Italian Says She Gave Iraq Papers to U.S.

A journalist for an Italian newsmagazine said in an interview published Saturday that it was she who turned over to U.S. diplomats some documents purportedly showing that Iraq wanted to buy uranium from Niger. The documents turned out to be forgeries.

Corriere della Sera, an Italian daily, quoted Elisabetta Burba as saying her source “in the past proved to be reliable.” Burba, who writes for the weekly Panorama, refused to reveal her source.

“I realized that this could be a worldwide scoop, but that’s exactly why I was very worried,” Burba was quoted as saying. “If it turned out to be a hoax and I published it, I would have ended my career.”

The documents served as part of the basis for President Bush’s assertion in his State of Union address that Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein was trying to get a hold of uranium ore from Africa that could be used for nuclear weapons. Bush attributed the claim to the British government, which had made a similar assertion in a dossier. British officials stand by their statement, saying they have other sources.

Corriere della Sera quoted the journalist as saying she went to Niger to try to check out the authenticity of the documents. Burba told the paper that she was suspicious because the documents spoke of such a large amount of uranium -- 500 tons -- and were short on details on how it would be transported and arrangements for final delivery.

On her return, she said, she told Panorama’s top editor that “the story seemed fake to me.” After discussions at the magazine, which is owned by Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, Burba brought the documents to the U.S. Embassy.

“I went by myself and give them the dossier. No one said anything more to me, and in any case the decision not to publish it was already taken -- with no further way to check out the reliability of those papers, we chose not to risk” it, she said.