Reply #72: Sweet vindication! Perhaps there will be justice after all.

[robertpaulsen]

Thanks formercia. Speaking of CIA, here's something new from Ray McGovern. Check out the last paragraph. Right in step with what we're thinking:




Blowing Cheney's Cover
Ray McGovern
April 10, 2006

Ray McGovern works with Tell the Word, the publishing arm of the ecumenical Church of the Saviour in Washington, DC. A 27-year veteran of the CIA, he is co-founder of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity.

When you invest so much effort into tangling the web—in this case, corrupting intelligence analysis in the 2002 National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq—it becomes hard to know when to stop. Vice President Dick Cheney went to inordinate lengths, including 10 visits to CIA headquarters, to ensure that that crucial NIE on weapons of mass destruction was alarmist enough to scare Congress into authorizing war. And when the evidence turned out to be flimsy, Cheney had a back-up plan: The CIA made me do it.

Ever since their exaggerated claims about Iraq’s possession of WMD turned out to be baseless, the Bush administration’s defense has rested on blaming the government’s intelligence analysts. But one of the great revelations from Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald’s court filing last week is more evidence that the White House—not the CIA—distorted intelligence on Iraq. It was then-chief of staff I. Lewis Libby, acting on orders from Cheney, who presented evidence of Iraq seeking nuclear weapons material to reporters as a “key judgment” from the NIE, when in fact it was a subject of debate in the intelligence community.

The White House plan to scapegoat the intelligence community about Iraq—aided by eager-to-please CIA Director George Tenet—worked beautifully. But only for a while. The plan faltered once it became clear there were no WMD and former Ambassador Joseph Wilson blew the whistle on the centerpiece report used to deceive Congress and conjure up the specter of a mushroom cloud. That report conveyed the cockamamie story about Iraq seeking uranium in the African country of Niger, in which Cheney took uncommon interest.

snip

Special Prosecutor Fitzgerald, however, has an independent bent—plus the authority to look these aspects of the litany of leaks. I’ll be he has a good idea of who orchestrated the forgery. Indeed, I will not be surprised if the operation is eventually be traced back to the office of the vice president.

http://www.tompaine.com/articles/2006/04/10/blowing_cheneys_cover.php