I BLAME THE FRENCH. A reader from Britain sends this from The Times:

An Italian newspaper has published obviously false documents implicating its secret services in the Niger-Iraq uranium affair, days before Silvio Berlusconi, the Italian Prime Minister, visits Washington.

In an embarrassing move for the Italian Government, La Repubblica infers in its two-page report that Military Intelligence from Italy as well as Britain, the US was apparently duped by obviously questionable material used to bolster the case for going to war against Iraq.

She adds: “Let’s see. Italians fooled. Brits fooled. CIA left out of the loop until it was too late and the Govt presentation was compromised…Soooo…I guess that leaves France as the perp. Which is what everybody knows already, but pretends not to.” Sounds plausible. Is it true? I don’t know. But somebody does.