COLLUSION
INTERNATIONAL ESPIONAGE
AND THE WAR ON TERROR
by the reporters who uncovered Nigergate
and the Abu Omar Abduction
CARLO BONINI and GIUSEPPE D’AVANZO
National Release: April 25, 2007
$23.95
Hardcover
ISBN 978-1933633275

“Bonini and D’Avanzo are the Woodward and Bernstein of Italian journalism. They, morethan any other reporters, penetrated the Iraqi uranium fraud—one of the great, and most consequential, scams of our time.”

          —Michael Isikoff, author Hubris

“These two reporters, author of this book, are truth seekers who do the kind of hard, honest work that all reporters should do—find the truth and print it.”

          —Seymour Hersh, author Chain of Command

“Probes the most enigmatic questions at the heart of the greatest foreign policy catastrophe in American history.”

          — Craig Unger, author House of Bush, House of Saud

They broke the story of the decade—Nigergate. Then they broke the story of the CIA’s abduction of an Egyptian cleric off the streets of Milan. Now, have they uncovered what could be the next big story—secret meetings in Rome about the future of Iraq?

 
After George W. Bush pronounced the reasons behind going to war in Iraq—the infamous “sixteen words”—it was La Repubblica reporters Carlo Bonini and Giuseppe D’Avanzo who uncovered that Bush’s fraudulent evidence was planted by Italy’s secret intelligence agency, SISMI.
 
After Egyptian cleric Abu Omar was kidnapped in broad daylight off the street in Milan, it was Bonini and D’Avanzo who broke the story that it was a combined effort of the CIA and Italian agents.
 
In Collusion, the two reporters tell both those stories in full for the first time in the US, as well as the story that may turn into the biggest of them all:  secret meetings in Rome between high-ranking Bush administration officials and Iranian agents.
 
In COLLUSION, Bonini and D’Avanzo uncover the government-sponsored underworld of spies and crooked politicians, sidewalk deals and hapless villains that has played such a crucial role in the dirty business of making history since 9-11.  
 
But they reveal much more than the inner workings of “Nigergate” or the Abu Omar scandal. They bring the CIA and SISMI into sharp focus along with other players in international spycraft, “black propaganda” specialists, and the numerous shady characters shopping deals—here are the bunglings, the outrageous expense accounts, the lawless abductions, and the absurd misinterpretations of evidence.

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

Carlo Bonini and Giuseppe d’Avanzo are correspondents for Rome’s La Repubblica newspaper.  Their work for La Repubblica is distributed in English translation by the BBC Worldwide Monitoring Service.
 
Before joining La Repubblica, Bonini and d’Avanzo worked together at the Correre della Sera newspaper, where they reported extensively about Russia. Their reporting about corruption in the administration of Boris Yeltsin is widely credited with helping force Yeltsin’s resignation.
 
Since 9-11, Bonini and d’Avanzo have broken many important stories about the war on terror. Bonini is the author of a book about the U.S. military prison at Guantánamo, and his reporting with d’Avanzo about the Italian military intelligence agency, SISMI, helped land agency chief Marco Mancini in jail. It was recently disclosed that the Italian intelligence agency has extensive files on both Bonini and D’Avanzo.