An almost deafening "chomp, chomp, chomp" now pervades the Beltway ...

[understandinglife]

And, here is just one example of how ferocious it's been:

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000087&sid=aSuj1d8CcYAk&refer=top_world_news

And, more examples in this thread:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=104&topic_id=5070621&mesg_id=5070621

And, here:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x1854477

And, here:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x5076864

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x1853828

And, here:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x1854172

And, a summary of why so many have so much to fear:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=5038953

Cheney, Condi, Miller, Libby, Rove, Bolton, Matalin, Hadley, Powell, Ari, ....., they've all been eating each other and the folk on the outside of the tank looking in have been, and continue to be, Mr. Fitzgerald, his staff and the GJ.

Quite a show ... and, until just recently, it's all been a pre-release 'private viewing.'

Let the show begin ....

For a more complete cast of characters:

http://www.thinkprogress.org/leak-scandal

(oh, and georgie boy, they're saving you for desert).


Peace.

[Hissyspit]

1. Great heading, 'life!

[understandinglife]

2. AP's Peter Yost: Miller Story Shows White House-CIA Tension

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/10/16/AR2005101600439

Comments at DU:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x1854400


Peace.

[understandinglife]

20. NYTimes picks up the AP story:

October 17, 2005
Miller Story Shows White House - CIA Tension
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 9:59 a.m. ET

WASHINGTON (AP) -- A New York Times reporter's accounts of her private conversations with Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff capture a behind-the-scenes blame game between the White House and the CIA over the war in Iraq.

Cheney's top aide, I. Lewis ''Scooter'' Libby, complained that the CIA and other agencies were trying to shift responsibility to the White House over the failure to find weapons of mass destruction after the U.S.-led invasion, reporter Judith Miller wrote in a first-person story in Sunday's editions.

<clip>

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-White-House-CIA.html?pagewanted=print

Peace.

[understandinglife]

3. WaPo's Pincus & Kurtz: Miller's Lawyer Says Aide May Face 'Problem'

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/10/16/AR2005101601228.html

DU comments:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x1854477


Peace.

[understandinglife]

21. Howie Kurtz goes breathless in the blogosphere ....

The Judy Miller story is so hot right now that I want to get right to the blogosphere reaction, and will make you scroll down to read my print column.

The reaction is, well, overwhelmingly negative.

<clip>

You can read my story here, and I'll just pull out one section that suggests why Miller isn't the most popular person among her colleagues--even after taking the difficult step of spending 85 days in the clink:

<clip>

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/linkset/2005/04/11/LI2005041100587.html

Howie, if you think the story is 'hot,' now ...


Peace.

[understandinglife]

4. UPI: Miller warns Libby may face 'problem'

http://www.sciencedaily.com/upi/?feed=TopNews&article=UPI-1-20051017-00033900-bc-us-miller-libby.xml


Peace.

[TexasLawyer]

5. Resignations

Thanks for pulling these together, UL. and I agree with the call you make in one of your other threads, linked above:

Ms propagandist-in-chief Miller, I wish you a very long life, as to ensure the maximum exposure of you to the horrific consequences of your willful lies.

Mr Sulzberger and Mr Keller -- RESIGN IMMEDIATELY.

Peace-- and truth will out!

[understandinglife]

7. Yes, I want all of them to live ....

.... very long lives.

I have always opposed capital punishment because I reject any form of killing, especially state-sponsored killing.

And, because I have always considerd the most effective punishment for capital crime, of any type, is for the person who committed them to be required to confront the consequences for as long as possible.

Thank you for your comments.


Peace.

[understandinglife]

6. NYTimes' Johnston: Cheney Aide May Still Be a Focus in Leak

In part, the impact of Ms. Miller's testimony on Mr. Libby depends on how Mr. Fitzgerald evaluates her credibility. Some lawyers with clients in the case have suggested that Mr. Fitzgerald could be skeptical about her hazy recollection of events.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/17/politics/17leak.html?pagewanted=print

Chomp, chomp, ...., those consiglieri are earning some big bucks trying to save at least some body parts of their respective clients ....


Peace.

[Neil Lisst]

8. let's hope they turn on each other soon ...

This case needs a John Dean to tell all.

[understandinglife]

10. I think 'this case' has already got a large cast of "John Dean" characters

Just a matter of which one Mr Fitzgerald wants to call as his first witness.


Peace.

[understandinglife]

11. MR. RUSSERT: Including testifying under oath?

SEC'Y RICE: I've cooperated in any and every way that I've been asked to cooperate.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9684807

Back to you on that one, Condi.


Peace.

[understandinglife]

9. Digby: There is a lot of pressure building on the Iraq lies coming ...

... from a lot of different directions."

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2005_10_09_digbysblog_archive.html#112944827935232116


Peace.

[DemReadingDU]

12. Excellent collection of articles!

Thanks, U.L.!

[Cults4Bush]

13. kickers...

[AuntiBush]

14. I'm Praying You're Right.

Thanks for the up-beat post.

All of us need it this week.

[H2O Man]

15. Today's MSNBC report

continues to focus on our noble vice president, Dick Cheney. This comes to no surprise to DUers who have read the Plame Threads!

[AuntiBush]

16. Tweety's Drooling is Unbearable To Watch, in Recent Days.

[H2O Man]

18. I got a kick

out of him yesterday. He was frustrated that no one on the panel said what he knows is going to happen. He knows. My 8-year old daughter is better at keeping her mother's birthday gifts a secret.

[AuntiBush]

17. The Best Part

Miller goes to jail for "85 days," protecting her SOURCE, a source she can't recall, now. Unreal.

And her security clearance - another "unreal" scandalous affair.

[understandinglife]

19. It is funny, isn't it. 85 days in the slammer and you'd of thunk that, ...

.... if anything, she'd remember that one little detail :evilgrin:


Peace.

[cassiepriam]

28. that is what I thought. You'd think it would have come to mind

after spending the summer in jail.

[understandinglife]

22. Remembering the Stephanopoulous "bomb" ....

Near the end of a round table discussion on ABC’s This Week, George Stephanopoulos dropped this bomb:

Definitely a political problem but I wonder, George Will, do you think it’s a manageable one for the White House especially if we don’t know whether Fitzgerald is going to write a report or have indictments but if he is able to show as a source close to this told me this week, that President Bush and Vice President Cheney were actually involved in some of these discussions.

This would explain why Bush spent more than an hour answering questions from special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald.

More at link including a link to the video:

http://thinkprogress.org/2005/10/02/bush-directly-involved

No doubt that sent the sharks into a feeding frenzy .... wonder how many wiretaps Fitzgerald has had operational since at least February of this year .... just wondering ....


Peace.

[understandinglife]

23. Think Progress Updates info on member of the cacaphonous chorus

http://thinkprogress.org/2005/10/17/update-leak-scandal

The updated profile reflects ...

... recent developments, including:

- the number of Bush officials involved in the leak has grown from 21 to 23, incorporating reporting this morning that former Cheney spokeswoman Jennifer Millerwise and current National Security spokesman Jim Wilkinson have been questioned in the leak investigation

- Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice admitted that she has been cooperating with the federal investigation

- and other developments including the fact that Scooter Libby and Judy Miller talked about Plame’s identity at least three times prior to Novak’s outing of her

http://www.thinkprogress.org/leak-scandal

Peace.

[nadinbrzezinski]

24. my lord anybody care to fire that damn popcorn machine

lots of popcorn eating to be had

:popcorn:

[understandinglife]

25. Let us all remember that Judith's lawyer, Bob Bennett, is a criminal ...

... attorney.

As Josh Marshall discusses, it is also interesting just how close her "1st Amendment attorney," Floyd Abrams came to calling Judith a liar:

In an interview yesterday, Abrams declined to endorse Miller's account that Libby did not want her to testify unless she was going to exonerate him. "That's Judy's interpretation," Abrams said. Tate "certainly asked me what Judy would say, but that's an entirely proper question."

Abrams also minimized Miller's assertion that another source may have given her the name "Valerie Flame," as she recorded it in the same notebook used for her first interview of Libby. Abrams said others may have mentioned Plame only "in passing. . . . The central and essentially only figure who had information was Libby."

Remember, this isn't just another player in the case. This is her lawyer. Nobody expects him to lie for her. But he doesn't have to say anything.

I know using the word 'lie' here may seem overdone. And certainly Abrams is careful to phrase his words in such a way so as not to explicitly say she is being untruthful. But these are not minor points in her story that he is contradicting. They are close to the two most significant ones -- first, just why she initially refused and then agreed to talk, and, second, whether there are other mystery sources out there who could be the source of Plame's name.

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2005_10_16.php#006759

Since when do lawyers chomp on their clients ....


Peace.

[understandinglife]

26. Thanks to Paula Jones, the Wilsons can force Bush and Cheney to ...

... testify under oath while they are both still in office (and, same holds for anyone else in their administration .... got that Johnnie and Condi ....):

In an interview yesterday, Wilson said that once the criminal questions are settled, he and his wife may file a civil lawsuit against Bush, Cheney and others seeking damages for the alleged harm done to Plame's career.

If they do so, the current state of the law makes it likely that the suit will be allowed to proceed -- and Bush and Cheney will face questioning under oath -- while they are in office. The reason for that is a unanimous 1997 U.S. Supreme Court decision ruling that Paula Jones' sexual harassment suit against then-President Bill Clinton could go forward immediately, a decision that was hailed by conservatives at the time.

Link:

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000087&sid=aSuj1d8CcYAk&refer=top_world_news#

Neither of those guys is going to take a fall for the other, of that we can all be absolutely certain .......


Peace.

[Joe Chi Minh]

27. Isn't that the most ironical thing you ever heard!

Truly God works in mysterious ways, his wonders to perform! Bill's revenge! And he didn't have to do anything!

[cassiepriam]

29. Never thought I'd be smiling at Ken Starr and the SC....

[understandinglife]

31. Mark Kleiman: "I hope someone on the Senate Judiciary Committee asks ...

... Harriet Miers what she thinks of the precedent in the Paula Jones case.

http://www.markarkleiman.com/archives/valerie_plame_/2005/10/wilson_v_bush_cheney_et_al.php

;)


Peace.

[Pastiche423]

33. That was a mighty tasteful morsel

No matter how Fitzgerald's case turns out - I fervently wish that the Wilsons do file a civil lawsuit.

It's the "under oath" part that makes me smile so joyously.

[understandinglife]

30. Pundit Pap: "ABC This Week -- Blood in the Water"

ABC dared to make their top political story of This Week the wrap-up of Patrick Fitzgerald's grand jury investigation into who exactly leaked to the press the fact that Valerie Plame was a non-official cover operative for the CIA. Hats off to George Stephanopoulos and ABC for making that call. Everyone in the Beltway news biz smells blood in the water — but only ABC seemed to understand that this story is big enough to devastate the Bush Administration.

Hats promptly back on for ABC — and, for that matter, most of the press — not reporting why this was a national catastrophe. Plame was in charge of a CIA-controlled company, Brewster Jennings, which was working to stop the spread of "non-conventional weapons" (read: WMDs).

More at the link:

http://www.americanpolitics.com/20051016punditpap.html


Peace.

[understandinglife]

32. Froomkin: "Brace for Impact"

Brace for Impact

By Dan Froomkin
Special to washingtonpost.com
Monday, October 17, 2005; 12:51 PM

The Bush White House this week is bracing for the possible indictments of Karl Rove and Scooter Libby, the president and vice president's two most essential aides. The damage to the White House could be incalculable.

So what went wrong? Here's my theory.

If in fact Rove and Libby are indicted, it could turn out to be because the kind of hairsplitting, enigmatic answers that have worked so well as staving off the White House press corps over the years served them very poorly once a resolute federal prosecutor entered the picture.

<clip>

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/blog/2005/10/17/BL2005101700748_pf.html

Peace.

[understandinglife]

34. NBC: "Officials unaware of reporter's special status"

NY Times' Miller wrote she had 'security clearance' for Iraq WMD reporting

By Jim Miklaszewski
Correspondent
NBC News
Updated: 4:24 p.m. ET Oct. 17, 2005

WASHINGTON — Officials from the CIA, the Defense Intelligence Agency and the Pentagon say they have no idea what New York Times reporter Judith Miller was talking about when she claimed to have been given a "security clearance" while she was embedded with a U.S. Army unit in Iraq in 2003.

In a first-person account of her recent testimony before a federal grand jury, published in the newspaper on Sunday, Miller wrote the Pentagon had given her "clearance to see secret information as part of my assignment 'embedded' with a special military unit hunting for unconventional weapons."

<clip>

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9730308

Peace.

[understandinglife]

35. Martin Garbus: Judith Miller's First Amendment Conflict

There are differences and obvious conflicts between Judith Miller, the New York Times and the First Amendment principles involved. Judith Miller’s “explanation” in the Times papers all that over.

<clip>

Miller’s article in the Times confirms the conflict between her and the Times and the conflict between her and significant First Amendment principles. By failing to answer questions she certainly has been asked, her version of the events in the Sunday Times strains credulity. Her version is both incomplete and misleading.

Finding essential information after she left the grand jury is like a student’s explanation that the dog ate his homework.

<clip>

Unfortunately, she badly damages the entire press, television and print, and of course the New York Times. The Times had a reporter who never told them the accurate story and seems now unable to tell it. She calls into question the bona fides of the next journalist, print or television, who claims the privilege. It aids the general feeling that the press, especially, the Times, is not to be trusted. It also partially obscures the real story – the Bush/Cheney/Libby connections.

More at the link:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/martin-garbus/judith-millers-first-ame_b_9048.html

Peace.

[robertpaulsen]

36. Kicked and bookmarked!

:kick:

[understandinglife]

37. NEW YORK DAILY NEWS TO REPORT THAT SOURCES BELIEVE SOMEONE HAS FLIPPED IN

... IN WHITE HOUSE, AIDING LEAK INVESTIGATION.... DEVELOPING...

http://www.rawstory.com

CHOMP, CHOMP, CHOMP, ..... --- getting louder and louder ....


Peace.

[understandinglife]

39. Update and link == CHOMP, CHOMP, CHOMP, ....

New York Daily News source believes senior White House official has flipped in leak case

RAW STORY

The case of outed CIA agent Valerie Plame is set to explode.

The New York Daily News is set to report in Tuesday editions that a well-placed source interviewed by the newspaper believes a senior White House official has flipped and may be helping the prosecutor in the case, RAW STORY has learned.

The Daily News will reveal that a top source believes that based on the questioning of Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald and his other contacts with the investigation, someone in the White House has turned.

<clip>

More at the link:

http://rawstory.com/news/2005/New_York_Daily_News_to_claim_1017.html

Peace.

[understandinglife]

38. Village Voice: "The Iraq War Runs Through It"

Beyond the Miller-Libby game: People died

by Sydney H. Schanberg

October 17th, 2005 6:25 PM

Six weeks ago, former Secretary of State Colin Powell said publicly that the pre-war speech he gave to the United Nations in early 2003 claiming vast evidence of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction that turned out to be nonexistent was a "painful" and lasting "blot" on his career.

Though his language of regret was bitterly potent, and it was Powell's first interview since leaving office in January, the nation's press gave it subdued play, far from the front page, and let it die after one day's run.

"I'm the one who presented it to the world," he told ABC's Barbara Walters, "and it will always be part of my record. It was painful. It is painful now."

Powell blamed the detailed misinformation he spread before the U.N.—about stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons and an active nuclear weapons program — on "some people in the intelligence community who knew at that time that some of these sources were not good, and shouldn't be relied upon, and they didn't speak up. That devastated me."

<clip>

http://www.villagevoice.com/news/0542,schanbergweb,68945,6.html



Powell's 'blot' at the U.N. in '03. He's flanked by George Tenet and John Negroponte.

Well, Mr Powell, that is factually incorrect, and YOU KNOW IT. Not only did individuals within the intelligence community speak up, they even wrote a public letter to the President of the United States of America within hours of your totally irresponsible UN speech:

Published on Friday, February 7, 2003

MEMORANDUM FOR: The President

FROM: Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity

Secretary Powell's presentation at the UN today requires context. We give him an "A" for assembling and listing the charges against Iraq, but only a "C-" in providing context and perspective.

What seems clear to us is that you need an intelligence briefing, not grand jury testimony. Secretary Powell effectively showed that Iraq is guilty beyond reasonable doubt for not cooperating fully with UN Security Council Resolution 1441. That had already been demonstrated by the chief UN inspectors. For Powell, it was what the Pentagon calls a "cakewalk."

The narrow focus on Resolution 1441 has diverted attention from the wider picture. It is crucial that we not lose sight of that. Intelligence community analysts are finding it hard to make themselves heard above the drumbeat for war. Speaking both for ourselves, as veteran intelligence officers on the VIPS Steering Group with over a hundred years of professional experience, and for colleagues within the community who are increasingly distressed at the politicization of intelligence, we feel a responsibility to help you frame the issues. For they are far more far-reaching-and complicated-than "UN v. Saddam Hussein." And they need to be discussed dispassionately, in a setting in which sobriquets like "sinister nexus," "evil genius," and "web of lies" can be more hindrance than help.

Flouting UN Resolutions

The key question is whether Iraq's flouting of a UN resolution justifies war. This is the question the world is asking. Secretary Powell's presentation does not come close to answering it.

One might well come away from his briefing thinking that the Iraqis are the only ones in flagrant violation of UN resolutions. Or one might argue that there is more urgency to the need to punish the violator of Resolution 1441 than, say, of Resolution 242 of 1967 requiring Israel to withdraw from the Arab territories it occupied that year. More urgency? You will not find many Palestinians, Arabs, Muslims who would agree.

It is widely known that you have a uniquely close relationship with Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. This presents a strong disincentive to those who might otherwise warn you that Israel's continuing encroachment on Arab territories, its oppression of the Palestinian people, and its pre-emptive attack on Iraq in 1981 are among the root causes not only of terrorism, but of Saddam Hussein's felt need to develop the means to deter further Israeli attacks. Secretary Powell dismisses this factor far too lightly with his summary judgment that Iraq's weapons of mass destruction are "not for self-defense."

Containment

You have dismissed containment as being irrelevant in a post 9/11 world. You should know that no one was particularly fond of containment, but that it has been effective for the last 55 years. And the concept of "material breach" is hardly anything new.

Material Breach

In the summer of 1983 we detected a huge early warning radar installation at Krasnoyarsk in Siberia. In 1984 President Reagan declared it an outright violation of the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty. At an ABM Treaty review in 1988, the US spoke of this continuing violation as a "material breach" of the treaty. In the fall of 1989, the Soviet Union agreed to eliminate the radar at Krasnoyarsk without preconditions.

We adduce this example simply to show that, with patient, persistent diplomacy, the worst situations can change over time.

You have said that Iraq is a "grave threat to the United States," and many Americans think you believe it to be an imminent threat. Otherwise why would you be sending hundreds of thousands of troops to the Gulf area? In your major speech in Cincinnati on October 7, 2002, you warned that "the risk is simply too great that Saddam Hussein will use instruments of mass death and destruction, or provide them to a terror network."

Terrorism

Your intelligence agencies see it differently. On the same day you spoke in Cincinnati, a letter from the CIA to the Senate Intelligence Committee asserted that the probability is low that Iraq would initiate an attack with such weapons or give them to terrorists..UNLESS:

"Should Saddam conclude that a US-led attack could no longer be deterred, he probably would become much less constrained in adopting terrorist actions."

For now, continued the CIA letter, "Baghdad appears to be drawing a line short of conducting terrorist attacks with conventional or chemical/biological warfare against the United States." With his back against the wall, however, "Saddam might decide that the extreme step of assisting Islamist terrorists in conducting a weapons-of-mass-destruction attack against the United States would be his last chance to exact vengeance by taking a large number of victims with him."

Your Pentagon advisers draw a connection between war with Iraq and terrorism, but for the wrong reasons. The connection takes on much more reality in a post-US invasion scenario.

Indeed, it is our view that an invasion of Iraq would ensure overflowing recruitment centers for terrorists into the indefinite future. Far from eliminating the threat it would enhance it exponentially.

As recent events around the world attest, terrorism is like malaria. You don't eliminate malaria by killing the flies. Rather you must drain the swamp. With an invasion of Iraq, the world can expect to be inundated with swamps breeding terrorists. In human terms, your daughters are unlikely to be able to travel abroad in future years without a large phalanx of security personnel.

We recommend you re-read the CIA assessment of last fall that pointed out that "the forces fueling hatred of the US and fueling al Qaeda recruiting are not being addressed," and that "the underlying causes that drive terrorists will persist." That CIA report cited a Gallup poll last year of almost 10,000 Muslims in nine countries in which respondents described the United States as "ruthless, aggressive, conceited, arrogant, easily provoked and biased."

Chemical Weapons

With respect to possible Iraqi use of chemical weapons, it has been the judgment of the US intelligence community for over 12 years that the likelihood of such use would greatly increase during an offensive aimed at getting rid of Saddam Hussein.

Listing the indictment particulars, Secretary Powell said, in an oh-by-the-way tone, that sources had reported that Saddam Hussein recently authorized his field commanders to use such weapons. We find this truly alarming. We do not share the Defense Department's optimism that radio broadcasts and leaflets would induce Iraqi commanders not to obey orders to use such weapons, or that Iraqi generals would remove Saddam Hussein as soon as the first US soldier sets foot in Iraq. Clearly, an invasion would be no cakewalk for American troops, ill equipped as they are to operate in a chemical environment.

Casualties

Reminder: The last time we sent troops to the Gulf, over 600,000 of them, one out of three came back ill-many with unexplained disorders of the nervous system. Your Secretary of Veterans Affairs recently closed the VA healthcare system to nearly 200,000 eligible veterans by administrative fiat. Thus, casualties of further war will inevitably displace other veterans who need VA services.

In his second inaugural, Abraham Lincoln appealed to his fellow citizens to care for those who "have borne the battle." Years before you took office, our country was doing a very poor job of that for the over 200,000 servicemen and women stricken with various Gulf War illnesses. Today's battlefield is likely to be even more sodden with chemicals and is altogether likely to yield tens of thousands more casualties. On October 1, 2002 Congress' General Accounting Office reported "serious problems still persist" with the Pentagon's efforts to protect servicemen and women, including shortfalls in clothing, equipment, and training. Our troops deserve more effective support than broadcasts, leaflets, and faulty equipment for protection against chemical and biological agents.

No one has a corner on the truth; nor do we harbor illusions that our analysis is irrefutable or undeniable. But after watching Secretary Powell today, we are convinced that you would be well served if you widened the discussion beyond violations of Resolution 1441, and beyond the circle of those advisers clearly bent on a war for which we see no compelling reason and from which we believe the unintended consequences are likely to be catastrophic.

/s/

Richard Beske, San Diego
Kathleen McGrath Christison, Santa Fe
William Christison, Santa Fe
Patrick Eddington, Alexandria
Raymond McGovern, Arlington

Steering Group
Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity

Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS) is a coast-to-coast enterprise; mostly intelligence officers from analysis side of CIA, but Operations side also represented.

http://www.commondreams.org/views03/0207-04.htm

And, then VIPS informed the President on the day before he launched his illegal war that the Niger documents were forgeries, and more:

March 18, 2003

MEMORANDUM FOR: The President

FROM: Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity

SUBJECT: Forgery, Hyperbole, Half-Truth: A Problem

We last wrote you immediately after Secretary of State Powell's UN speech on February 5, in an attempt to convey our concerns that insufficient attention was being given to wider intelligence-related issues at stake in the conflict with Iraq. Your speech yesterday evening did nothing to allay those concerns. And the acerbic exchanges of the past few weeks have left the United States more isolated than at any time in the history of the republic and the American people more polarized.

Today we write with an increased sense of urgency and responsibility. Responsibility, because you appear to be genuinely puzzled at the widespread opposition to your policy on Iraq and because we have become convinced that those of your advisers who do understand what is happening are reluctant to be up front with you about it. As veterans of the CIA and other intelligence agencies, the posture we find ourselves in is as familiar as it is challenging. We feel a continuing responsibility to "tell it like it is"- or at least as we see it-without fear or favor. Better to hear it from extended family than not at all; we hope you will take what follows in that vein.

We cannot escape the conclusion that you have been badly misinformed. It was reported yesterday that your generals in the Persian Gulf area have become increasingly concerned over sandstorms. To us this is a metaphor for the shifting sand-type "intelligence" upon which your policy has been built.

Worse still, it has become increasingly clear that the sharp drop in US credibility abroad is largely a function of the rather transparent abuse of intelligence reporting and the dubious conclusions drawn from that reporting - the ones that underpin your decisions on Iraq.

Flashback to Vietnam

Many of us cut our intelligence teeth during the sixties. We remember the arrogance and flawed thinking that sucked us into the quagmire of Vietnam. The French, it turned out, knew better. And they looked on with wonderment at Washington's misplaced confidence-its single-minded hubris, as it embarked on a venture the French knew from their own experience could only meet a dead end. This was hardly a secret. It was widely known that the French general sent off to survey the possibility of regaining Vietnam for France after World War II reported that the operation would take a half-million troops, and even then it could not be successful.

Nevertheless, President Johnson, heeding the ill-informed advice of civilian leaders of the Pentagon with no experience in war, let himself get drawn in past the point of no return. In the process, he played fast and loose with intelligence to get the Tonkin Gulf resolution through Congress so that he could prosecute the war. To that misguided war he mortgaged his political future, which was in shambles when he found himself unable to extricate himself from the morass.

Quite apart from what happened to President Johnson, the Vietnam War was the most serious US foreign policy blunder in modern times.until now.

Forgery

In your state-of-the-union address you spoke of Iraq's pre-1991 focus on how to "enrich uranium for a bomb" and added, "the British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa." No doubt you have now been told that this information was based on bogus correspondence between Iraq and Niger. Answering a question on this last week, Secretary Powell conceded-with neither apology nor apparent embarrassment-that the documents in question, which the US and UK had provided to the UN to show that Iraq is still pursuing nuclear weapons, were forgeries. Powell was short: "If that information is inaccurate, fine."

But it is anything but fine. This kind of episode inflicts serious damage on US credibility abroad-the more so, as it appears neither you nor your advisers and political supporters are in hot pursuit of those responsible. Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Pat Roberts has shown little enthusiasm for finding out what went awry. Committee Vice-Chairman, Jay Rockefeller, suggested that the FBI be enlisted to find the perpetrators of the forgeries, which US officials say contain "laughable and child-like errors," and to determine why the CIA did not recognize them as forgeries. But Roberts indicated through a committee spokeswoman that he believes it is " inappropriate for the FBI to investigate at this point." Foreign observers do not have to be paranoid to suspect some kind of cover-up.

Who Did It? Who Cares!

Last week Wisconsin Congressman Dave Obey cited a recent press report suggesting that a foreign government might be behind the forgeries as part of an effort to build support for military action against Iraq and asked Secretary Powell if he could identify that foreign government. Powell said he could not do so "with confidence." Nor did he appear in the slightest interested.

We think you should be. In the absence of hard evidence one looks for those with motive and capability. The fabrication of false documentation, particularly what purports to be official correspondence between the agencies of two governments, is a major undertaking requiring advanced technical skills normally available only in a sophisticated intelligence service. And yet the forgeries proved to be a sloppy piece of work.

Chalk it up to professional pride by (past) association, but unless the CIA's capabilities have drastically eroded over recent years, the legendary expertise of CIA technical specialists, combined with the crudeness of the forgeries, leave us persuaded that the CIA did not craft the bogus documents. Britain's MI-6 is equally adept at such things. Thus, except in the unlikely event that crafting forgery was left to second-stringers, it seems unlikely that the British were the original source.

We find ourselves wondering if amateur intelligence operatives in the Pentagon basement and/or at 10 Downing Street were involved and need to be called on the carpet. We would urge you strongly to determine the provenance. This is not trivial matter. As our VIPS colleague (and former CIA Chief of Station) Ray Close has noted, "If anyone in Washington deliberately practiced disinformation in this way against another element of our own government or wittingly passed fabricated information to the UN, this could do permanent damage to the commitment to competence and integrity on which the whole American foreign policy process depends."

The lack of any strong reaction from the White House feeds the suspicion that the US was somehow involved in, or at least condones, the forgery. It is important for you to know that, although credibility-destroying stories like this rarely find their way into the largely cowed US media, they do grab headlines abroad among those less disposed to give the US the benefit of the doubt. As you know better than anyone, a year and a half after 9/11 the still traumatized US public remains much more inclined toward unquestioning trust in the presidency. Over time that child-like trust can be expected to erode, if preventive maintenance is not performed.and hyperbole shunned.

Hyperbole

The forgery aside, the administration's handling of the issue of whether Iraq is continuing to develop nuclear weapons has done particularly severe damage to US credibility. On October 7 your speechwriters had you claim that Iraq might be able to produce a nuclear weapon in less than a year. Formal US intelligence estimates, sanitized versions of which have been made public, hold that Iraq will be unable to produce a nuclear weapon until the end of the decade, if then. In that same speech you claimed that "the evidence indicates that Iraq is reconstituting its nuclear weapons program"-a claim reiterated by Vice President Cheney on Meet the Press on March 16.

Reporting to the UN Security Council in recent months, UN chief nuclear inspector Mohammed ElBaradei has asserted that the inspectors have found no evidence that Iraq has reconstituted its nuclear weapons program. Some suspect that the US does have such evidence but has not shared it with the UN because Washington has been determined to avoid doing anything that could help the inspections process succeed. Others believe the "evidence" to be of a piece with the forgery-in all likelihood crafted by Richard Perle's Pentagon Plumbers. Either way, the US takes a large black eye in public opinion abroad.

Then there are those controversial aluminum tubes which you have cited in major speeches as evidence of a continuing effort on Iraq's part to produce nuclear weapons. Aside from one analyst in the CIA and the people reporting to Defense Secretary Rumsfeld, there is virtually unanimous agreement within the intelligence, engineering, and scientific communities with ElBaradei's finding that "it was highly unlikely" that the tubes could have been used to produce nuclear material. It is not enough for Vice President Cheney to dismiss ElBaradei's findings. Those who have followed these issues closely are left wondering why, if the vice president has evidence to support his own view, he does not share it with the UN.

Intelligence Scant

In your speech yesterday evening you stressed that intelligence "leaves no doubt that the Iraqi regime continues to possess and conceal some of the most lethal weapons ever devised." And yet even the Washington Post, whose editors have given unswerving support to your policy on Iraq, is awash with reports that congressional leaders, for example, have been given no specific intelligence on the number of banned weapons in Iraq or where they are hidden. One official, who is regularly briefed by the CIA, commented recently that such evidence as does exist is "only circumstantial." Another said he questioned whether the administration is shaping intelligence for political purposes. And, in a moment of unusual candor, one senior intelligence analyst suggested that one reason why UN inspectors have had such trouble finding weapons caches is that "there may not be much of a stockpile."

Having backed off suggestions early last year that Iraq may already have nuclear weapons, your administration continues to assert that Iraq has significant quantities of other weapons of mass destruction. But by all indications, this is belief, not proven fact. This has led the likes of Thomas Powers, a very knowledgeable author on intelligence, to conclude that " the plain fact is that the Central Intelligence Agency doesn't know what Mr. Hussein has, if anything, or even who knows the answers, if anyone."

This does not inspire confidence. What is needed is candor-candor of the kind you used in one portion of your speech on October 7. Just two p aragraphs before you claimed that Iraq is "reconstituting" its nuclear weapons program, you said, "Many people have asked how close Saddam Hussein is to developing a nuclear weapon. Well, we don't know exactly, and that's the problem."

True, candor can weaken a case that one is trying to build. We are reminded of a remarkable sentence that leapt out of FBI Director Mueller's testimony to the Senate Intelligence Committee on February 11-a sentence that does actually parse, but nonetheless leaves one scratching one's head. Mueller: " The greatest threat is from al-Qaeda cells in the US that we have not yet identified."

This seems to be the tack that CIA Director Tenet is taking behind closed doors; i.e., the greatest threat from Iraq is the weapons we have not yet identified but believe are there.

It is not possible to end this section on hyperbole without giving Oscars to Secretaries Rumsfeld and Powell, who have outdone themselves in their zeal to establish a connection between Iraq and al-Qaeda. You will recall that Rumsfeld described the evidence-widely recognized to be dubious-as " bulletproof," and Powell characterized the relationship as a "partnership!" Your assertion last evening that "the terrorist threat to America and the world will be diminished the moment that Saddam Hussein is disarmed" falls into the same category. We believe it far more likely that our country is in for long periods of red and orange color codes.

Half-Truth

Here we shall limit ourselves to one example, although the number that could be adduced is legion.

You may recall that a Cambridge University analyst recently revealed that a major portion of a British intelligence document on Iraq had been plagiarized from a term paper by a graduate student in California—information described by Secretary Powell to the UN Security Council as “exquisite” intelligence. That same analyst has now acquired from the UN’s International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) the transcript of the debriefing of Iraqi Gen. Hussein Kamel, son-in-law of Saddam Hussein, who defected in 1995.

Kamel for ten years ran Iraq’s nuclear, chemical, biological, and missile development programs, and some of the information he provided has been highly touted by senior US policymakers, from the president on down. But the transcript reveals that Kamel also said that in 1991 Iraq destroyed all its chemical and biological weapons and the missiles to deliver them. This part of the debriefing was suppressed until Newsweek ran a story on it on February 24, 2003.

We do not for a minute take all of what Kamel said at face value. Rather we believe the Iraqis retain some chemical and biological warfare capability. What this episode suggests, though, is a preference on the part of US officials to release only that information that supports the case they wish to make against Iraq.

http://www.commondreams.org/views03/0319-08.htm

All three of the people in the photo, above, are responsible. Whether two of the three have been cooperating with Mr Fitzgerald remains to be seen.

The other - no way.


Peace.

[understandinglife]

40. WaPo front page: Cheney's Office Is A Focus in Leak Case

Cheney's Office Is A Focus in Leak Case: Sources Cite Role Of Feud With CIA

By Jim VandeHei and Walter Pincus

Washington Post Staff Writers
Tuesday, October 18, 2005; A01

As the investigation into the leak of a CIA agent's name hurtles to an apparent conclusion, special prosecutor Patrick J. Fitzgerald has zeroed in on the role of Vice President Cheney's office, according to lawyers familiar with the case and government officials. The prosecutor has assembled evidence that suggests Cheney's long-standing tensions with the CIA contributed to the unmasking of operative Valerie Plame.

In grand jury sessions, including with New York Times reporter Judith Miller, Fitzgerald has pressed witnesses on what Cheney may have known about the effort to push back against ex-diplomat and Iraq war critic Joseph C. Wilson IV, including the leak of his wife's position at the CIA, Miller and others said. But Fitzgerald has focused more on the role of Cheney's top aides, including Chief of Staff I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, lawyers involved in the case said.

One former CIA official told prosecutors early in the probe about efforts by Cheney's office and his allies at the National Security Council to obtain information about Wilson's trip as long as two months before Plame was unmasked in July 2003, according to a person familiar with the account.

<clip>

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/10/17/AR2005101701888_pf.html

Anyone. Let's say that louder - ANYONE - who thinks that Dickie boy is going down alone on this one knows absolutely NOTHING about Dickie boy.

Every neoconster, every WHIGer, and Georgie boy himself are going down if Dickie takes a hit from the GJ and Mr Fitzgerald.


Peace.

[understandinglife]

42. Jane Hamsher: "To all the Power Tools and their acolytes who thought ...

... this story would die the death of indifference, you have never, ever been more wrong. And that, can we say, is quite an achievement.

<clip>

Senior administration officials said there was a document circulated at the State Department -- before Libby talked to Miller -- that mentioned Plame. It was drafted in June as an administrative letter and addressed to then - Undersecretary of State Marc Grossman, who was acting secretary at the time since Secretary of State Colin L. Powell and Deputy Secretary Richard L. Armitage were out of the country.

As a former State Department official involved in the process recalled it, Grossman wanted the letter as background for a meeting at the White House, where the discussion was focused on then growing criticism of Bush's inclusion in his January State of the Union speech of the allegation that Hussein had been seeking uranium from Niger.

The fact that Grossman wanted the memo for a meeting at the White House is a tantalizing detail -- did he take the meeting? And if so, who was there?

http://firedoglake.blogspot.com/2005/10/going-doooooooowwwwnnnnn.html

Peace.

[understandinglife]

41. Billmon & ReddHedd 'visuals' of what is about to happen ...

Billmon's choice




ReddHedd's choice




And, mine


Peace.