Italy's Watergate - The CIA doesn't work like James Bond
ESPIONAGE, SECRECY, AND CORRUPTION: LESSONS FOR THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION.
By Patrick Radden Keefe
July 27, 2006 - When Italian prosecutor Armando Spataro issued arrest warrants for 22 CIA officers last November, for the 2003 kidnapping of an Egyptian cleric in Milan, it seemed like a hollow gesture. Spataro claimed that American operatives had snatched the imam, who is known as Abu Omar, and transported him to Egypt, where he was allegedly tortured.
But there was no way the United States would extradite its spies, and it appeared that the Italian investigation of the murky practice of extraordinary rendition would go the way of similar cases in this country: nowhere.
But Spataro wasn't hampered by the sort of pervasive official secrecy that prevails in the United States, and his team turned up revealing details of the abduction. The more they dug, the more dirt they found. Before long, the investigation blossomed into a full-blown spy scandal, replete with domestic wiretapping and the mysterious death of one of the investigators.
BY EARLY JULY, TWO OF ITALY'S TOP SPYMASTERS WERE UNDER ARREST.
We haven't heard much about the story on this side of the Atlantic.
(When asked whether he had discussed it at the G8 summit with President Bush, Italy's new Prime Minister Romano Prodi quipped that Bush probably doesn't even know "the initials" of Italy's spy agency, Sismi.) But this is Italy's Watergate. It has already revealed in unprecedented detail the anatomy of an extraordinary rendition. And it raises serious doubts about the Bush administration's "just trust us" insistence that behind the veil of secrecy, espionage is an honest, upstanding business.
In February 2003, Abu Omar (whose full name is Hasan Mustafa Osama Nasr) was under surveillance by Italy's special branch police force, the Digos, on suspicion of recruiting terrorists.
Walking to mosque one day, he was whisked into a CIA van. The Digos didn't witness the event and wondered why the guy they had been tailing had suddenly disappeared. CIA officials told them that Omar was headed to the Balkans, when in fact he was being interrogated in an Egyptian prison.
RENDITION WITH A MINIMUM OF SUBTLETY
When they learned of this deception more than a year later, prosecutors in Milan were outraged at the CIA's apparent violation of Italian sovereignty. The Americans had unquestionably strayed a bit outside their jurisdiction. And they'd carried out the rendition with a minimum of subtlety.
In the weeks surrounding the abduction, they stayed at fine hotels, including Milan's Principe di Savoia (single room: $588 a night), eventually racking up $158,000 in room charges. The Rolling Stones keep a lower profile when they swing through Milan. The American operatives also used easy-to-tap, unsecure cell phones to coordinate their plans with headquarters in Langley, Va.
And when the supposed architect of the mission, CIA Milan Chief Robert Seldon Lady, blew town, he forgot to pack a surveillance photo of Abu Omar. He left it (oops) in his apartment for the Digos to find.
The message seemed to be: Not only will we swoop into your country, screw your investigation, and steal your suspect: we're going to do it in broad daylight and leave a trail of clues, just because we can. - [end quote]
HR: Well, they couldn't...
More of this story you can read here: either click the title above, or use - Url.: http://www.slate.com/id/2146618/?GT1=8307
RELATED:
* FPF / earlier - Italian Judge orders 22 CIA terrorists arrested - Url.: http://tinyurl.com/gocn2
* Note: Murder is murder, whoever does it: Stalin, Hitler, Pol Pot, Sharon/Olmert, Saddam, or Bush.
* Seymour Hersh - Url. full story - http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/video1021.htm
Including webcast: Seymour Hersh, 1 hour 22 minutes.
* Earlier FPF - Global Terror by Secret US Death Squads - Url.: http://tinyurl.com/6d9sa
* Military Intelligence - Special Operations: Url.: http://tinyurl.com/5pe6g
* The DIA and the military services maintain a large number of military attachés and a much smaller network of clandestine case officers to satisfy foreign intelligence requirements. The Defense HUMINT Service became operational October 1, 1995, to consolidate the human intelligence (HUMINT) capabilities of the DIA, Army, Navy, and Air Force. - Url.: http://tinyurl.com/5xapq
BACKGROUND LINKS TO THE CIA, A COUPLE OF HOLOCAUSTS AND THOSE RESPONSIBLE - If after checking a factual error is found, pls. send an email. - Url.: http://tinyurl.com/fhln9
* FPF-COPYRIGHT NOTICE - In accordance with Title 17 U. S. C. Section 107 - any copyrighted work in this message is distributed by the Foreign Press Foundation under fair use, without profit or payment, to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the information. Url.: http://liimirror.warwick.ac.uk/uscode/17/107.html
FOREIGN PRESS FOUNDATION
Editor: Henk Ruyssenaars
http://tinyurl.com/66dmo
The Netherlands
fpf@chello.nl
-0-
By Patrick Radden Keefe
July 27, 2006 - When Italian prosecutor Armando Spataro issued arrest warrants for 22 CIA officers last November, for the 2003 kidnapping of an Egyptian cleric in Milan, it seemed like a hollow gesture. Spataro claimed that American operatives had snatched the imam, who is known as Abu Omar, and transported him to Egypt, where he was allegedly tortured.
But there was no way the United States would extradite its spies, and it appeared that the Italian investigation of the murky practice of extraordinary rendition would go the way of similar cases in this country: nowhere.
But Spataro wasn't hampered by the sort of pervasive official secrecy that prevails in the United States, and his team turned up revealing details of the abduction. The more they dug, the more dirt they found. Before long, the investigation blossomed into a full-blown spy scandal, replete with domestic wiretapping and the mysterious death of one of the investigators.
BY EARLY JULY, TWO OF ITALY'S TOP SPYMASTERS WERE UNDER ARREST.
We haven't heard much about the story on this side of the Atlantic.
(When asked whether he had discussed it at the G8 summit with President Bush, Italy's new Prime Minister Romano Prodi quipped that Bush probably doesn't even know "the initials" of Italy's spy agency, Sismi.) But this is Italy's Watergate. It has already revealed in unprecedented detail the anatomy of an extraordinary rendition. And it raises serious doubts about the Bush administration's "just trust us" insistence that behind the veil of secrecy, espionage is an honest, upstanding business.
In February 2003, Abu Omar (whose full name is Hasan Mustafa Osama Nasr) was under surveillance by Italy's special branch police force, the Digos, on suspicion of recruiting terrorists.
Walking to mosque one day, he was whisked into a CIA van. The Digos didn't witness the event and wondered why the guy they had been tailing had suddenly disappeared. CIA officials told them that Omar was headed to the Balkans, when in fact he was being interrogated in an Egyptian prison.
RENDITION WITH A MINIMUM OF SUBTLETY
When they learned of this deception more than a year later, prosecutors in Milan were outraged at the CIA's apparent violation of Italian sovereignty. The Americans had unquestionably strayed a bit outside their jurisdiction. And they'd carried out the rendition with a minimum of subtlety.
In the weeks surrounding the abduction, they stayed at fine hotels, including Milan's Principe di Savoia (single room: $588 a night), eventually racking up $158,000 in room charges. The Rolling Stones keep a lower profile when they swing through Milan. The American operatives also used easy-to-tap, unsecure cell phones to coordinate their plans with headquarters in Langley, Va.
And when the supposed architect of the mission, CIA Milan Chief Robert Seldon Lady, blew town, he forgot to pack a surveillance photo of Abu Omar. He left it (oops) in his apartment for the Digos to find.
The message seemed to be: Not only will we swoop into your country, screw your investigation, and steal your suspect: we're going to do it in broad daylight and leave a trail of clues, just because we can. - [end quote]
HR: Well, they couldn't...
More of this story you can read here: either click the title above, or use - Url.: http://www.slate.com/id/2146618/?GT1=8307
RELATED:
* FPF / earlier - Italian Judge orders 22 CIA terrorists arrested - Url.: http://tinyurl.com/gocn2
* Note: Murder is murder, whoever does it: Stalin, Hitler, Pol Pot, Sharon/Olmert, Saddam, or Bush.
* Seymour Hersh - Url. full story - http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/video1021.htm
Including webcast: Seymour Hersh, 1 hour 22 minutes.
* Earlier FPF - Global Terror by Secret US Death Squads - Url.: http://tinyurl.com/6d9sa
* Military Intelligence - Special Operations: Url.: http://tinyurl.com/5pe6g
* The DIA and the military services maintain a large number of military attachés and a much smaller network of clandestine case officers to satisfy foreign intelligence requirements. The Defense HUMINT Service became operational October 1, 1995, to consolidate the human intelligence (HUMINT) capabilities of the DIA, Army, Navy, and Air Force. - Url.: http://tinyurl.com/5xapq
BACKGROUND LINKS TO THE CIA, A COUPLE OF HOLOCAUSTS AND THOSE RESPONSIBLE - If after checking a factual error is found, pls. send an email. - Url.: http://tinyurl.com/fhln9
* FPF-COPYRIGHT NOTICE - In accordance with Title 17 U. S. C. Section 107 - any copyrighted work in this message is distributed by the Foreign Press Foundation under fair use, without profit or payment, to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the information. Url.: http://liimirror.warwick.ac.uk/uscode/17/107.html
FOREIGN PRESS FOUNDATION
Editor: Henk Ruyssenaars
http://tinyurl.com/66dmo
The Netherlands
fpf@chello.nl
-0-
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