La Repubblica expose: they say Niger forgery story starts w/ Ledeen.

[Wordie]

The US media just isn't reporting this, but La Repubblica is! Note that Ledeen is also the foreign policy advisor to Karl Rove.

(This site is providing translations - note that I have no way of confirming the accuracy of the translations, see link at end of this post)

"The story of Italian military intervention in Iraq begins when the resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, Michael Ledeen, sponsored by Defense Minister Antonio Martino, debarks in Rome with Pentagon men in tow to meet a handful of “Iranian exiles.” The meeting is organized by SISMI. In an Agency “safe house” near Piazza di Spagna (however, other sources have told us it was a reserved room in the Parco dei Principi Hotel).

Twenty men are gathered around a large table, covered by maps of Iraq, Iran and Syria. The big cheese are Lawrence Franklin and Harold Rhode of the Office of Special Plans, Michael Ledeen of the AIE, a SISMI chief accompanied by his assistant (the former is a balding man between 46 and 48 years of age; the latter is younger, around 38, with braces on his teeth) and some mysterious Iranians.

Pollari confirms the meeting to La Repubblica...
http://nuralcubicle.blogspot.com/2005/10/sismis-war-in-iraq-iranian-connection.html

[PDittie]

1. Kicked, Recommended.

Google:

Bolton Feith Ledeen yellow cake.

[Wordie]

8. Wow! A lot is there. When does it hit msm is my question. eom

[MN ChimpH8R]

2. No surprise there

Ledeen has always been the guru and inspirer of the neo-con criminals. I hope they hang his ass from a flagpole.

[Wordie]

32. But his name rarely comes up in msm. Why?

[HereSince1628]

3. YES!!!! Expose and crush the NEOCON/PNAC/LIKUD cabal!!!!!

What could I add to that?

[Wordie]

10. Where is the MSM???? Why aren't we hearing about this in our own media?

La Repubblica is way out ahead. They are calling it Niger-gate in Italy and it is a huge scandal there.

[Jacobin]

13. because they are in on it

that much is clear

[Wordie]

20. ...or, maybe just not paying attention. It's up to US to clue them in!

[SpiralHawk]

4. Mysterious Iranians?

WTF?

Are these some of Jolly Ollie North's buds? After all, North is the self-proclaimed "Amercan patriot" who made sure the Infidel Evildoers in Iran got our Hawk anti-aircraft missiles so they could shoot down any invading planes.

[Wordie]

21. Ledeen and Iran-Contra (he's been a busy boy)

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Michael_Ledeen
<snip>
As a consultant working with NSC head Robert McFarlane, he was involved in the transfer of arms to Iran during the Iran-Contra affair -- an adventure that he documented in the book Perilous Statecraft: An Insider's Account of the Iran-Contra Affair.

[SpiralHawk]

23. Hey, maybe my guess was Right On

the NeoCon culture of corruption knows no bounds: not laws, not time, not morality.

[Vanje]

26. Mysterious Iranians + Chalabi's pals

[Wordie]

27. Ledeen advocates "regime change" in Iran. Where have I heard that before?

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Michael_Ledeen
<snip>
"Now Michael Ledeen is calling for regime change beyond Iraq. In an address entitled Time to Focus on Iran -- The Mother of Modern Terrorism, for the policy forum of the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA) on April 30, he declared, 'the time for diplomacy is at an end; it is time for a free Iran, free Syria and free Lebanon.'

[mazzarro]

5. Bad link n/t

[Wordie]

9. Thanks for letting me know...fixed and tested; OK now.

[Kagemusha]

6. Franklin, huh? Another leaker of national security info.

Interesting.

[Wordie]

11. Two dots in the story...virtually BEGGING for connection. :)

[Wordie]

28. tompaine.com article by Robt Dreyfuss makes the connection!!!! (link here)

Finally!!! Dreyfus has connected ALL the dots!!!!

http://www.tompaine.com/articles/20051028/keep_investigating_fitz.php

<snip>
Keep Investigating, Fitz
Robert Dreyfuss
October 28, 2005
...Fitzgerald can choose much more. He can choose to investigate the entire spider’s web of scandals that all overlap in what we ought to start calling Iraqgate.

He can investigate not only the outing of Wilson, but its root cause: the mythmaking about Iraq’s nonexistent nuclear program. And he doesn’t have to stop with the Niger uranium angle, a thread much easier to follow now that La Repubblica has uncorked a lot on the Italian end of that one. He can also investigate the parallel myths of the aluminum tubes, looking at who in the administration’s Office of Special Plans, the Iraqi National Congress, the American Enterprise Institute (see: Michael Ledeen) and other neocon-sponsored entities might have forged documents, passed on false reports and spread alarming bits of nonsense—intentionally—that helped Dick Cheney, Don Rumsfeld and Condi Rice issue exaggerated warnings to Americans about Iraqi mushroom clouds.

He can investigate the creation of the Counterterrorism Evaluation Group, the forerunner of the Office of Special Plans, and its first two staffers, David Wurmser and Mike Maloof. They, both friends of Richard Perle’s, spun tall tales that helped Bush, Cheney and the propaganda-minded White House Iraq Group link Saddam Hussein (falsely) to Al Qaeda.

He can investigate the burgeoning Larry Franklin scandal involving the American-Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). In fact, how can he investigate Rove, Libby and Co. without overlapping their nefarious activities with the Office of Special Plans and the trips to Italy and other places in Western Europe by Ledeen and the OSP’s Franklin and Harold Rhode? The Ledeen who apparently turns up in the Niger hoax is the selfsame Ledeen who bundled Franklin and Rhode off to Europe to meet the lying Manucher Ghorbanifar. It sure looks like the same scandal to me.





...Robert Dreyfuss is the author of Devil's Game: How the United States Helped Unleash Fundamentalist Islam (Henry Holt/Metropolitan Books, 2005). Dreyfuss is a freelance writer based in Alexandria, Va., who specializes in politics and national security issues. He is a contributing editor at The Nation, a contributing writer at Mother Jones, a senior correspondent for The American Prospect, and a frequent contributor to Rolling Stone.

[DoYouEverWonder]

7. A SISMI chief accompanied by his assistant

the former is a balding man between 46 and 48 years of age.

How much do you want to guess this was Nicola Calipari, who was killed by US Forces in Iraq last March?

[Wordie]

25. There are somethings that I deeply hope are NOT true. This is one.

[understandinglife]

12. Josh Marshall: The Italian Connections Parts I & II -- And, L Rozen

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/006896.php

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/006908.php

And, La Repubblica's Scoop, Confirmed: Italy's intelligence chief met with Deputy National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley just a month before the Niger forgeries first surfaced.

By Laura Rozen on October 25, 2005:

http://www.prospect.org/web/page.ww?section=root&name=ViewWeb&articleId=10506



Peace.

[Wordie]

15. I like talkingpoints, but Marshall seems to miss the importance of Ledeen

Read this again:
<snip>

"The story of Italian military intervention in Iraq begins when the resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, Michael Ledeen, sponsored by Defense Minister Antonio Martino, debarks in Rome with Pentagon men in tow to meet a handful of “Iranian exiles.” The meeting is organized by SISMI. In an Agency “safe house” near Piazza di Spagna (however, other sources have told us it was a reserved room in the Parco dei Principi Hotel).

You see, the story of UNITED STATES military intervention begins at the VERY SAME PLACE, imo. And if you read a lot of what Ledeen has written, that he would be involved in something like this, and use any means available to him to advance his cause, is highly likely.

Try reading some of what he's written about, and what's written about him:
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Michael_Ledeen
<snip>
"From creative destruction to total war, the guiding beliefs of the most aggressive foreign policymakers in the George Walker Bush administration may originate in the works of an influential yet rarely seen neoconservative."

"Most Americans have never heard of Michael Ledeen, but if the United States ends up in an extended shooting war throughout the Middle East, it will be largely due to his inspiration."

"Ledeen's ideas are repeated daily by such figures as Richard Cheney, Donald H. Rumsfeld and Paul Dundes Wolfowitz. His views virtually define the stark departure from American foreign policy philosophy that existed before the tragedy of Sept. 11, 2001. He basically believes that violence in the service of the spread of democracy is America's manifest destiny. Consequently, he has become the philosophical legitimator of the American occupation of Iraq.

"Quotes from Ledeen's works reveal a peculiar set of beliefs about American attitudes toward violence. 'Change -- above all violent change -- is the essence of human history,' he proclaims in his book, Machiavelli on Modern Leadership: Why Machiavelli's Iron Rules Are as Timely and Important Today as Five Centuries Ago. In an influential essay in the National Review Online <2> (http://www.nationalreview.com/contributors/ledeen092001.shtml) he asserts, 'Creative destruction is our middle name. We do it automatically ... it is time once again to export the democratic revolution.'

So, you see, it is my belief that even talkingpoints is not stressing the Ledeen angle forcefully enough. Although the Italian seem to get it.

[understandinglife]

16. I've been following Leeden for quite some time; just posted these ...

... references because Laura Rozen and Josh Marshall have reviewed the transcripts of the La Repubblica articles and commented on them.


Peace.

[Wordie]

17. Oh yes, it's just that Ledeen doesn't show up much in what Marshall has

written, is all. If people use Marshall as the only source of info, they will miss the Ledeen angle, imo.

[understandinglife]

19. Agree. Like I said, I posted these references as back-up to ...

... the comment in your OP regarding the Nur al-Cubicle translation.

What I am most interested in knowing is the role Leeden played, if any, in break-in(s) at the Niger Embassy in Rome. I'm also interested in knowing if the CIA had Leeden under surveillance. :evilgrin:

By the way, here's another useful blog on "The Italian Job (Reprise)":

http://www.correntewire.com/the_italian_job_reprise


Peace.

[Wordie]

24. Thanks, understandinglife. That other link is interesting too.

[jn2375]

14. kick

[Peace Patriot]

18. "...a large table, covered by maps of Iraq, Iran and Syria..."

And what were they pouring over those maps for--the travel routes for the nuke material or nuke components they intended to plant in Iraq during the invasion, to be "found" by Judith Miller--in order to create the loop of deceit from the Niger forgeries they were cooking up, to the Miller's big "news scoop"?

Or was it more like Cheney's secret "energy" meetings, during the same time period--carving up the loot ahead of time?

----------------


Throw Diebold and ES&S election theft machines into 'Boston Harbor' NOW?

[Wordie]

22. It's a tantalizing question...and that's interesting speculation.

It is so believable, knowing Ledeen's philosophy, and seeing the sorts of things he has done in the past, but it's important to recognize and acknowledge that it is at this point only speculation. There is enough documented stuff on Ledeen that needs to be stressed first.

It is ALSO quite important to note that up to this point, just about all of this thread has been reporting FACTS, not speculation. Ledeen has a long history, and there is a lot of documentation regarding what he has been up to. I am adding this comment on edit, because I think that the speculation part, however enticing, can detract from the facts. And the facts need to be noticed by msm.

I wonder what Fitz has been up to.

[Wordie]

29. kick

[LibertyorDeath]

30. Ledeen has been up to no good for a long time.

In his 1 October article for NRO, Ledeen said: "The last great chief of the CIA, Bill Casey, saw the necessity of creating a counter-terrorism center where all the information came into a central location and was analyzed in toto. He entrusted the task to Dewey Clarridge," who "cracked his very active whipgreatly improving the quality of our intelligence."

Then came the "infamous" although unspecified "restrictions" put in place by Clinton.

What it required now, Ledeen contends, is "a top guy with real power and total support from the president, and it requires men and women at the working level who not only have the resolve and the courage to do it - laying waste to dead wood as they go - but who know the system cold, know how the bureaucratic games are played, and know which walls have to be broken down."

What Ledeen is prescribing, of course, is a recipe for the type of domestic political repression outlined in detail in this essay, that American's have endured under previous right wing regimes.

http://www.counterpunch.org/homeland7.html

[Wordie]

31. He finds fascism admirable, as well as Machiavelli; what do you expect?

Politics is not for choirboys, ok, but he really goes way to far, imho. Below is an article about another adventure in which he was involved, this time concerning Iran, which he is attempting to destablize:

(from the Sydney Morning Herald, Australia)
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/08/08/1060145871467.html
<snip>
Arms dealer in talks with US officials about Iran

By Knut Royce and Timothy Phelps in Washington
August 9, 2003

Pentagon hard-liners pressing for change of government in Iran have held secret, unauthorised meetings in Paris with an arms dealer who was a main figure in the Iran-Contra scandal. Administration officials said at least two Pentagon officials working for the Undersecretary of Defence for Policy, Douglas Feith, have held "several" meetings with Manucher Ghorbanifar, the Iranian middleman in United States arms-for-hostage shipments to Iran in the mid-1980s.

The officials who disclosed the secret meetings said the talks with Mr Ghorbanifar were not authorised by the White House and appeared to be aimed at undercutting sensitive negotiations with Iran's Government. A senior Administration official said the US Government had learned about the unauthorised talks by accident. The immediate objective appeared to be to "antagonise Iran so that they get frustrated and then by their reactions harden US policy against them".

The senior Administration official identified two of the defence officials who met Mr Ghorbanifar as Harold Rhode, Mr Feith's top Middle East specialist, and Larry Franklin, a Defence Intelligence Agency analyst on loan to the undersecretary's office. Mr Rhode is a protege of Michael Ledeen, who was a National Security Council consultant in the mid 1980s when he introduced Mr Ghorbanifar to Oliver North, a NSC aide, and others in the opening stages of the Iran-Contra affair.

It is understood Mr Ledeen reopened the Ghorbanifar channel with Mr Feith's staff. Mr Ledeen, a scholar at the American Enterprise Institute who backs change of government in Iran, would neither confirm nor deny that he arranged meetings with Mr Ghorbanifar. "I'm not going to comment on any private meetings with any private people," he said. "It's nobody's business."

[Jose Diablo]

33. Robert Sheldon Lady

I would suggest a research of the above to find out who Cheney's bagman was in obtaining letterhead from the Niger embassy in Italy.

Forging documents on bogus letterhead is a old Rove trick. But the letterhead is needed to pull it off. Try here Robert Lady to get a little background on the spooks that may have been involved in developing the 'documents' to start the war in Iraq. It is the son we are interested in.

"His son, Robert Seldon Lady, is another matter and may well have taken advantage of his father's Honduran assets and aptitudes to conduct CIA capers. Bob Lady conducted operations in Central America, off and on, during and after Iran-Contra, until he was tranfered to Milan, Italy, about the start of 2001. Some claim that CIA snitch Aldrich Ames -- arrested for spying for Russia -- "burned" (outed and ruined) agents in Latin America. However, Robert Lady was attached to the US embassy in Panama until the CIA transferred him to Milan around the beginning of 2001. His son graduated from high school in Panama in 2000. For a few years up to his departure for Milan, Robert Lady apparently had dual residencies, as he also owned a house in Abita Springs, LA (near New Orleans)."


But it seems both the son and father have a history as Republican operatives as the article points out.

I'd say Lady is the 'lady' refered to by many. The one that somehow obtained the forged 'yellowcake' document that's so hard to determine the source. Just guessing, but I'd say the document originally came from the desk of Cheney and Rove.

[Wordie]

34. How can we know? We DO know that Ledeen was at that secret meeting

in Rome; the one that was outside of normal governmental channels; and we know that Ledeen is Rove's ONLY advisor on foreign affairs.

I can't say who actually did the forgeries. I am more interested in who hatched the plan and who gave the order for the forgeries to be done.

[lonestarnot]

36. My interest is the same, who hatched and who ordered forgeries forged.

[Wordie]

37. Of COURSE...the person who actually did the deed is probably minor figure.

But the brains behind the crime...that's who we need to look for. And I don't necessarily buy the stories coming out in the NYT about how it was only an effort by a minor criminal to make money. Even if true, somebody had to peddle those obvious forgeries to several governments, and somebody in those governments had to bite. I'm waiting to see what La Repubblica has to say.

[callady]

35. kick