World>Terrorism & Security
posted October 31, 2005 at 11:30 a.m.

Berlusconi: 'I tried to get Bush to not invade Iraq'

Italian PM says he even tried to get Libyan leader Qaddafi to help him.

By Tom Regan | csmonitor.com

In an interview to be broadcast today in Italy, Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, one of George Bush's closest allies, said he tried repeatedly to persuade the president not to go to war. The Guardian reports that, in a "behind the scenes effort" he even asked Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi to help him.

"I have never been convinced war was the best way to succeed in making a country democratic and extract it from [a] ... bloody dictatorship," [Berlusconi] says. "I tried on several occasions to convince the American president not to wage war."
His version of events, recounted in an interview with the La7 private TV station, with excerpts reported by the Apcom and Ansa news agencies at the weekend, was backed by his deputy, Gianfranco Fini, leader of the former neo-fascist party, who said: "We tried right up to the end to persuade Bush and Blair not to launch a military attack."

The Associated Press reports that the meeting between Bush and Berlusconi comes at a bad time for both men, and they will discuss a difficult topic - Berlusconi's plan to pull Italian troops out of Iraq.

Berlusconi has said Italy would gradually withdraw groups of 300 troops until 1,000 remain, when they will all come home. Italy's defense minister has said it's "plausible" that troops would return home in the first half of 2006.


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The Guardian says that the Italian prime minister's comments, coming the weekend after the indictment of Lewis Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff, will be seen as "treacherous." The timing of the statement may have to do with Berlusconi's upcoming election bid in five months. Polls show that his support of George Bush is seen as a "major handicap." The Italian news organization AKI reports Monday that there may already be a problem - former Bush adviser David Frum said the US president " no longer trusts" the Italian PM after his remarks.

"What Berlusconi said has damaged his personal relationship with Bush. In politics, it sometimes good to be cynical, but not to appear cynical. Berlusconi's's words and their meaning seemed very cynical," said Frum, a political scientist at the neoliberal American Enterprise Institute think-tank in Washington.
"The Bush administration's perception of Berlusconi has long been very positive. Bush [has made] it plain that he enjoyed his company and appreciated the sacrifices Italy has made in the war on terror. But maybe Bush thought Berlusconi a stronger leader than he actually is," Frum continued. "I think that from now on, it will be very difficult for the president to confide in Berlusconi, to believe and trust him," Frum added.

Reuters reports that on Sunday Berlusconi also defended his chief of intelligence, Nicolo Pollari, whose agency was accused last week by the Italian newspaper, La Repubblica, with " passing off bad intelligence to the United States, helping bolster claims about Iraq's prewar nuclear ambitions.

La Repubblica says the agency passed off fake documents showing Iraq had sought to obtain uranium from Niger. Bush cited Iraq's attempted purchase of African uranium in a 2003 speech, helping to build support for war. ...

The Niger uranium allegations partly extend to Berlusconi, whom La Repubblica accused of siding with US hawks before the war and possibly pressuring Sismi for evidence against Iraq. The newspaper has focused much of its attention on a meeting on Sept. 9, 2002, between Pollari and Stephen Hadley, who was at the time deputy White House national security adviser. Hadley later took the blame for a reference to Iraq seeking uranium in Africa made in Bush's State of the Union address before the invasion of Iraq.

The Associated Press reports that La Repubblica reported that Berlusconi had pressured Mr. Pollari in the buildup to the war to " make a strong contribution" in the hunt for weapons of mass destruction. It then said Pollari "used a dossier that had originally been fabricated in early 2001 with material stolen from Niger's embassy in Rome."

Reuters reports that Berlusconi's office tried to quash the "respected, left-leaning" newspaper's story, saying on Friday there "was no mention of the Iraq-Niger affair at Pollari's September 9 meeting in Washington, at which it said Hadley was a just silent guest."

The San Francisco Chronicle reports that Henry Farrell, a professor of international affairs at George Washington University in Washington and a blogger on the Crooked Timber Web log, says the reports about the Italian intelligence community's involvement in the Niger uranium affair, are examples of what Italians call "dietrologia - a word that loosely translates as the widespread belief that political, security and criminal forces are constantly engaged in secret plots and maneuvers."

"It's hard to say if [the La Repubblica information] is the truth, truth with some distortion, or misinformation from the officials who are leaking this," Farrell said. "But it certainly raises some very troubling questions."

Berlusconi's opponents in Italy accused him of " crocodile tears" over his comments about how he tried to stop the war. The Independent reports that Romano Prodi, who will run against Berlusconi next April, said mockingly: "What on earth has happened? He's finally realized this was a mistaken war? And he said as much to Bush? Which goes to show that he counts for nothing, nothing, nothing!"