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BREAKING IN ITALY: How the Iraq War was Prepared
[promoted from the diaries by catnip]
Cross-posted at Eurotrib by de Gondi.
While Berlusconi dishes out his intergalactic bullshit (Title of il Manifesto yesterday: Balle spaziale) as a latter-day peacenik, the Bonini- D’Avanzo team publish a new series that promises to have far-reaching consequences. The first installment reveals what happened at the secret Rome meetings starting in December 2001, involving Sismi agents, Ledeen, Franklin, Rhode and the crucial protagonists, Aras Habib Karim and Francis Brooke. Ghorbanifar, according to Sismi sources, had a minor role, more as a decoy, to divert attention.
The scoop reveals the behind the scene preparation of the war and the key role of the Italian secret services in infiltrating southern Iraq to prepare the terrain for the land invasion through their long-standing network in Iraq.
The Rome meetings were arranged at the behest of the Pentagon’s Office of Special Plans in collaboration with the Iranian regime which certainly had converging interests to eliminate Saddam and expand their influence in Southern Iraq.
Here follow translations of significant parts of the first article. I will update it throughout the day, and expect Nur-al Cubicle to do so also:
“…We must say who Ahmed Chalabi is. A neo-con Benjamin, Chalabi was charged by Pentagon hawks to funnel information to European intelligence services on WMDs obtained from so-called scientists that had defected from the [Iraq] regime. The man responsible for gathering together and constructing the “legends” [spin] was Chalabi’s intelligence chief, Aras Habib Karim. Aras is a key figure. He coordinates the Intelligence Collection Programme. He runs and confections dissident “material.” He’s a Shiite Kurd, just under 50, crafty, mean, a master at double-crossing and falsification of documents. With a peculiarity: the CIA has always considered him “an Iranian agent.” The second key player is Francis Brooke. The false Niger Uranium dossier ended up in his hands although it is not known how. Brooke holds the strings to Condoleeza Rice and Paul Wolfowitz and between the Iraqi National Congress and the Pentagon. His ties to Iran are excellent, far more than Chalabi’s.
The American intelligence source continues: “Ahmed Chalabi and his best men- Karim, Brooke- work as a team with the Pentagon and the American Enterprise Institute. An example to understand better. In 2004 the three [sic] men who alternate in Baghdad together with Chalabi as “liason officers” are Michael Rubin, president of theAmerican Enterprise Institute; [and] Harold Rhode, Douglas Feith’s assistant at the Office of Special Plans and Paul Wolfowitz’s “advisor for Islamic Affairs.” Just as in Italy before the war. The meetings in Rome brought together representatives of the whole team: Michael Ledeen, of the American Enterprise Institute; Larry Franklin and Harold Rhode of the Office of Special Plans; the colonels of the Iraqi National Congress; and the Iraqi Shiites of the Supreme Council of the Iraqi Islamic Revolution, and of course “the Guardians of the Revolution.” That was the situation in Rome. Interesting, isn’t it?” [Yes] interesting…
The following translation concludes the first installment of today’s la Repubblica scoop by Carlo Bonini and Giuseppe d’Avanzo. A full translation is presently going on line thanks to Nur-al Cubicle.
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