Late to their Own Funeral

Well WaPo finally got around to detailing how the Niger Uranium story was based on documents forged by an Italian named Rocco Martino and how an Italian journalist named Elisabetta Burba actually gave them to US authorities and then shortly thereafter determined they were forgeries herself. It also mentions how she reported that they were forgeries shortly after the Iraq War began. It's old news. Even bloggers like Juan Cole had picked this up more than a year ago. As the WaPo admits:

Not long after the invasion, other news media in Italy, elsewhere in Europe and then in the United States reported that the source of the information about a Niger yellowcake uranium deal had been a batch of bogus letters and other documents passed along several months earlier to an unnamed Italian reporter, who in turn handed the information over to the United States.

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So where was WaPo and other American MSM back then? And the WaPo report this morning is not just too late, it leaves out some of the most significant elements of the story. Namely that (1) Martino had an accomplice in the Niger Embassy that stole the letterhead for him and (2) more significantly that Bush claimed that the information in his "16 words" was provided by the British Government. As it turns out, the Italians long ago reported that Martino -- hold on, let me rephrase that; Rocco Martino long ago confessed that -- he was the guy to peddle these same forgeries to both the French and British for cash, so the British intelligence is without a doubt built on the same pack of lies. The British, naturally still won't admit or deny this (must protect sources and Tony's ass you know), but Rocco has gone on record describing the date, time and bridge in London where he gave the dossier to an M16 agent. So the WaPo reports on the French involvement, but leaves out the more important British connection (they only say they interviewed folks in Britain but never say why), thus enabling the Bush Administration to still hide behind the idea that it was British intelligence that supplied them with this story, not Martino. For Christ's sake they should at least report Martino's confession.

WaPo's standards of reporting are so moribund they are beyond redemption from the grave.

Caveat lector.