A number of readers have written in with this link to a Raw Story teaser about a piece on the Niger forgeries set to run in tomorrow’s Sunday Times of London.
It reads …
The LONDON SUNDAY TIMES’ Michael Smith — who first broke the infamous Downing Street Memo — will identify who is believed to have forged the documents that formed the basis for President George W. Bush’s infamous 16 words this evening, RAW STORY has learned. Smith will explain the chain of events in painstaking detail.
According to Nato sources who spoke under condition of anonymity with the SUNDAY TIMES, an Italian investigation has fingered two employees of an embassy in Italy with forging the documents.
Speculation has been ripe over who forged the documents — and the SUNDAY TIMES piece is unlikely to stem furor and speculation in the United States over the documents that helped bring the United States to war with Iraq.
Look closely. If this is an accurate representation of what the story will contain, it is about an Italian government investigation. That’s all you need to know.
The Italian intelligence services were centrally involved in the clandestine distribution of the forgeries and in all likelihood the creation of the forgeries themselves. Everything the Italian government has done since then has been to impede any outside investigation into their role.
There’s simply no reason to credit anything an Italian government investigation of this matter reveals. If anything, its findings are probably a good bet to be the exact opposite of what is in fact the case. And the timing of such a release is no doubt in response to indications that at least two US news organizations will release new, damaging revelations about their role in the not-too-distant future.
