193363327101_sclzzzzzzz_v23704262_aa240_.jpg(Author Carlo Bonini and his editor, Kelly Burdick (who will be doing some translating and transcribing for Carlo) join us in the comments.  Please welcome them both — JH)

I'd like to thank Jane for giving me the opportunity to guest host today's FDL Book Salon. I am pleased to introduce the latest book by Carlo Bonini and Giuseppe D'Avanzo – Collusion: International Espionage and the War on Terror. Bonini and D'Avanzo, who work for the Italian newspaper La Repubblica, are two of the top investigative journalists in Italy and I want to thank them for taking the time to discuss their book and their work with readers.

Here is what Seymour Hersh has to say about their reporting (reproduced from the back flap of the book):

These two reporters are truth seekers who do the kind of hard, honest work that all reporters should do – find the truth and print it. If we've learned anything since George W. Bush began his war on terror, it's that the old adage – that the first casualty of war is the truth – lives on, and on. In their reporting on the fake Niger documents on yellowcake, which is one of the stories you'll find in the book, Carlo Bonini and Giuseppe D'Avanzo have lived up to the highest standards of the profession.

Their Newsweek colleague Michael Isikoff calls them the Woodward and Bernstein of Italian journalism. Let's just say, given what we've learnt in the past six years, they are more like the Bernstein of Italian journalism.

Although Bonini and D'Avanzo became prominent in American blogospheric circles for their investigative reporting on the Nigergate scam, Collusion is not just about the Niger forgeries. It is about broader Italian government malfeasance under former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, and the collusion of the former Italian Government with the Bush White House in the perpetration of the worst kind of fraud on the American public, the Italian public and the world at large. Their stories – including several key revelations from Bonini and D'Avanzo over the years – expose some of the deplorable actions of their Government in the aftermath of September 11, 2001, mirroring the systematic and pervasive criminal enterprise set up by the Bush White House on this side of the Atlantic. Examples include the role of the Italian intelligence agency SISMI in the creation of the forgeries and dissemination of the fabricated Niger uranium claims, the passive collusion between the Italian government and the Bush administration on the aluminum-tubes-for-centrifuges hoax, and the Italian backstory to the extraordinary rendition of radical cleric Abu Omar.

The book certainly does not disappoint. Since I have more than a passing familiarity with the Nigergate scam, let me make some observations on their coverage of this story. More than anyone else, Bonini and D'Avanzo are responsible for revealing the entrenched role of SISMI in the whole uranium from Africa hoax. It has long been obvious to me that this must have been a very difficult story for them to write about, given how SISMI treated those that SISMI perceived as enemies. It took considerable tenacity and courage to keep going, dig deeper, and expose the corruption and systematic fraud that was at the root of this scandal emanating from Italy. They really deserve a lot of kudos for this. As Bonini remarked in a recent interview with James Marcus (who translated their book into English) at Netscape Blog (yes, I just discovered last night that Netscape has a strange blog):

Bonini: That's what we discovered. September 11 was an extraordinary opportunity for Rocco [Martino] — but also for SISMI and for Silvio Berlusconi…who had just come into power. Berlusconi was desperately seeking a privileged relationship with the White House. At the same time, George W. Bush was trying to prove that Saddam Hussein was a clear and present danger not only to American interests but to the world as a whole. The yellowcake dossier fit the bill perfectly. So SISMI decided to share the contents of those documents with U.S. intelligence–first in September 2001, then on several other occasions. They shared them with the British, too.
…
Marcus: Were you and your partner ever discouraged from following up on the story?

Bonini: We were under enormous pressure at times. The right-wing press started attacking us, saying that we had personal motives–or worse, that we were reporting on behalf of some mysterious U.S. intelligence officers. Four years later, I still can't understand what sort of argument they were trying to make. It probably reflected the fact that SISMI was afraid of being blamed for the whole mess by the CIA. So yes, there were moments when we felt alone. "Either we're nuts," we told ourselves, "or we're right." I mean, it was hard to believe that Rocco Martino's phony documents ended up in the White House. But that's what happened!

A key aspect of what Bonini and D'Avanzo discuss in their book is what they refer to as "competitive intelligence". Bonini explains this in the interview:

Bonini: Competitive intelligence is a well known disinformation technique. It's a way to disorient your enemy by giving credence to false information. The yellowcake dossier is a perfect example. You basically steer a piece of rogue intelligence through official channels, until it's incorporated into a white paper. At this point, policy makers read the white paper and ask for further intelligence. Then the vicious circle begins: since the original dossier has already been shared with agencies in other countries, it can be "confirmed" by outside sources. It's like an echo chamber.

This is an excellent observation and is more than apt given what we have lived through for the past several years. In fact, I would go a step further and mention another key ingredient in this kind of fraud, as I wrote earlier this year:

Put another way, the quality of the original forgeries would be largely irrelevant to bad actors who intended to "mainstream" the contents in a manner that preserved "plausibility", while being able to cover their a** by attributing the "intel" to a documentary source that they would never have to reveal… The fact that Rocco Martino may have (inadvertently?) thrown cold water on that game by trying to peddle the original forgeries independently to other agencies is a separate issue that should not be confused with SISMI's intent to "mainstream" the forgeries. Thus, the subsequent creation and dissemination by SISMI of information derived from (and not from) the forgeries – information that was cherry-picked and sometimes altered in order to intentionally create plausible "intel" – is really the key to answering the question of motive.

In a nutshell, the argument that these forgeries were used to support a disinformation campaign (to promote a pro-war policy) is not just based on the fact that they were forgeries or bizarre forgeries. Rather, the argument is primarily based on the fraudulent "intel" that was cooked up using disinformation from the forgeries – disinformation that was cherry-picked and altered to create plausible "intel", with the full knowledge that the ultimate source for the claims (the forged dossier) was transparently false. This was fundamentally no different and in fact worse than what was done by individuals tied to the Iraqi National Congress (INC) who fabricated claims about Iraq's non-existent biological weapons.

No book about post 9/11 fearmongering and WMD fraud is complete without a mention of the media's role in it. It shouldn't come as a surprise to readers that, just like in the US, where the traditional media has been dominated for years by the corrupt, incompetent and willing propagandists of the Republican party (from the editorial pages of the Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal to the gangrenous sewers of talk radio and cable TV) – always eager to please the GOP with their regurgitation of fraudulent "conventional wisdom" emanating from the GOP – Bonini and D'Avanzo faced a similar "conservative" (Berlusconi) friendly media in Italy. Here, for example, is a passage from their book that provides a small example of the media landscape they were dealing with (emphasis mine):

[Then-SISMI chief Nicolo] Pollari's reconstruction of events surrounding the phony dossier had already been proposed in the Italian Press when we spoke with him – by an investigative piece in Libero and in a Panorama column – where it was amply "documented" by anonymous SISMI sources. In this version of events, SISMI knew nothing. Even though, smack in the middle of this intrigue, we find a SISMI colonel, a SISMI informant, and a SISMI collaborator ("until 1999"), all of them hovering like bees around a flower – the Nigerien embassy in Rome – that SISMI had been observing for years. Is it possible, despite all this, that SISMI knew nothing, noticed nothing, saw nothing, heard nothing? [page 25]

I like how Bonini and D'Avanzo politely refer to the "investigative" pieces in Libero. After all, they were the first to reveal, if I remember correctly, how Berlusconi and SISMI, just like Berlusconi's friend George W. Bush, had perfected the art of "buying" conservative "journalists". As I wrote in July 2006:

Close followers of the Nigergate saga may remember this article (link to Free Republic translation of the article, emphasis mine throughout this post):

Italy blames France for Niger uranium claim
Libero | 08/09/2004 | Renato Farina

Renato Farina is a deputy editor at a small right-wing newspaper in Italy called Libero. The article above was one of the several downright misleading pieces put out by some of the right-wing Italian press to deflect attention away from the role of the Italian intelligence agency SISMI in the creation and mainstreaming of the Niger forgeries (here's another one of Farina's articles translated at the Free Repubic).
…
As I mentioned in my post yesterday there have been major developments in Italy this past week revealing SISMI's complicity, with the CIA, in the kidnapping/rendition of radical cleric Abu Omar. These developments prove beyond any doubt that SISMI's long-standing denials on reports of their complicity were completely false (no surprise there). But, as importantly, Laura Rozen points out:

I can understand just enough of this to see that Repubblica's Giuseppe d'Avanzo makes a case that Sismi under Pollari has become something like a criminal enterprise…
…
What intrigues me is the evidence d'Avanzo lays out here that Libero's Renato Farina, Sismi code-name Betulla — "birch tree" — was wittingly used as part of a full fledged Sismi disinformation operation, complete with a secret Sismi rented facility at Rome's 230 via Nazionale for that purpose, under the control of Sismi's number two official arrested yesterday, Marco Mancini.
…
Amazing and distracting as those details are, the larger potential implication of this arrangement is important and shouldn't be lost: the official cover story for the Italian government — one put forward by Sismi, the Berlusconi government and seemingly accepted by the Italian parliamentary services oversight committee — that the Niger forgeries middleman, ex Sismi agent Rocco Martino, was under the control and run by the French at the time of the forgeries caper, was first promoted by a "journalist" — Renato Farina — who the Milan magistrates now have wiretap evidence agreed to help Sismi put out disinformation on the Abu Omar case. The extent of Farina's alleged disinformation operations for Sismi is a matter now under investigation.

There's more.

Laura Rozen:

If I am reading this right, it looks like Libero deputy editor Renato Farina — Sismi codename Betulla, "birch tree" — did take about $10,000 dollars in Euro payment from Sismi. As Repubblica's Carlo Bonini goes through the bank deposit receipts to Betulla (and don't trust my translation too much), he comments, "the vice director of Libero does not do this work for free." The receipts were seized by Italy's Digos in a search earlier this week of an address at Rome's 230 via Nazionale, the mysterious apartment rented by the Sismi director's press advisor Pio Pompa for disinformation and domestic spying operations.
…
Given some of Farina's other reporting, the extent of his relationship with Sismi is fascinating.

Before I wrap up this introduction, I should also mention the excellent coverage by Bonini and D'Avanzo of the broader Italian Government "war on terror" fear-mongering that also closely matched the doings of the Bush White House in the aftermath of 9/11. A case in point is the story in their book about the false imprisonment in Italy of three Muslim immigrants, under completely trumped-up terrorism charges. This story is astounding and is eerily reminescent of the actions of the Bush administration. Bonini and D'Avanzo write:

On April 30, 2004, the First Court of Assizes absolved el-Gamal, Shalabej, and el-Zahed of the two crimes they had been charged with: international terrorism and possession of weapons and explosives with subversive intent. The court ruled that the Al Qaeda cell in Anzio had never existed ("the facts did not support it"), that the Egyptians had never played any part in it, and that they never intended to form such a group. The court also stated that the trio of fishermen "had not possessed" the Beretta pistol or the TNT – and that somebody, therefore, had snuck these items into the location where they had been found on the morning of October 4, 2002.

The 42-page decision, signed by the presiding judge of the court, Francesco Amato, and by his fellow judge Giancarlo De Cataldo, is a harsh document.

The obvious contrast between the statements of "Doctor Fausto" and those of Lieutenant Perrino on specific aspects of the affair causes us great concern…. It's unthinkable that in a locality as modest in size as Anzio, Perrino didn't know where el-Gamal lived, especially since they had tried to enlist his help on behalf of the intelligence services…. This casts a shadow over the entire reconstruction of the affair…. It seems obvious to add that although "Doctor Fausto" denied any role in the events, the arguments set forth by the accused relegate his testimony to a mere expedient, desperate and false to boot, which is further corroborated by complete testimony by Lieutenant Perrino. [pages 121-122]

I reproduced a small part of their narrative – you have to read their book to get the full story. It is as gripping as it is depressing. These events occurred in Italy but could easily have occurred in the U.S. and might still occur in the U.S. under the current administration. The Italian public lived a nightmare similar to ours over the past several years and those who want to learn more about it – and about how that nightmare became an integral part of our own – ought to read Collusion.

Let me stop here by thanking Bonini and D'Avanzo for their quest for the truth and welcoming them to the FDL Book Salon!

P.S. It is uncommon for journalists to give credit to blogs on major news stories – so I want to thank the authors for using and referring to one of my Nigergate findings in one of their La Repubblica articles on the Nigergate affair.