Top CIA official confesses order to forge Iraq-9/11 letter came on White House stationery
Top CIA official confesses order to forge Iraq-9/11 letter came on White House stationery
Normally I'd want verification before posting a link like that, then I saw this:
From the American Conservative:
An extremely reliable and well placed source in the intelligence community has informed me that Ron Suskind’s revelation that the White House ordered the preparation of a forged letter linking Saddam Hussein to al-Qaeda and also to attempts made to obtain yellowcake uranium is correct but that a number of details are wrong.
Is the American Conservative actually a conservative outlet, or one of those places that mis-label themselves? Is Cheney getting it from both sides now?
Honestly, for the most part I thought the drumbeat for the Iraq war was mainly one of willful blindness -- the administration only seeing what it wanted to see and then fudging reports to "help" others see it that way too. I don't consider that blameless, since willful blindness causes a lot of problems -- but I also don't consider it venal -- say, the way Nixon's self-serving crimes and lies were venal.
However, outright forging of evidence would cross that line significantly for me. Here's the rest of the American Conservative article:
The Suskind account states that two senior CIA officers Robert Richer and John Maguire supervised the preparation of the document under direct orders coming from Director George Tenet. Not so, says my source. Tenet is for once telling the truth when he states that he would not have undermined himself by preparing such a document while at the same time insisting publicly that there was no connection between Saddam and al-Qaeda. Richer and Maguire have both denied that they were involved with the forgery and it should also be noted that preparation of such a document to mislead the media is illegal and they could have wound up in jail.My source also notes that Dick Cheney, who was behind the forgery, hated and mistrusted the Agency and would not have used it for such a sensitive assignment. Instead, he went to Doug Feith’s Office of Special Plans and asked them to do the job. The Pentagon has its own false documents center, primarily used to produce fake papers for Delta Force and other special ops officers traveling under cover as businessmen. It was Feith’s office that produced the letter and then surfaced it to the media in Iraq. Unlike the Agency, the Pentagon had no restrictions on it regarding the production of false information to mislead the public. Indeed, one might argue that Doug Feith’s office specialized in such activity.
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Steven Palmer Peterson
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Steven Palmer Peterson
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Steven Palmer Peterson
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--It's impossible to debate if people simply hold beliefs that have no grounding in reality.
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)... his last! (heh!) Now that I have all of your attentions may I point out that it's a long, long way from White House stationery to GWB- even if the story is true.
M Scott I'm having difficulty seeing how exactly BlaiseP violated the posting rules.
BlaiseP, let's call it treachery but is it provable?
--I had discovered a great secret. That everyone loves themselves more than they love anybody else. And if I wanted them to love me, I better be like THEM!... Ken Nordine
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)aka Reagan's "I do not recall" when questioned about Iran Contra?
Well I do think GWB has about used up his stock of plausibility with the electorate for just about anything he says these days, let alone non-denial denials. Except with the dwindling GOP base, he's at the point where pretty much everything thrown at him sticks. Same for the GOP brand in general and the nominee of their party for the Presidency who can't rely on an energized base to get him elected this go around like GWB did.
Still there's always the fact that the news media appears to be going along with the GOP's 'uppity' narrative and the dark subtext that entails for disillusioned supporters to fall back on, at least for now.
--GW Bush, leading contender for worst President ever.
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| parent )American Conservative has "conservative" in its name, but that's the only thing that's conservative about these guys. This is Pat Buchanan's magazine, and he's a paleo retro reactionary, and isolationist to boot. Why MSNBC has him on their shows as a conservative voice is kind a mystery, or maybe not a mystery considering their increasingly left-of-center bent.
--"I want America to know that I'm, like, totally ready to lead." -- Paris Hilton
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)and because he's an excellent analyst? He's right a lot about micro stuff -- it's just in service of a philosophy which I find odious.
--It's impossible to debate if people simply hold beliefs that have no grounding in reality.
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| parent )Really? Pat Buchanan is a gifted and effective communicator, but the content of his communications are all often odious and all too often skirt the boundaries of anti-Semitism. The paleos can call themselves whatever they want, but considering what they want to "conserve", they sully the conservative name.
--"I want America to know that I'm, like, totally ready to lead." -- Paris Hilton
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| parent )"Analysis" does not consist of interacting with reality in a useful or interesting fashion, but in being an "effective communicator." The purpose of an analyst, apparently, is to successfully push talking points, not bring insight to bear on a situation.
--It's impossible to debate if people simply hold beliefs that have no grounding in reality.
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| parent )I'll pass. Apparently, you missed your own irony when you insulted Mac.
--"I want America to know that I'm, like, totally ready to lead." -- Paris Hilton
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| parent )And he screams "Anti-Semite". It's almost like an argument.
--To think is not enough; you must think of something -- Jules Renard
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| parent )Would you get bleeding heart liberals? It may be a dozen years old, but Buchanan still said those things, and FAIR is about as liberal as they come, and back then Buchanan was a Republican and running for president. Then there's that other neocon, Jonathan Alter, who said that "Buchanan has a real problem". The sad and pathetic part of it is that Ron Paul took on Buchanan's mantle in 2007-2008. The man and his magazine are odious.
--"I want America to know that I'm, like, totally ready to lead." -- Paris Hilton
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| parent )with (very few) exceptions, it reads like conservative boilerplate.
--I blame it all on the Internet
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| parent )I am really sick of the idea that acknowledging that the Israeli lobby is powerful is tantamount to anti-semitism.
--More Wagster!
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| parent )then I don't think people from the left and the right would be making such charges about Buchanan, but he didn't leave it at that.
--"I want America to know that I'm, like, totally ready to lead." -- Paris Hilton
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| parent )I am really sick of the idea that acknowledging that the Israeli lobby is powerful is tantamount to anti-semitism.
--More Wagster!
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| parent )Yes, you have it precisely -- his philosophy is odious. Which makes it all the more amazing and interesting that his analysis is so regularly excellent on the relatively small issues that dominate punditland.
I mean, you used my phrasing, so you are very likely to have read my original post. So in theory, you noticed that I already made this distinction. But what actually took place is, as always, totally irrelevant to the conversation.
This baseline disinterest in what is actually going on is just beyond fascinating to me.
--It's impossible to debate if people simply hold beliefs that have no grounding in reality.
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| parent )That you find his punditry "so regularly excellent" on issues you label as "small". But that's just me.
--"I want America to know that I'm, like, totally ready to lead." -- Paris Hilton
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| parent )It really is amazing and interesting that someone so violently ideologically opposed to me could regularly present me with useful and valid insights.
This is, what, a 5:1 followup post to original sentence ratio? I now know the bar for how long it will take for reading comprehension to come about.
--It's impossible to debate if people simply hold beliefs that have no grounding in reality.
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| parent )impugning my reading comprehension on another. Well done, my friend. The issue wasn't divining what you wrote, it was a matter of basic surprise, that you thought Buchanan is an "excellent analyst".
--"I want America to know that I'm, like, totally ready to lead." -- Paris Hilton
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| parent )If yellow cake is involved and its "I'll cut and you pick" cutting fairly means the one picking will have a hard time figuring out which piece is bigger.
--Fence post turtles -- They don't get up there by themselves, some moron had to put 'em there.
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| parent )Perhaps an even larger issue . . .
--Fence post turtles -- They don't get up there by themselves, some moron had to put 'em there.
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)from Commentary magazine, make of it what you will.
--"That Sam-I-am! That Sam-I-am! I do not like that Sam-I-am!"- Dr. Seuss
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)http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives2/2008/08/021215.php
The claim that Ron Suskind is not a reputable journalist but a smear merchant who has engaged in fraudulent misrepresentation of documents in the past is based on an analysis by Laurie Mylroie. I kid you not.
--GW Bush, leading contender for worst President ever.
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| parent )but I vaguely remembered her name associated with crankery. I was right. In fact, I'm not sure we could dream up a more biased and untrustworthy source for a rebuttal to Suskind.
--Over here on E Street, we're proud to support Obama for President. - Bruce Springsteen
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| parent )"It must be very strange to be President Bush. A man of extraordinary vision and brilliance approaching to genius, he can't get anyone to notice. He is like a great painter or musician who is ahead of his time, and who unveils one masterpiece after another to a reception that, when not bored, is hostile."
Mylroie is just the icing on the cake.
--GW Bush, leading contender for worst President ever.
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| parent )nt
--Fence post turtles -- They don't get up there by themselves, some moron had to put 'em there.
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| parent )Someone at Commentary has accused someone at The American Conservative of antisemitism!
In other news, sun rises in the east; still waiting for confirmation about the inevitability of death, taxes.
--Brevis esse laboro, obscurus fio.
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| parent )and I wasn't terribly persuaded by the evidence of Joo hatred, just offered it up as another voice.
--"That Sam-I-am! That Sam-I-am! I do not like that Sam-I-am!"- Dr. Seuss
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| parent )... is just what the Commentary fellow alleges; I'm not wading into that particular morass. It's just all so predictable, is all.
--Brevis esse laboro, obscurus fio.
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| parent )Which kind of leaves us with a bit of a situation. These specialty magazines have their own axes to grind with the world, and each other, so it pays to be a bit leery of anything coming from them (especially when a story has the potential to blow the doors off the administration like this one). Yet more and more the general public is growing leery of what comes from the established MSM sources as well. It's getting to the point where all news is relative, like history has been for the past 40 years.
--"That Sam-I-am! That Sam-I-am! I do not like that Sam-I-am!"- Dr. Seuss
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| parent )if he issues a raft of pardons...
Well, you can draw your own conclusions.
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)Wouldn't doing that expose him? And in doing so re-expose the people he pardoned?
I was under the impression that there was a rule that pardons issued to cover yourself are illegal and I figure that if he did so in this case then there'd be a pretty bloody investigation.
--Steven Palmer Peterson
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| parent )Congress could try calling hearings and summoning the pardoned individuals to testify under penalty of perjury regarding the circumstances, but unless the investigators have evidence apart from anything they might get out of the pardoned, that won't lead to anything. Pardons can't stop impeachment, but the people involved will no longer be in office. As with Clinton's questionable pardons on the way out the door back in 2001, there might be outrage--and electoral consequences down the line if people are mad enough, as Gerald Ford discovered--but otherwise it will for all intents and purposes end there.
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| parent )It will be a body blow to the GOP. That's not in anyone's best interests.
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| parent )there needs to be a reckoning for the last eight years. The party marched behind Bush and Cheney right off a cliff, they deserve censure for loyalty to party over their responsibilities to the Constitution and the voters.
--I blame it all on the Internet
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| parent )I want to see the GOP punished, and I'll be the first to admit that eight years in exile (politically speaking) would warm my grumpy old heart.
But I think that this story, if true, could damage the GOP so badly that they'll cease to be a viable party. That would not be good for the country or for Democrats. Opposition parties are useful: they keep us honest.
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| parent )that the Republican party came about because the Whigs lost their viability as a national party. The same thing would happen again, and would almost certainly be an improvement.
--I blame it all on the Internet
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| parent )Scooter Libby.
I don't think Bush cares if he's "exposed." I think that he believes he can do what he wants because he's the President.
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| parent )I'll really be cheesed off if he pardons Marion Jones.
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| parent )Absurd but not categorically untrue.
Well maybe it's true that he didn't receive direction as outlined in Mr. Suskind's book. Doesn't mean he didn't receive direction from someone else outside his normal chain of command in a manner that could be interpreted as being different to the manner outlined in Mr. Suskind's book
--GW Bush, leading contender for worst President ever.
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)I'm sure Dan Rather would agree completely that the lack of sufficiently emphatic denial means that you've got the White House dead to rights.
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| parent )The problem is that they are not denials.
In fact they sound exactly like classic Watergate non-denial denials, such as:
"I will repeat again today that no one presently employed at the White House had any involvement, awareness or association with the Watergate case."
--Of course not!
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| parent ). . .there were no denials at all, until it was too late for Dan Rather to escape the wreckage of his career.
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| parent )Nor, for that matter did he do anything illegal.
People went to jail for Watergate. People should go to jail now.
--Of course not!
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| parent )But Dan Rather's experience suggests that trying to divine guilt from what *isn't* in the words of a White House spokesperson is a perilous exercise.
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| parent )An attempted Rather burning of Suskind?
Do you think Cheney capable of orchestrating the alleged forgery, the burning of Suskind or both?
--GW Bush, leading contender for worst President ever.
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| parent )It's "no"-sounding language that isn't actually saying no.
"The charges against me are ludicrous, offensive, absurd, and irresponsible."
They're also true. Etc.
--Before you criticize someone, you should walk a mile in their shoes. That way when you criticize them, you're a mile away and you have their shoes. -JH
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| parent )If this surfaces, and it turns out the DFHs were right about "Bush Lied," will the people who so completely got the issue wrong step aside and let the folks who had it right from the start clean up the mess?
--It's impossible to debate if people simply hold beliefs that have no grounding in reality.
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)You forget, they have no shame.
--GW Bush, leading contender for worst President ever.
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| parent ). . .that sort of thing was up to the voters. As unfortunate as it is for the electoral hopes of the Democrats, the evil, fascist Republicans won't burst into flames and vanish just because the Democrats want them to.
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| parent )The GOP Congress is guilty of shirking their oversight duty, and the GOP as a whole is guilty of placing blind faith in what's at best an incredibly incompetent administration.
But if this story is true (and that, in fairness, remains to be seen) then the responsibility lies on the shoulders of Dick Cheney, and, by extension, George W Bush. If this is true, then spending the rest of their lives in jail is the very least they deserve.
I will say this: I remember how Watergate tarred the GOP name in the early 70's. If Cheney really did forge the Iraq-al Qaeda documents, then the already war-weary electorate might turn out to be very, very angry indeed.
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| parent )but can we agree that if this is true (yes, HUGE if) then Cheney and maybe others need go to prison?
This isn't simply a policy disagreement or even whether talking of mushroom clouds was 'misleading'. This is a forgery to push a war.
Again, I agree with you this needs to be clearly proven.
--This place is my vacation.
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| parent )To the extent that it is proven that any individual knowingly forged evidence in that manner, prosecution would be appropriate for those individuals.
However, unless it can be proven that GWB actually knew this was going on, the "Bush Lied, People Died" formulation will remain the dishonest sophistry it has always been.
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| parent )Is it "dishonest sophistry" to assert that OJ was involved in the murder of his former wife?
--Fence post turtles -- They don't get up there by themselves, some moron had to put 'em there.
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| parent )that he ought to have known?
--GW Bush, leading contender for worst President ever.
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| parent )It would be negligence, by definition.
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| parent )To lie is to make an untrue statement with the intent to deceive. The intent to deceive can originate with a failure to acquire information which I should have.
If I wake up and don't look out the window, then say, "The volcano across the island from me has started erupting!" then I'm lying. The fact that it still could be happening is irrelevant; I'm misleading the person I'm speaking to regarding whether or not I've put in the time necessary to make any such statement categorical.
--It's impossible to debate if people simply hold beliefs that have no grounding in reality.
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| parent )In a previous book, this same Susskind reported that in Aug. 2001, an intelligence briefer handed Bush a piece of paper which warned of an imminent attack on the World Trade Centre by OBL. Bush's response was reportedly "You've covered your ass, now." Bush went on vacationing without taking any action to forestall the attack. I mean none. That is negligence. This is fraud.
--Nothing resembles virtue more than a great crime. Saint-Just
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| parent )that's a step way beyond negligence, it's like saying running someone over with your car while you're 6 sheets to the wind is "negligence".
Except make it like a half million people. Dead sober.
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| parent )But it still isn't lying.
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| parent )off the reservation to forge a casus belli, without a nod from POTUS or the VP? That's like saying the worst thing Al Capone ever did was skimp on his taxes.
--Before you criticize someone, you should walk a mile in their shoes. That way when you criticize them, you're a mile away and you have their shoes. -JH
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| parent )I figure that, if true, this will at least lead to Cheney's door. I wonder if he'd fall on his sword?
--Steven Palmer Peterson
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| parent )Obviously, if a fraud was perpetrated *and* GWB knew it was a fraud, he was lying. That's obvious. If the scenario was changed so that a fraud was perpetrated and Cheney was part of it or knew about it after the fact (but didn't let GWB in on it), he was lying. The question then becomes one of whether GWB was negligent in not knowing.
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| parent )http://theforvm.org/diary/steve-peterson/top-cia-official-confesses-orde...
--GW Bush, leading contender for worst President ever.
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| parent )Dissembling, or purposefully misleading?
What about the situation in which the President basically gives someone a commission - "do what you have to, no need to keep me informed, because I don't want to know about it"?
--GW Bush, leading contender for worst President ever.
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| parent )Just don't go there.
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| parent )Don't cross the line, Blaise.
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| parent )This is a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist making this statement. Don't even you, a moderator, dare phrase this in any other terms than treachery. If this isn't a high crime, nothing is.
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| parent )I'm taking a vacation. A nice long one, self-imposed, You crossed a line with me. You've got my email, or you can ask Hank. I don't need this. This upsets me right down to my core, and clearly it doesn't go any farther than your own partisan skin.
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| parent )"That Sam-I-am! That Sam-I-am! I do not like that Sam-I-am!"- Dr. Seuss
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| parent )And not just from you--but I hope you change your mind. It's quite possible to disagree without violating Forvm rules, even on this subject. If you look around, others are managing it just fine. Being mortally offended regarding a topic is not a license to violate the rules.
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| parent )...with native Chinese over diner the other night.
Ain't nobody writes quite as well as you on so many topics...but yes, a vacation can be good...for you health as well as you head.
Relax, you're too good a guy to sweat the small stuff.
Take a break.
Best Wishes, Traveller
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| parent )"Don't dare" is an inappropriate form of address to a fellow commenter in this Forvm, regardless of whether he is a moderator. This is your one and only warning before I take it to Tomsyl and Jordan. You have a history of this sort of discourse, and I'm not going to indulge it this time around.
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| parent )a bit. This is either a huge story, a huge story that'll get covered up, or it's just another conspiracy herring. Either way, none of us is going to affect the outcome one jot by insulting each other. As a wise person probably said once, where you have facts, you don't need arguments.
IOW let's not pet the sweaty things, eh?
--Before you criticize someone, you should walk a mile in their shoes. That way when you criticize them, you're a mile away and you have their shoes. -JH
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| parent )Okay, everyone take a breath. This is a heated issue, in fact it's hard to imagine one more heated. Best to take what comes, and move on. And yes, point out when lines are crossed.
But no need to transmute disagreement into punishment. Hey. Heavy is the head that wears the crown.
--To think is not enough; you must think of something -- Jules Renard
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| parent )But Blaise has been suspended before for inability to disagree within the rules, and my hesitation to act the last time because I genuinely do enjoy most of his contributions here contributed to the problem and the eventual unpleasant climax. This time, I'm drawing a line--and I hope he stays on the correct side of it from here on in, because I'd rather not deal with this right now.
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| parent )But when B. calls me all kinds of names and on a regular basis and I happily shrug it off -- and so do the mods -- that feels like a double standard best avoided.
In other words, I'm trying to avoid what may have already happened. Rules work best when not enforced. I know that sounds weird. But it's true.
--To think is not enough; you must think of something -- Jules Renard
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| parent ). . .the individual in question has already been warned by Jordan, and I'm going to have to take that seriously if Jordan comes to me and Tomsyl with a suggestion for formal action. Knowing that the moderators will react sooner rather than later is a reasonable strategy for avoiding major blow-ups when the level of violation becomes completely unacceptable, as it was at the beginning of last year on a couple of occasions which led to suspensions.
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| parent )I think it's a good rule of thumb for moderators to try very hard to avoid giving warnings (or suspensions) to persons with whom they are in the process of arguing.
Since a warning or suspension seems to involve review by all moderators anyway, one could just shoot the other moderators an email and ask them to check out the exchange in question, let them play the heavy if warranted.
Just a suggestion for moderators to follow in future if they see fit. I'm not commenting on the incident here, only on the process.
--Come, my friends. 'Tis not too late to seek a newer world -- Tennyson
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| parent )Brendanm98 gives good advise IMHO...
"I think it's a good rule of thumb for moderators to try very hard to avoid giving warnings (or suspensions) to persons with whom they are in the process of arguing.
Since a warning or suspension seems to involve review by all moderators anyway, one could just shoot the other moderators an email and ask them to check out the exchange in question, let them play the heavy if warranted.
Just a suggestion for moderators to follow in future if they see fit. I'm not commenting on the incident here, only on the process."
--Ask courageous questions. Do not be satisfied with superficial answers. Be open to wonder and at the same time subject all claims to knowledge, without exception, to intense skeptical scrutiny. Be aware of human fallibility. Cherish your species and your
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| parent )Forvm can do without me.
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| parent )You can't trust conservatives with power!
;)
--This place is my vacation.
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| parent )...to the irritation of many of my friends here.
That time, to me at least, seems to have passed. Bush and Cheney will serve out their terms and will never be held accountable for anything.
But the war has changed...at least for now, deaths are down though the dollar cost remains unacceptable...
I just don't think that the general population care much about the war anymore.
Of course, I come from the time when there was rioting in the streets over the then war...1968~1970, so maybe everything looks muted to me.
Traveller
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| parent )There should be bodies swinging for this one. I mean it. Impeachment is the least of it. I'm talking Nuremburg hangings.
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| parent ). . .this is just another shiny conspiracy theory, no matter who finds it interesting. If the appropriate House and Senate committees hadn't blown their credibility to bits with their previous futile efforts to embarrass the White House, they might have been able to cause trouble with this--but they have, and the honorable members will be off trying to get re-elected after the conventions.
Should the letter be proven to exist--and be proven authentic, which is of no small importance in the post-Rathergate Era--that would probably change the equation considerably.
Of course, this is certainly worth noting and discussing here, so I voted to front page this diary.
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)This is the biggest thing since Benedict Arnold. We've never had anything of the sort, can anyone think of such an act?
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| parent )I blame it all on the Internet
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| parent ). . .if you're a President McKinley/William Randolph Hearst hater.
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| parent )bring up their willingness to butcher people to obtain
political control of other peoples.
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| parent )Link
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| parent )Just to follow-up (and because people don't read links). Floater's link points to an article that quotes Suskind's blog:
Steven Palmer Peterson
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| parent )The thing is, this isn't Nancy Pelosi or Sean Penn raising a stink.
Admittedly the AC is Buchanan-isolationist and they don't care for the Iraq War, but I haven't known them to go head-hunting after the Bush administration. And it sounds like Giraldi of the AC is getting a separate line of confirmation, albeit with different details.
--Steven Palmer Peterson
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| parent )This is too big an issue and needs real proof to be taken seriously. The fact that somebody like Suskind reported and that the AmCon confirmed it indicates there may be some there, there, but we need hard evidence.
--This place is my vacation.
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| parent )(well Clive Crook at the FT) is talking of the need for this to be investigated:
Then again, the MSM did not do its job in the runup to the war, why would they do it now?
--This place is my vacation.
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)My posting is rather muted because, like Crook says, it seems like an awfully big deal.
So the lack of a huge stink made me question my judgment.
On the other hand -- when the potential stink is large enough, that keeps the MSM from reporting until they've done a fair bit of checking.
--Steven Palmer Peterson
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| parent )...I think BD is right, (but with my formulation :>}), putting adults in charge (meaning Crocker and General P) of Iraq with the Surge being the tools...the war may not matter much any more...politically.
25 US service members dead a month? Hell, training accidents can claim that many in a month.
I'm not sure that this is going to be a hot burning issue, simply because the war is no longer a hot burning issue in America.
Just an opinion.
Traveller
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| parent )25,100 a month, I mean they're both numbers that we can handle and take in stride.
What we can't handle is the strain from the deployment schedule on the regular forces, and the budget problems of 200B a year or whatever it's costing now. Those are unsustainable.
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| parent )...throwing good money after bad...I can hang for another 18 months, (See Barack Obama)....things are better in Iraq, (I think), if not, we're still out.
Traveller
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| parent )The NY Times recently ran pictures of every soldier who died in Afghanistan. One after the other. It made me sick and sad.
There is no number that we should accept, no matter how small it may seem.
--To think is not enough; you must think of something -- Jules Renard
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| parent )is there a tape and not just a transcript? If so then someone is not only really stupid but in really big trouble too.
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)Yah -- if Suskind has a tape of Richer saying this, it's gonna be a rough few months for the administration -- possibly a rough few years.
--Steven Palmer Peterson
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| parent )