Terrorists planned to use a hijacked jet for a Christmas Day attack on the Vatican, Silvio Berlusconi, the Italian Prime Minister, was quoted as saying in an interview published yesterday. ’We had precise information about an attack from the sky on Rome with the Vatican as the objective,’ Berlusconi reportedly told the Milan daily, Libero. But his office denied he had given an interview and Berlusconi himself hinted the quotes had been invented by the reporter. ’You can’t confuse a rapid exchange of Christmas wishes with a political declaration,’ the Prime Minister’s office said in a statement.
Unfortunately for Berlusconi, the right-wing newspaper, which supports his government, had turned the Christmas wishes into a huge three-page interview under a front-page headline, ’Christmas night with Berlusconi.’ The indiscretions, which have embarrassed his allies and infuriated the opposition, are reminiscent of a politically incorrect interview with the Spectator magazine last summer, which Berlusconi attributed to a glass too many of champagne. ’What a terrible day this has been,’ he is quoted as telling Libero in the Christmas Eve interview. ’The papers don’t come out tomorrow, right? Then I can tell you that the real question is not the television decree [which preserved the right of one of Berlusconi’s channels to continue terrestrial broadcasting]... but precise and verified information about an attack on Rome on Christmas Day. A hijacked plane on the Vatican - an attack from the sky, you understand? The threat of terrorism is very high at the moment. I spent Christmas Eve in Rome dealing with the situation. Now I feel more tranquil.’
Yet the gist of Berlusconi’s revelation appeared to be confirmed yesterday by the mayor of Rome. ’Many of us spent the afternoon of 24 December working, but without feeling the need to reveal things it had been agreed should remain confidential, precisely to avoid spreading alarm,’ Walter Veltroni said. There were other confidences that Berlusconi may have wanted to disown. In the interview with Libero’s political commentator Renato Farina he complained of press accusations that he had used his political power to protect his personal interests. The former Christian Democrat President, Francesco Cossiga, had advised him to retaliate by sending the finance police to investigate his opponents: ’Learn to use the legitimate weapons of power.’ Berlusconi is said to have replied: ’But I’m a liberal Prime Minister. I operate on the basis of consensus and follow transparent paths.’
| It sounds like it was an operation that got broken, but Berlusconi blabbed too early. That would mean at least some of the conspirators got away. Taken with the Saudi operation that never happened, and with the Air France operation that never happened, it looks like there was supposed to be an international Big Turban Airplane Show that was tracked and broken up, but the mop-up isn't done yet. Either that or that the people trying to ward off such things are getting hysterical. |
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