Italy 'warned Saddam Intelligence Was Bogus'

Italian intelligence warned the United States about bogus information on Saddam Hussein's nuclear ambitions at about the time President Bush cited them as a crucial reason for invading Iraq, an Italian parliamentarian said yesterday.

Massimo Brutti of the opposition Left Democrats made his claim to reporters after listening to evidence from Italy's chief spymaster, General Nicolo Pollari, in the latest episode to undermine the motivations for the Iraq war.

The Italian government of Silvio Berlusconi was and remains a key ally of the Bush administration. Italian intelligence has been linked to a dossier alleged to have been forged by an Italian that purported to show that Iraq had been seeking to buy uranium from Niger to make nuclear weapons.

In his State of the Union address in January 2003 President Bush repeated a similar claim to bolster his case for war. "At about the same as the State of the Union address," Senator Brutti told reporters after listening to Gen Pollari's evidence, the Italian intelligence services "said that the dossier didn't correspond to the truth".

Gen Pollari was testifying to parliament's intelligence oversight committee about the alleged involvement in the dossier of the Sismi secret services that he leads.

Asked about Mr Brutti's claim at a press conference later, the chairman of the committee, Enzo Bianco, initially confirmed it but then said he was unable to comment for reasons of national security.

Senator Brutti and other members of the committee said Gen Pollari had vigorously denied any involvement with the forgery or distribution of the bogus documents. He said Italy had shared intelligence about alleged Iraqi attempts to acquire uranium since the 1990s. But he added: "Intelligence was always accompanied by reservations."

At the time he cited the claims President Bush said the intelligence originated not with Italy but with Britain. Yesterday's closed-door session lasted for almost five hours. It was called after an Italian newspaper suggested Sismi had allowed the forged papers to be given to the US because it was keen to back the case for war.

However a rightwing member of the committee, Maurizio Gasparri, said Gen Pollari had insisted the "behaviour of Sismi had been absolutely consistent and correct in this affair". He said the forged dossier "was never endorsed by Sismi".

However, the hearing left questions unanswered. Mr Berlusconi's government has denied allegations in La Repubblica that it brought pressure to bear on Gen Pollari, and it has defended calls for his resignation. In an interview published yesterday, Mr Berlusconi denied his government had passed on documents relating to Niger to the US.