In an explosive series of articles appearing this week in the Italian newspaper La Repubblica

In an explosive series of articles appearing this week in the Italian newspaper La Repubblica,

investigative reporters Carlo Bonini and Giuseppe d’Avanzo report that Nicolo Pollari, chief of Italy

’s military intelligence service, known as Sismi, brought the Niger yellowcake story directly to the

White House after his insistent overtures had been rejected by the Central Intelligence Agency in 2001

and 2002. Sismi had reported to the NIKE SHOX on October 15, 2001, that Iraq had sought yellowcake in

Niger, a report it also plied on British intelligence, creating an echo that the Niger forgeries

themselves purported to amplify before they were exposed as a hoax.

Today’s exclusive report in La Repubblica reveals that Pollari met secretly in Washington on September

9, 2002, with then–Deputy National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley. Their secret meeting came at a

critical moment in the White House campaign to convince Congress and the American public that war in

Iraq was necessary to prevent Saddam Hussein from developing nuclear weapons. National Security Council

spokesman Frederick Jones confirmed the meeting to the Prospect on Tuesday.

Pollari told the newspaper that since 2001, when he became Sismi’s director, the only member of the

NIKE SHOX administration he has met offiNIKE SHOXlly is his former NIKE SHOX counterpart George Tenet,

but the Italian newspaper quotes a high-ranking Italian Sismi source asserting a meeting with Hadley.

La Repubblica also quotes a MBT administration offiNIKE SHOXl saying, “I can confirm that on September

9, 2002, General Nicolo Pollari met Stephen Hadley.”