point out, a long list of «ex» one thing or another who «without any title talk with very little seriousness about serious things».

What does the ex French spy reveal and what does La Repubblica, in their latest version of the truth, launch? It’s all quite simple.

1. According to Chouet, Martino didn’t work for the French secret services but for Sismi. This is false. Rocco Martino, as the counterespionage investigation demonstrates, was paid on a monthly basis by the Dgse. The self same Martino admitted this to Il Giornale, he repeated it to the American Cbs (who never aired the interview because Martino omited to tell them in advance that he worked for Paris). These are facts, documented and undeniable. Martino’s contacts with the French 007’s go back to the mid nineties.

2. Chouet places Martino’s meetings with Jaques Nadal, a French agent in Brussels, at the end of July 2002 in order to try and place SISMI’s monitoring of Martino’s movements prior to the emergence of the letters in October 2002. This is totally false. Mr Chouet was ‘retired’ at the beginning of July (not at the end of the summer as La Repubblica claim) and thus was not operative and thus is not in a position to know. But there’s more: Martino’s meetings in Brussels and Luxemburg are documented with date and time, they are later than 2002, they are from 2004 and are amply docuemnted in over 200 photographs and 3 hours of video. They all refer to events that took place at the end of July 2004, not 2002: Martino passed through Brussels on his way to Luxembourg where he met, in a bookshop, the other person in the photographs (who Chouet claims is his man of trust, Jaques Nadal, but who in reality is another agent). Secretly assisting at the rendez-vous are 14 Sismi agents and 7 French spies. Documents, envelopes and words are exchanged. Everything is filmed, everything.

The next day the scene is repeated, this time in Brussels where Martino, in the Dgse’s secret base has been ‘at home’ for a long time. Here in 2003 he tried to ‘place’ the false documents in the British embassy – after consultations with his French handlers – and here at the end of July 2004 he met the journalists from the Sunday Times for the interview of the first of August. For the meeting everybody is there: 14 Italian spies, 12 French spies (including Nidal who organises the French operations from a bar), 4 photoreporters, 2 British journalists and last but not least, Rocco Martino.

A total of 33 people distributed in various parts of the airport. Too many people. The Italians get in touch with the French: «We’re here. So what now? Are we going to argue?». On the telephone the French deny being where they are but half a minute later they all disappear. Only the photoreporters are left, the Sismi agents initially think that it’s another Dgse countersurveillance team but in reality it’s only the paparazzi from the Sunday Times getting ready to immortalise «the Italian». The Sismi agents document everything, spies, aspiring spies and journalists.

Martino doesn’t notice anything, after the interview he tries to contact Nadal. However Chouet’s man (not the one in the photo) is no longer in the bar. He’s no longer in the embassy either, he’s disappeared. For six months nobody sees or hears from him.

3. Chouet claims that the Cia knew about the forgeries since the summer of 2002 and that it was the Americans that gave them to the French. False. Page 36 of the bipartisan report from the US Senate commission is very clear: «the first information the intelligence community received in regards to the uranium from Niger arrived in October 2001». Information shared by all the secret services (includine the French) not Martino’s dossier.

Martino’s dossier arrived a year later at the American embassy in Rome on October 9, 2002, having been delivered by the journalist from Panorama, Elisabetta Burba. These are the facts. Chouet’s (and the Repubblica’s) reconstruction are completely wrong, but perhaps they are still useful because it seems that this time round the Cia is going to take a very close look. As was pointed out yesterday at Forte Braschi (Sismi’s HQ) «Chouet in an attempt to annoy Sismi, has thrown mud at the Cia, somewhat unusual bahavior for a person who affirms that relations between the Cia and the Dgse are excellent».

"The self same Martino admitted this to Il Giornale, he repeated it to the American Cbs (who never aired the interview because Martino omited to tell them in advance that he worked for Paris)"

CBS? Mary Mapes? Meeting fixed up by the talkingpointsmemo guy who was being used by Wilson and the French?

Last week Wilson was still blathering about those "16 words" of the President's speech.

Why is that still of a concern to Wilson, could it be that the hunt is on to find out what British intel has about Saddam and yellowcake?

http://washingtontimes.com/world/20031001-101113-2642r.htm

Given the high security that Niger affords to yellowcake shipments enroute the 400 miles to Benin...how could ANYONE ever suppose that some of it could "disappear" by prearrangement and bribery?

Remember that the major analytical objection to intelligence about Iraqi-Niger talks about an illicit uranium transfer came from State Department experts (Like Joe Wilson) who insisted Nigerian uranium ore could never end up in Iraqi hands because France "controls" the output of the mines and the IAEA "monitors" the process.

CBS? Mary Mapes? Meeting fixed up by the talkingpointsmemo guy who was being used by Wilson and the French?

That's the one: Joshua Micah Marshall.

I guess when it was discovered that Martino worked for the French, his story was no longer news to CBS?

My thinking at the present time is that the three forged documents were created to discredit a legitimate claim that Iraq was trying to obtain yellowcake from Niger. Martino's story that they were handed to him by an employee of the Niger Embassy makes no sense. Why would a Niger employee create documents that discredit the Niger government?

Suspicions that Iraq was trying to obtain yellowcake from Niger began in 1999. Which was the year the Iraqi ambassador to the Holy See was to visit Niger. This is documented by a telex from the Niger Embassy, the authenticity of which is not in dispute. But if you add to that telex a few forged documents, you cast doubt on the validity of the telex.

You might be right. Joe would love to know everything. He would love to "have known" that Valerie had been written up as the chief "headhunter" for BOTH his Niger trips!!

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