Kidnap drama chills U.S.-Italian relations

Stephen Weeke NBC News Producer • E-mail

ROME - The scandal over the alleged kidnapping of a radical Muslim cleric by CIA agents on Italian soil, which has resulted in an arrest warrant for 13 purported CIA operatives, is growing into a bigger and bigger embarrassment for Italy’s government.

Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, a media magnate and the richest man in the country, is a self-proclaimed “close friend” of President Bush. 

But Berlusconi now finds himself stuck between his most important ally and accusations of incompetence at best and subservience at worst.

So far the prime minister has chosen to “play dumb” rather than admit to active or passive complicity in what would be a clear violation of sovereignty in the kidnapping of the cleric in Milan.

On Thursday he sent a low-level minister, the minister of relations with Parliament, to address a near-empty house on the government’s position. 

Minister Carlo Giovanardi was given the unenviable task of telling the nation that the government never had any information on the matter and therefore could not have had any involvement whatsoever. 

In a speech that never mentioned the United States or the CIA by name, Giovanardi came across as the loser who drew the short straw to go to the principal’s office.

Diplomatic strains
In an attempt to salvage some dignity the minister announced that U.S. Ambassador Mel Sembler was summoned by the prime minister for a meeting on Friday. 

Summoning an ambassador is diplomatically strong stuff, and for Sembler it’s the second time in four months.

The first time was over the shooting of just-released Italian hostage Giuliana Sgrena and the killing of lead secret service negotiator Nicola Calipari when their car was fired upon by a U.S. military roadblock patrol on the way to the airport in Baghdad.

That incident caused a deep strain in Italian-American relations. A joint investigation ended up with a very public disagreement in which the Italians refused to co-sign the American conclusions that its soldiers had done nothing wrong.

That situation was also thick with controversy over who knew what and when. 

The Italians say they had notified their counterparts in American military intelligence of their presence on the road. The United States denied it. 

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