ledeen, larisa and pazienza

back to larisa's interview with ledeen...

firstly, i must give her props for the sub- title: "Denials mark neoconservative's account of past and present scandal" - I imagine there was some debate about whether to call it "Denials (cough *bullshit* cough) mark neoconservative's account of past and present scandal"

I still have no idea why he agreed to the interview, I suspect that he felt that he had no choice but to try to misdirect her. Now - remember, Larisa was probably fully prepped for the article, and she knows that Ledeen isn't going to answer any questions truthfully - so we can track her questions, and that's about it.

Curiously, in her setup, she writes:

(Read more about P2 here and here on the BBC.)

this is interesting, because the two articles (from 2002 and 2005) really don't say much about P2 at all - but rather they refer to the re-opening of an investigation into the 1982 murder of Robert Calvi. From wikipedia:

"Roberto Calvi... was an Italian banker known to the press as "God's Banker", because of his close association with the Vatican. Chairman of the Banco Ambrosiano, which collapsed in one of the major Italian post-war political scandal, he was murdered in London in 1982. As of 2006, investigations are continuing concerning this assassination which allegedly involved the Vatican Bank (Ambrosiano's main share-holder), the mafia (which was probably using Banco Ambrosiano for money-laundering), and the infamous Propaganda Due masonic lodge (which was closely linked to Gladio, NATO's "stay-behind" paramilitary organizations involved in the strategia della tensione in the 1970s-80s."

in other words, i don't think larisa was really pointing to 'more about P2' when she pointed to Calvi's murder. Ledeen's buddy, Francesco Pazienza, is widely believed to have orchestrated the hit on Calvi - probably for P2 headhoncho Licio Gelli.

First off, Larisa asks if he was involved in P2, and if he knows Francesco Pazienza and how well he knows Pollari. Of course he does.

Then this:

"RS: When we have talked in the past you have indicated that you did indeed do some work for [Italian Intelligence] SISMI around 1980. What was the nature of the work?

Ledeen: I think in the late seventies, when I was invited to participate in a desktop exercise dealing with how to communicate with friendly countries. What to ask, what not to ask; who to ask, who not to ask; how to ask, how not to ask. An exercise in bureaucratic communication.

RS: Diplomacy work? Or training on counterterrorism? Let me re-ask this differently: When you say “what to ask” and “what not to ask” do you mean interrogation techniques? I don’t think I fully grasp “how to communicate with friendly countries” in this context. Were you not a reporter at the time?

Ledeen: It’s just what I said – communication between governments – it had nothing to do with interrogation. There were problems for the Italians because there was no extradition treaty at that time, and our Justice Department was very reluctant to provide the Italian Government with information about Italians in the U.S. I had looked into those problems – I was by then in Washington – and they thought I could be helpful. I was happy to try to help"

Extradition? I'd have to imagine that's the last thing Ledeen would want to help the government with - given that all of his buddies at P2 would soon flee the country and scatter around the country in the wake of the collapse of Banco Ambrosiano and the Bologna train bombing. Both Licio Gelli (from switzerland) and Francesco Pazienza (from the US) ended up being extradited to Italy - but in early 1982, Pazienza was still in Italy, testifying in the parliamentary enquiry into P2. His arrest warrant (eg for stealing $4m from Calvi's bank) was issued April 1983, and extradition request Oct 1983. (you can see the diplomatic communications re Pazienza here - it appears that the USG was stalling on the extradition, probably because Pazienza was CIA and State)

Note that Larisa asked Ledeen about the 1980 SISMI meetings and Ledeen's answer referred to earlier meetings. He didn't mention some other meetings - for example, Giraldi says:

" Ledeen was paid $30,000 by the Italian Ministry of the Interior in 1978 for a report on terrorism and was well known to senior SISMI officials."

He also didn't mention this (from the wsj):

"(Ledeen) says a consulting firm he owned, ISI, undertook work for SISMI either late in 1980 or early in 1981 and the price "may well have been $100,000, I can't remember." SISMI may have paid another fee for other work in 1980, Mr. Ledeen says."

moving on...

"RS: You said to me before that Stephen Hadley authorized your meeting, correct? Did Stephen Hadley have the authority to unilaterally assign such a meeting?

Ledeen: Obviously Hadley did not unilaterally do anything. The Pentagon paid for the expenses of the two DOD officials, and the American ambassador in Rome was fully briefed both before and after the meetings."

i thought that Sembler didn't know anything about the meetings - and that was one of the problems - i.e. these meetings occured outside of the appropriate channels. Sembler is now heading up Libby's defense fund...

moving on:

"RS: What about Panorama, the publication to which the Niger documents now known to be forgeries were delivered? You wrote for Panorama as we had previously discussed.

Ledeen: As I've told you before, these claims are nonsensical. I have no point of contact with the Niger documents, I haven't even seen them or read them. I've never met Rocco Martino, and the sum total of my "work with SISMI" consists of one half day in Rome."

It's not obvious why he talks about his "work with SISMI" in this context... was he only referring to the Rome 2001 trip? Larisa asked about Panorama & Niger, and his answer is about SISMI? odd.

"RS: In our last conversation you said it was a couple of years back that Panorama published your work. The "mid-nineties" is considerably more than a couple of years back. Have there been any columns since 2000 or 2002? Did you do any consulting work, outside of writing, for Panorama?"

thats a very odd question. why is she asking that?

RS: Pollari was aware of the meetings in Rome and sent a team to monitor those meetings. As head of SISMI, he traveled to the US with Berlusconi in the fall of 2001 and then again alone in the fall of 2002. Are you saying you have never at any point met Berlusconi? Did you arrange the 2002 meeting between Pollari and Stephen Hadley?
[snip]
Ledeen: I don’t know about meetings between Hadley and Pollari, so I won’t speculate about their provenance, and the same goes for the subsequent meetings.

He is definitely lying about not knowing anything about meetings between Hadley and Pollari. everyone knows about them. why is he lying? and what's this about 'subsequent meetings'?

and then he dares say this:

"Ledeen: Frankly I have always found the frantic interest in the Niger Documents story hard to explain. Every commission, whether here or in Britain, has concluded that the British Government’s belief (that Iraq was trying to purchase uranium in Africa) was solidly based, and was not connected to the Niger Documents. And that’s what Bush said."

phew. although he does make a sort-of valid point, at least wrt SOTU. I still don't have a clue why the egadministration didn't stick by their "British sources say..." story. Of all the scandals that they've survived, at least this claim was technically correct.

and then:

"Ledeen: But the anti-Bush brigade was so eager to push their “Bush lied, people died” mantra, that they kept on acting as if the Niger Documents were really important. I suppose it’s because they got hoodwinked by Wilson, don’t you think?"

I'm intrigued by this, as I've mentioned before. 'don't you think?' - what a curious thing to ask, given that he is talking to one of the presumed anti-Bush brigade...

Larisa elegantly dances away:

"RS: I am not sure what you mean by “hoodwinked.” What I have found, however, is that aside from the errors... "

onward...

"Ledeen: The origins of Iran-Contra are extensively described in my book Perilous Statecraft. In brief, while a consultant to the National Security Council, I had a conversation with a foreign intelligence chief (I'll save you the question, no, not Italian)..."

defensive, much?

snark alert:

"RS: In other words, did you find anything wrong in being a courier of weapons to a country that is an arch enemy of Israel and at that time, as now, an avowed enemy of the United States?

Ledeen: I was not a courier of weapons; I carried messages and questions back and forth. I had no authority to do anything other than that.

RS: Right, I’m sorry. I forget who did what and I think that some themselves forgot who did what. "

snap!

and in a delicious twist, larisa gave herself the last word (at least until part 3 of the interview), after a bit of a rant, she ended:

"RS: So I would have to respectfully disagree that the indictment of Weinberger was an outrage. The outrage was that he was pardoned before he could go to trial."

stay tuned for part 3 - coming monday, i presume.