WashPost: WH claims CIA withheld Iraq WMD intel - or did Cheney do it?

[leveymg]

A report in today's Washington Post appears to provide additional context to the motive behind the Plame outing.

Washington Post reporter Walter Pincus revealed today that highly secret CIA briefing in late 2002 by a ranking official in Saddam Hussein's government was withheld from distribution. That information contradicted the allegations being made at the time by the Bush Administration that Iraq was developing nuclear weapons and held large stocks of chemical and biological arms.

As Pincus' sources at CIA makes clear, a section of that report should have been distributed within CIA to Valerie Plame's unit that was probing Iraq WMDs, and the other to the CIA Iraq counter-terrorism unit. From information previously released, the counterterrorism unit seems likely to have included the former Chief of Station in Islamabad, Richard Grenier. As we learned six months ago, Scooter Libby talked to Grenier about Plame's work at CIA before he outed her.

Pincus reports at the concluding section of today's article (buried on page A14, under a title that focuses on false allegations made by the Bush Administration of alleged Iraq-al Qaeda ties): http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/14/AR2006091401545.html

Former senior CIA officials said it was unclear what happened to the Hussein-bin Laden information, although two former aides to then-CIA Director George J. Tenet said they could not remember if they received the original information. "Nothing was withheld from the White House," one former aide said, although there was "a lot of debate inside the agency about the Saddam-al-Qaeda relationship" because it was the focus of repeated questions from administration officials, including Vice President Cheney and his then-chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby.

The high-level Iraqi official, who was not identified in the Senate report, was Naji Sabri, then foreign minister. A senior CIA officer, after months of trying, was able to question him through a trusted agency intermediary when Sabri was in New York City around Sept. 19, 2002.

According to former intelligence officials, the CIA case officer filed two separate reports describing his questioning of Sabri. One, involving the Iraq weapons program, would go to analysts interested in that subject, the officer believed; the second, about Hussein and bin Laden, would go to the CIA counterterrorism center. The officer, however, passed his material on to senior agency officials in New York and was not aware of how it was eventually distributed.

The implication here is that Plame was embroiled in the controversy within CIA over whether this report containing Sabri's information that Iraq had no WMD program should be included in an official finding to be disseminated throughout the U.S. intelligence community. The obvious party who blocked that dissemination was Libby, acting on behalf of the Vice President.

I wrote about that March 20, when news came out about Libby's contact with Grenier: http://www.dailykos.com/story/2006/3/20/14939/6889

Mr. Libby has been indicted for perjury and obstruction of justice related to a coordinated White House operation that revealed Ms. Plame's identity to reporters. The 39-page filing submitted by defense lawyers indicates that Robert Grenier, a recently-retired former head of CIA counter-terrorism, may have been the source for some details of Libby's knowledge about Plame, an undercover CIA counterproliferation expert. Appointed head of counterrorism in 2004, Grenier was Chief of Station in Islamabad, and had been working in Pakistan for many years, a position that would make him familiar with A.Q. Khan's activities. According to a February Washington Post report printed at the time of Grenier's departure from the Agency in February, Grenier had been recalled from Pakistan to headquarters and been tasked to head the Iraq Issues Group in anticipation of the U.S. invasion. According to The Post: http://www.washingtonpost.com/...

The Post stated: "Robert Grenier, who spent most of his career undercover overseas, took charge of the Counterterrorism Center about a year ago after a series of senior jobs at the center of the Bush administration's national security agenda.

"When al Qaeda struck the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on Sept. 11, 2001, Grenier was station chief in Islamabad, Pakistan. Among the agency's most experienced officers in southwest Asia, Grenier helped plan the covert campaign that preceded the U.S. military ouster of al Qaeda and its Taliban allies from Afghanistan.

"By the summer of 2002, with President Bush heading toward war in Iraq, then-Director of Central Intelligence George J. Tenet recalled Grenier to headquarters and promoted him to chief of a newly created Iraq Issues Group. His staff ballooned as the administration planned and launched the invasion in March 2003."(end quote)

(I wrote)It is unknown whether Grenier became acquainted with Plame during his stint at CIA headquarters, or whether they had previously worked on matters in South Asia. But, both would likely have extensive knowledge of matters related to Pakistan's commerce in nuclear technology with Iran. From the mid-1980s until 1997, the A.Q. Khan network was Iran's primary supplier of nuclear know-how.

The A.Q. Khan network was of interest to both the CIA counter-terrorism and counter-proliferation divisions

The court filing revealing Mr. Grenier's knowledge of Ms. Plame sheds new light on how the CIA's nuclear counterproliferation activities were connected to counter-terrorism operations in South Asia, and some new clues to Plame's role at CIA.

It has been reported that Plame's primary assignment at the time of her outing in the summer of 2003 was Iran's nuclear program. If Grenier's knowledge of Plame's role was gained during the run-up to the Iraq invasion, it might indicate that Grenier simply worked down the hall from Plame. On the other hand, the two may have had a closer acquaintance. If Grenier had been working with Plame earlier, this would have much broader implications for Plame's role within the Agency and might suggest possible additional motives for the White House Iraq Group (WHIG) to ruin her career.

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There's been a lot of buzz that the recent flurry of article that have appeared about the source of the Plame leak might be leading to a new development in the Fitzgerald investigation. This article by Pincus may be pointing in that direction.

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2006. Mark G. levey