Niger Nukes: More To Come

When CBS News decided to run the Killian memos story on 60 Minutes, it canned another explosive story that ultimately could have done far more damage to the Bush administration.

The story was a follow-up to the Niger Nukes fiasco, including "first ever on-camera interview with Elisabetta Burba, the Italian journalist who first obtained the phony documents, as well as her elusive source, Rocco Martino, a mysterious Roman businessman with longstanding ties to European intelligence agencies."

Ironically, CBS is now hesitating to run the story because they themselves have been exposed by crude forgeries. As blogger Joshua Micah Marshall - who collaborated with 60 Minutes on the story - complains, "This is like living in a Kafka novel!”

Story here: The Story That Didn't Run.

Note: Interestingly, Burba is employed by a media arm of Silvio Berlusconi's network. For anyone who doesn't know, Italian PM Berlusconi, a big-time supporter of the War On Ahem!, is a pint-sized version of Bush, Murdoch and Mussolini rolled into one.

UPDATE: Josh Marshall quotes a Newsweek story today in which FBI official say they have been trying to interview Rocco Martino "but has not yet received permission to do so from the Italian government." Marshall points out that Martino has been in NYC twice in the past few months, so the FBI's excuse doesn't make sense.