Newsgroup: it.politica.internazionale
Titolo: Iraq: Washington Post, tre allarmi Sismi prima di Nassiriyah

notizia del 08/12/2003
13:19 IRAQ: WASHINGTON POST, TRE ALLARMI SISMI PRIMA DI NASSIRIYAH
IL 6, 8 E 9 OTTOBRE SI METTEVA IN GUARDIA SU POSSIBILE ATTACCO A ITALIANI
Roma, 8 dic. (Adnkronos) - Gia' un mese prima dell'attentato di Nassiriyah
il Sismi avrebbe messo in guardia sulla possibilita' di un attacco alle
forze italiane in Iraq. E' il Washington Post a pubblicare i rapporti
dell'intelligence italiana, da cui emerge anche l'identikit del possibile
finanziatore dell'attentato, un professore di teologia all'universita' di
Baghdad. Secondo i documenti pubblicati dal quotidiano statunitense, nel
primo allarme del 6 ottobre scorso gli agenti in attivita' dentro i confini
dell'Iraq avvertivano che un ''attacco imminente'', forse a colpi di
mortaio, poteva essere portato contro le forze militari italiane a
Nassiriyah o contro le truppe polacche di stanza nel sud dell'Iraq.
http://news2000.libero.it/index_news.jhtml?id=5810060
Italy Was Warned of Iraq Attack
Reports of Threats to Nasiriyah Base Were Disregarded
By Daniel Williams
Washington Post Foreign Service
Monday, December 8, 2003; Page A20
BAGHDAD -- More than a month before suicide bombers blew up Italian military
headquarters in the southern Iraqi city of Nasiriyah on Nov. 12, Italian
intelligence officers warned three times of an imminent attack on their
country's contingent in the city, according to intelligence reports.
The warnings were communicated up the Italian chain of command but resulted
in no new security precautions at the headquarters, Western sources said.
The Italian government has denied receiving specific warnings of an
impending attack.
Kamikaze drivers were able to navigate a Soviet-built truck bearing more
than 800 pounds of explosives into the entrance of the compound, where they
detonated a huge explosion that ripped off the façade of the headquarters.
The blast killed 13 members of the carabinieri paramilitary police, four
Italian soldiers, two Italian civilians and 11 Iraqi bystanders. It was the
worst attack in an expanding series of assaults on U.S. allies in Iraq.
The attack suggests that Italy underestimated the danger to its troops in
Iraq, Western analysts said.
Moreover, information gathered by the Italians before and after the attack
supports a belief that the Iraqi resistance is complex, highly organized and
increasingly dangerous, U.S. and allied officials said. Its structure was
created in advance of the American-led invasion of the country, some
intelligence officials and military commanders said.
In Nasiriyah, Italian intelligence operatives reported cooperation between
former Iraqi army officers and Saddam's Fedayeen, an undercover militia
loyal to deposed president Saddam Hussein, as well as infiltrators from
Saudi Arabia and other Arab countries. The reports also detailed a role in
the attack by Ansar al-Islam, a violent fundamentalist organization with
ties to Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network and Afghanistan's Taliban
movement.
In Baghdad recently, Brig. Gen. Martin Dempsey, commander of the U.S. Army's
1st Armored Division in Iraq, told reporters that he was "increasingly under
the belief that there's a central financial control and central
communications" tying the insurgency together. Brig. Gen. Mark Hertling,
another 1st Armored Division officer, said that Iraqis make up the bulk of
the rebel contingents but that they also "recruit foreign fighters" to carry
out attacks.
The south, populated largely by Iraq's majority Shiite Muslim population,
had been relatively peaceful. However, as early as August, guerrilla and
terrorist activity had spread there from central Iraq, the Sunni Muslim
region most devoted to Hussein.
But until the attack, Italian officials had said they regarded the Italian
forces as largely immune to the hostility directed at U.S. forces in the
country. Italy's state and private media focused on their success in winning
the support of Iraqis in Nasiriyah, where they were securing reconstruction
projects.
"It's one thing to put out propaganda. It's another thing to believe it
yourself. The Italians paid a high price," said a Western intelligence
official.
After the bombing, officials in the government of Prime Minister Silvio
Berlusconi argued that such attacks were the price of working in Iraq.
Berlusconi pledged to maintain the 2,300-member Italian military presence in
Iraq, despite opposition to the war by a majority of Italians.
Opposition leaders have called for a rethinking of Italy's role in Iraq,
although most have stopped short of demanding a retreat.
Nonetheless, controversy simmers over what the Italian government and
military establishment knew. On Nov. 18, Gen. Nicolo Pollari, head of Sismi,
the Italian military intelligence agency, told a parliamentary oversight
committee that as early as July, his organization warned of the danger in
the south of Iraq.
Defense Minister Antonio Martino quickly dismissed the remarks, saying that
Sismi's intelligence operatives had issued nothing precise. "Sismi had not
foreseen specific attacks," he said. "It had produced information that was
passed to the military chain of command, but this does not mean that
intelligence had foreseen that there would be attacks."
Through a spokesman, Martino declined a request for an interview, on the
grounds that the investigation was continuing.
The spokesman also declined to discuss the issue. "There is no need to pour
gasoline on a fire," he said. "If we say we didn't know, people will ask
why. If we said we knew, people will ask why more was not done to defend
ourselves."
Sismi intelligence documents examined by The Washington Post contradict the
notion that no specific alarms were sounded. According to the documents, the
first warning from Italian intelligence was issued on Oct. 6. Its agents
inside Iraq advised of an "imminent attack," possibly by mortars, against
either Italy's military force in Nasiriyah or Polish troops stationed in
southern Iraq.
Two days later, the Italians predicted that an attack, organized by members
of the Fedayeen guerrilla group, would take place "against the Italian
contingent in Nasiriyah." The Italians named two of the suspected
organizers. The warning did not specify the type of attack.
And on Oct. 9, Italian intelligence supplemented the alarm by naming two
more Fedayeen who it believed were involved in planning an attack on the
Italians.
Nonetheless, Italian defenses in Nasiriyah remained unchanged. The
headquarters, formerly a chamber of commerce office, sits on a major
thoroughfare. The main building was located no more than 10 yards from the
entrance, which was protected only by walls of arranged to create an S-curve
that would slow any suicide vehicle trying to enter. But people who visited
the site after the blast say the passageway was not sufficiently narrow to
force a vehicle to go slowly.
No huge concrete barriers were put in place, nor were perimeter areas closed
to traffic, common precautions at many U.S. installations.
On a Nov. 15 visit to the compound, the Italian army chief of staff, Gen.
Giulio Fraticelli, said that isolating the Italian contingent would have
interfered with its desire to work with the Iraqi public. "One could choose
to entrench within a bunker in the desert. But to fulfill this mission, you
have to be among the people," he said.
The night before the attack, carabinieri held a birthday barbecue on the
roof of their headquarters, which they had nicknamed Animal House.
Italian intelligence reports provided detailed portraits of the resistance
leadership that conspired to attack the Italians. In the Oct. 8 warning, the
Italians named two former Iraqi army officers: Moustapha Hamid Lafta and
Majid Kassem.
On Oct. 9, the Italians identified two other Iraqis, both of them Fedayeen
fighters: Jaseem Kahtan Omar, from Balad several miles north of Baghdad, and
Abdullah Aboud Mahmoud, from a village near the capital. Saddam Hussein's
son Uday organized the Fedayeen in the mid-1990s. U.S. forces killed Uday
and his brother Qusay in July during a raid on a house in the northern city
of Mosul.
Western officials have begun to suspect that Hussein formed the Fedayeen to
create havoc in case his government was overthrown. For the Italians, the
organization bears an ironic resemblance to the CIA's post-World War II
creation of guerrilla groups in Italy for activation in case of a Communist
takeover. The contingency force was known as "Gladio," the small sword used
by gladiators. "It is clear that Saddam Hussein conceived of Fedayeen Saddam
as his own Gladio," said one analyst.
Soon after the Nasiriyah bombing, Italian intelligence added the name of
Majed Jameel, who belonged to a Fedayeen contingent long established in
Nasiriyah, as one of the plotters.
At the same time, the Italians identified Mohammed Fahd and Suleiman
Hardouchi, both Saudi citizens in possession of false Iraqi identity
documents, along with Mohammed Rashid, an Iraqi member of Ansar al-Islam, as
involved in the plot.
Ansar al-Islam was based for several years in far northeastern Iraq. During
combat last spring, Kurdish forces under American direction flushed Ansar
from its mountain refuges in northeast Iraq, but Kurdish officials say that
Ansar simply dispersed. The organization currently provides logistics and
guide services for roving bands of Iraqi and foreign resistance forces, U.S.
and Kurdish officials say.
The Italians reported that a theology professor at Baghdad University may
have financed the Nasiriyah bombing. According to Italian intelligence, he
provides money for both the Fedayeen and "Arab combatants" who have entered
Iraq to battle the occupation. The source of the funds is not clear. The
professor has been trying to purchase multiple rocket launchers and
surface-to-air missiles as well as explosives with "considerable sums of
cash money," the Italians said.
There was no indication that any of these alleged conspirators actually
carried out the bombing. Two men spotted in the truck before it exploded and
passengers in a taxi behind it were obliterated in the blast.
The taxi passengers fired into the Italian compound in order to clear the
path of the truck bomb.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A44134-2003Dec7.html

o contro le truppe polacche di stanza nel sud dell'Iraq.
Cioe' manco riguardava espressamente solo gli italiani :)
*LOL*
-Stefano

 Informazione che vale meno di zero :)
Se lo dici tu.

 Se lo dici tu.
Idem come sopra :)
-Stefano

 Lo hanno dimostrato i fatti :)
Come mai dopo l'attentato la base e' stata spostata fuori citta'?
Come mai sono state aumentate le difese passive?
Forse se certe decisioni fossero state prese prima si sarebbero potuti
diminuire i rischi.

diminuire i rischi.
Se lo dici tu... :)
*LOL*
-Stefano

 E da dove avresti appreso una simile notizia? :)
Sono state create tre barriere di check point, obbligo di identificarsi 100
metri prima, ai lati muri invalicabili chiusi da filo spinato e 4 file di
escobastian.

Sono state ...
Deduco che non sai rispondere :)
Ne prendo atto. :)
-Stefano

 Ne prendo atto. :)
Prendo atto anch'io che fai parte del centro studi strategici "sciaboletta
Martino e crociato Berlusconi "

"sciaboletta Martino e crociato Berlusconi "
...disse il bue all'asino... :)
*LOL*
-Stefano