Italy’s spymaster confirmed Thursday that the disseminator of the forged Niger yellowcake documents was the long-suspected on-and-off Italian spy Rocco Martino, The New York Times reported. It’s nice to have one point settled in this complex story of how and why the forgeries — which were used by the Bush administration to justify the Iraq war — came into being.
But many questions remain. A recent three-part series in the Italian newspaper La Repubblica implicated the Italian government in the hoax, saying that Italy’s spymaster knowingly provided the forged documents to the United States. He was prodded, the anti-Berlusconi paper reported, by the prime minister, who was eager to supply the United States with intelligence on Iraq. But the FBI reportedly cleared the Italian government of any involvement in July.
And Italian lawmaker Massimo Brutti made a statement Thursday that Italian intelligence warned the United States in early 2003 that the documents were false — before President Bush gave his State of the Union address that included the faulty Iraq-uranium claim. But Brutti has since backed away from that statement, saying he was confused.
It seems as if every aspect of this story raises questions. Liberal blogger Josh Marshall has been asking many of them on his site Talking Points Memo. But it looks as if definitive answers will be hard to come by.
Posted by Melissa Cooley
It’s still unclear why Bob Corkins, our new state education commissioner, needs a "transition team." Or why he is paying a consultant $2,500 a month to head it. Shouldn’t someone earning $140,000 a year already know how to manage? And as Wichita schools superintendent Winston Brooks has noted, nearly all of those on Corkins’ transition team appear to be from northeast Kansas.
Posted by Phillip Brownlee
When Apple offered $1.99-each downloads of TV episodes and music videos for viewing on the iPod’s 2½-inch screen last month, it sounded like a service for a very few people with too much money, time and gadgetry on their hands. We have since learned that Apple sold 1 million such video downloads in 20 days. Guess there’s no overestimating the willingness of people to stare passively at a screen, even a minuscule one.
Posted by Rhonda Holman
NBC’s “The West Wing” has suffered in ratings and quality in recent years, but this season’s presidential campaign to succeed President Josiah Bartlet (Martin Sheen) has injected new suspense into the White House drama. The Zogby International poll is even following it like the real thing, showing Rep. Matthew Santos, D-Texas (Jimmy Smits), leading Sen. Arnold Vinick, R-Calif. (Alan Alda). Wonder if more people will watch the live debate at 7 p.m. Sunday between the characters than any of last year’s Bush-Kerry face-offs. The show’s liberal bent remains obvious, but so does its deft ability to explain and explore the same challenges facing the real White House.
Posted by Rhonda Holman
