Rawstory says it's Hannah!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[shraby]

(snip)
Individuals familiar with Fitzgerald’s case tell RAW STORY that John Hannah, a senior national security aide on loan to Vice President Dick Cheney from the offices of then-Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security Affairs, John Bolton, was named as a target of Fitzgerald’s probe. They say he was told in recent weeks that he could face imminent indictment for his role in leaking Plame-Wilson’s name to reporters unless he cooperated with the investigation

(snip)

Hannah is currently under investigation by U.S. authorities for his alleged activities in an intelligence program run by the controversial Iraqi National Congress (INC) and its leader, Ahmed Chalabi.

According to a Newsweek article, a memo written for the Iraq National Congress (INC) raised questions regarding Cheney’s role in the build up to the war in Iraq. During the lead up to the war, Newsweek asserts, the INC was providing intelligence on the now discredited Iraqi WMD program through Hannah and I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, Cheney’s chief of staff.


<http://rawstory.com/news/2005/Cheney_aide_cooperating_with_CIA_outing_1018.html>

It looks like they also have the OSP!!!!

[electropop]

1. What's "OSP?"

[Vox_Reason]

3. Office of Special Plans.

A lovely little organization.... Not.

[electropop]

18. Oh, right, thanks.

Is the OP then saying that Fitz may want to nail OSP staff and directors? Cool.

[WilliamPitt]

4. Here

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/101705I.shtml

[Rhiannon12866]

55. Thanks so much! Great article! (as usual)

I never did finish reading it, so thanks for the reminder. And this is one I definitely meant to pass on!:kick:

[0007]

58. Great fucking article!

junior is going down.

[shraby]

6. Office of Special Plans....

a group of people set up in the bowels of the CIA to replace analysts and look for intel about WMDs. It was Cheney's baby. They took info from Chalabi's people and stovepiped it to Cheney.

[FreedomAngel82]

10. So that's why

he was going over to the CIA a lot with John Bolton and "fixing" intelligence.

[flyarm]

15. osp..cheneys secret government!!

the slimy sob's!!..it has been the secret silent government destroying our democracy!!

i hate those bastards..and i would pay a fortune to see them all frog marched!!

i want them all to be held accountable to the world court for murder..and tried in this nation for treason..and murder!

fly

[Stephanie]

57. The Stovepipe by Seymour Hersh

http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/?031027fa_fact

THE STOVEPIPE
How conflicts between the Bush Administration and the intelligence community marred the reporting on Iraq’s weapons.
by SEYMOUR M. HERSH
Issue of 2003-10-27
Posted 2003-10-20

<excerpt>

Part of the answer lies in decisions made early in the Bush Administration, before the events of September 11, 2001. In interviews with present and former intelligence officials, I was told that some senior Administration people, soon after coming to power, had bypassed the government’s customary procedures for vetting intelligence.

A retired C.I.A. officer described for me some of the questions that would normally arise in vetting: “Does dramatic information turned up by an overseas spy square with his access, or does it exceed his plausible reach? How does the agent behave? Is he on time for meetings?” The vetting process is especially important when one is dealing with foreign-agent reports—sensitive intelligence that can trigger profound policy decisions. In theory, no request for action should be taken directly to higher authorities—a process known as “stovepiping”—without the information on which it is based having been subjected to rigorous scrutiny.

The point is not that the President and his senior aides were consciously lying. What was taking place was much more systematic—and potentially just as troublesome. Kenneth Pollack, a former National Security Council expert on Iraq, whose book “The Threatening Storm” generally supported the use of force to remove Saddam Hussein, told me that what the Bush people did was “dismantle the existing filtering process that for fifty years had been preventing the policymakers from getting bad information. They created stovepipes to get the information they wanted directly to the top leadership. Their position is that the professional bureaucracy is deliberately and maliciously keeping information from them.

“They always had information to back up their public claims, but it was often very bad information,” Pollack continued. “They were forcing the intelligence community to defend its good information and good analysis so aggressively that the intelligence analysts didn’t have the time or the energy to go after the bad information.”

The Administration eventually got its way, a former C.I.A. official said. “The analysts at the C.I.A. were beaten down defending their assessments. And they blame George Tenet”—the C.I.A. director—“for not protecting them. I’ve never seen a government like this.”

<more>

[Eurobabe]

48. Office of Stupid PRICKS

eom

[WilliamPitt]

2. delete

[hang a left]

5. Who is Hannah?

While Libby is a towering aspen, whose fall will make a rather loud noise, others in the same stand have already met a similar fate, and what we have here is a sort of domino effect. John Hannah, Cheney's special assistant for Middle East affairs, was fingered early on in this investigation. Last year, Richard Sale of UPI reported a rare leak from the investigators:

"'We believe that Hannah was the major player in this,' one federal law-enforcement officer said. Calls to the vice president's office were not returned, nor did Hannah and Libby return calls. The strategy of the FBI is to make clear to Hannah 'that he faces a real possibility of doing jail time' as a way to pressure him to name superiors, one federal law-enforcement official said."

Hannah has an interesting background. In the early 1990s, he served as head of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP), a think tank associated with the American Israel Political Action Committee (AIPAC). As Middle East scholar Juan Cole pointed out, Hannah was a key figure in the intelligence manipulation effort that legitimized phony "evidence" of Iraq's WMD cooked up by Chalabi. Hannah, like the other aspens in the grove, turned with the rest of the cluster when it came to U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East:

"The WINEP pro-Likud network, which includes Paul Wolfowitz and Doug Feith in the Pentagon as well as Libby and Hannah at Cheney's office, has virtually dictated Bush administration Middle East policy. Wilson's debunking of one of its central claims might well have led Cheney to fire Hannah or to disregard his opinion. The WINEP crowd takes no prisoners and is very determined, over decades, to get its way. (Josh Marshall notes that they are already trying to protect Hannah with denials he could possibly have been involved, presumably meaning that they would be willing to throw Libby to the dogs.) Wilson had to be punished, from their point of view, and if possible marginalized, to protect Hannah's position."

Hannah may have thrown Libby to the dogs, just to save his own skin. This wouldn't be any more surprising than the actions of former Pentagon analyst Larry Franklin, who will plead guilty to spying for Israel in return for leniency in sentencing – and for testifying against his handlers, Steve Rosen, who for 20 years served as AIPAC's foreign policy director, and Keith Weissman, AIPAC's top Iran specialist. Rosen and Weissman pumped Franklin for classified information and handed it over to Israeli "diplomats" stationed in Washington. The trial is scheduled for January.

While Hannah, the former director of AIPAC's thinktank, was deeply involved in exposing a vitally important U.S. intelligence asset – Plame worked undercover in the CIA's WMD proliferation unit – AIPAC officials Rosen and Weissman were sneaking around Washington, meeting Franklin in train stations, and handing over U.S. secrets to Israeli spies.

[shraby]

12. Yes!!! Hannah is the connection between

the OSP, Plame leak, and the Franklin espionage case. This is big for sure.

[hang a left]

20. And

He knows who forged the Niger docs!

[FreedomAngel82]

14. So this is very bad for them

Wow. They all could possibly go down with Hannah testifying. He wants to save his own skin.

[Carni]

30. But how do we know he won't take the fall (himself) get a pardon

And then get paid an assload of cash down the road?

Not trying to be a downer but I am skeptical.

I can't stand the suspense to this!

[smoogatz]

34. Why cut a deal, if that's the plan?

Hannah's a small fish; it's a classic prosecutorial move. You turn the little guys, they rat out the big guys, right up the line. The only question is, how big are the big guys?

[Carni]

35. Good point thanks

I am in such a frenzy of paranoid anticipation that I am not thinking clearly!

I just hope the fish are truly big and multiple!

[MADem]

7. Well, he is certainly in a position to name names

...but he is not senior enough to "go off the reservation" and act as a rogue cowboy all on his own.

Oh, what a tangled web we weave....

[flyarm]

8. great job lalaraw!!!!!!!!!...you are breaking everything!!

soooooooo proud of you and raw story!!

we are so fortunate to have you with us lala!!
fly

[symbolman]

54. H2OMan Scooped this one

MONTHS ago..

"Unnamed officials"? Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy?

C'mon. GIve it UP for H2OMAN who's ALWAYS KNOWN THE SCORE..

[lala_rawraw]

61. thank you, it is nice to hear after mounds of hate mail...

Really, even at DU the ugly comments have been really in full throttle this day.

So thank you ever so much:)

[samdogmom]

9. self-delete

[Sydnie]

11. The shadow government knows!

and they must all be shitting bricks about now!

[FreedomAngel82]

16. More than likely

Would make sense as to why the aspen group is changing. Maybe Scooter's message to Miller showed her they were going to go against Bush and all of them would go down since they're all in on it together.

[file83]

25. *tinfoil hat, ON* - but I think the "Aspen Group" is more than just...

...code words. I think the nature symbolism could possibly have pagan influences, vis-a-vis the Bohemian Grove....I believe that ANY code words could have been chosen, but the fact that he chose that PARTICULAR metaphor is very revealing in and of itself.
Assuming you've heard of the Bohemian Grove, what do you think of that idea?
*tinfoil hat, OFF*

[opusprime]

13. This story is getting bigger every second...

I hope it reaches far and wide into this administration.

What the hell happens if the Prez and VP are indicted?

Good time to sell some stock, and possibly short Halliburton.

[shraby]

17. The tectonic plates are moving.

[Wind Dancer]

32. shraby, we've been waiting for this!

I remember your first thread that started the massive research on the Plame case.

:toast:

[Beetwasher]

19. Is Josh Marshall CONFIRMING The Hannah "Flipper" Claim? (Cryptic Post)

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/

[newspeak]

22. I remember seeing a round table discussion of the Aspen Group

It was years ago, and was shown on television--they were discussing how the Constitution was obsolete for today and that we should do away with it. I was livid!!!!! A man from Canada called in and said "if you don't want your Constitution, can we have it because what we have is the Magna Carta."

[1932]

40. Is this what libby meant by Aspens are turning?

Hannay was part of something called The Aspen Group?

Was he telling her that she didn't need to stay in jail because the prosecutor was going to get the information from someone else?

Was he telling her that it was Hannah so that she could conform her testimony?

[nadinbrzezinski]

21. Hmm unindicted co consprirator comes to mind

[OmmmSweetOmmm]

23. It looks like they also have the OSP!!!! YEAHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!

It's About Time!!!!!!!!

[robertpaulsen]

24. Wait a minute! Weren't we saying Hannah flipped LAST YEAR?

I'll have to check my bookmarks, but I seem to remember while we were doing the Plame threads last year that there were posters saying that Fitzgerald flipped Hannah and that he was spilling the beans on the dirty deeds of the higher ups in the misadministration.

H2O Man, are you reading this? Didn't you say something about this before?

[robertpaulsen]

38. Yep. H2O Man called it 14 months earlier with Hannah.

Here's the thread, thanks to kohodog for finding it.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=2277059

[Generator]

44. If he flipped that long ago

Every little trip to the grand jury by our gang of lovelies means everything they say can be measured by what Hannah told Fitz long ago. Sweet.

[robertpaulsen]

53. Exactly! That's the real implications of this story.

Which means that all the reports we've heard recently that Fitz is going to widen or expand his probe, that he's only recently started focusing on the VP's office is OLD NEWS. Fitz is just tying up the loose ends, i.e. PERJURY and OBSTRUCTION OF JUSTICE charges. The big ones like CONSPIRACY and ESPIONAGE were probably determined long ago.

That's my take on it.

[lala_rawraw]

62. Yes, rumors went about on the flip, but it took this long to get

a solid confirmation... which in this case, using anon sources would require a great deal of confirmation.

[Burried News]

26. Looks like Justin Raimondo was right. He said Plame linked to the

Franklin case.

Who are Judy Miller's paymasters? Doesn't look like the CIA to me.

And let us not forget that Richard Perle has stuck by Chalabai through thick and thin.

Sometimes the roads lead to Rome and sometimes they lead to Jerusalem.

[FlashHarry]

27. So... he isn't just the scapegoat?

Falling on his sword for BushCo™? I would be mighty disappointed if Hannah were the only one to hang over this.

[Carni]

31. Same here eom

[MN ChimpH8R]

28. Fitz did just what I expected

Found a smaller fish with lots of connections on the flow chart, boxed him in and gave his balls a twist. These pampered Repuke boys don't much like the concept of federal prison. This is exactly the same way you crack the Mafia, not there's all that much difference between the Mob and ChimpCo. To the extent there is a difference, it cuts in favor of the Mafia.

[merbex]

33. Pampered Repuke girls don't relish the idea of prison either -

huh Judy?!

Did you tell Mary and Karen how awful it was?

[pinto]

29. CommonDreams reprint of 2/5/04 UPI article: Cheneys Staff Focus of Probe

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/0205-12.htm


Published on Thursday, February 5, 2004 by UPI/Insight

Cheney's Staff Focus of Probe
by Richard Sale

Federal law-enforcement officials said that they have developed hard evidence of possible criminal misconduct by two employees of Vice President Dick Cheney's office related to the unlawful exposure of a CIA officer's identity last year. The investigation, which is continuing, could lead to indictments, a Justice Department official said.

According to these sources, John Hannah and Cheney's chief of staff, Lewis "Scooter" Libby, were the two Cheney employees. "We believe that Hannah was the major player in this," one federal law-enforcement officer said. Calls to the vice president's office were not returned, nor did Hannah and Libby return calls.

The strategy of the FBI is to make clear to Hannah "that he faces a real possibility of doing jail time" as a way to pressure him to name superiors, one federal law-enforcement official said.

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/0205-12.htm

[MaineDem]

36. Ahmed Chalabi

Ahhh...maybe that's Judy's involvement!

[milkyway]

37. Maybe Hannah gave up Cheney, and Fitz has been trying to get corroborating

testimony from Judy Miller and others.

[unblock]

39. isn't he the director of the columbus zoo?

i think i've seen him on the talk show circuit.

:evilgrin:

[tridim]

43. No, Jack Hannah isn't evil or a member of BushCo

I must admit he's the first guy I thought of too. One of the most unintentionally hilarious people alive. :)

[unblock]

47. i'm glad someone else got the reference :)

i agree, the animal guy is way too nice to be involved with these, um, animals....

[dogday]

41. kicked and nominated

[rw3204]

42. We're all missing something...

It's called a pardon, and we're all fools if we don't think * will use it. Doesn't even have to go before grand jury. Obviously shrub doesn't care what the populace thinks anymore, doesn't have to run for reelection.

[choie]

45. it's Bolton

I tell you, Bolton is involved up to his mustache!

[unblock]

46. we know, we know. but he will pay a major price

in all likelihood, it will play as unconscionable. even his hardcore supporters will abandon him at that point.

he may do it, and he may not care about the consequences, but it would mean his presidency is, as a practical matter, finished even if he does get to serve out the term.

prison for a couple of these crooks would be nice, but i'm more concerned about the major politics involved. i really want the republican party to suffer for this, and a disgraceful, self-serving pardon of a senior white house official basically accused of treason should do it.

[Ksec]

49. So Hannah will be the fall guy and the rest will walk?

Hope not. A prosecutor will grab the lower life forms and squeeze the info from them. Maybe thats what Fitz is doing here. Planting fake info to Raw to squeeze Hannah even more.

[Cooley Hurd]

51. No, Hannah flipped and is implicating the higher-ups...

This is good! This is VERY good!:thumbsup:

[Finder]

50. Robert Josephs...n/t

[Disturbed]

52. A cabal of Conspiracy.

It is starting to tie together: WHIG, OSP, AIPAC, INC. All of these people were determined to invade Iraq and Joe Wilson was exposing their game. They felt threatened by him and decided to destroy him.

[oasis]

56. whoop. There it is.

[LibertyorDeath]

59. Has Crashcart fled the Country yet

Time to pay the piper you treasonous bastards



and you thought you were so special.

[catabryna]

60. Well, that might explain...

John Bolton's visit with the little jailbird. Hmmmmmm... interesting!