https://www.emptywheel.net/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/Logo-Web.png00emptywheelhttps://www.emptywheel.net/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/Logo-Web.pngemptywheel2007-05-01 16:33:002007-05-01 16:33:00Bring on Foley
Mimikatz says:
Ray McGovern said on Tucker Carlson that he thought that the OVP was behind the Niger forgeries, working through ex-agents and various people with ties to the Italians. Presumably this is the Ledeen-Dewey Claridge story we heard earlier? Josh Marshall (McGovern clip included) says he doubts that McGovern has proof, and seems to say he doesn’t believe the story. The Niger docs apparently predate 9/11, and then were recycled for various uses, as eRiposte has chronicled. Josh has actually talked to Martino. What’s your take?
Anonymous says:
Almost exactly the same as Marshall’s. I think OVP is involved, definitely (and particularly in ensuring the forgery claims were sustained in intell. But I think Ledeen has a more tertiary role in the process–definitely a part of it, but not the central one.
Mostly I think the Niger forgeries aren’t as easy as finding one smoking gun, one motive, one coherent conspiracy. There’s a lot of guilt to go around, but not very well-organized guilt.
pseudonymous in nc says:
My take, fwiw, is that McGovern’s blowing smoke here, in a bit of clumsy psyops aimed at the people he suspects.
All signs suggest that Rozen and Marshall hit a wall of silence on the US side, and that there’s a similar final barrier that the Italian journalists couldn’t cross. We pretty much know what’s behind that barrier: the people with the connections, the means and the motive.
People have noted, reasonably, that one might expect Cheney to come up with better forgeries. But the point isn’t so much the genesis and provenance of the documents: it’s the provenance of the claim, through its various redactions in the US and abroad.
Jeff says:
More interesting, for me, is that Foley seems to have been consulted during leak week 2003, when OVP and Tenet were fighting over what to say in Tenet’s statement.
I believe there’s an allusion to this – Foley was traveling in Australia – in Tenet’s book.
Oh and Marshall is coming late to the party. Long ago, Laura Rozen cast serious doubt on what McGovern is now insinuating, again. Royce was unable to find any evidence of it. And Carlo Bonini found not a shred of evidence either.
I’m tired of those ex-CIA guys hinting that they have evidence. I’m deeply skeptical. Out with it, or leave it alone.
Anonymous says:
Jeff
Cool–that confirms the note from the July 10 meeting referred to Foley.
Btw, is Tenet’s book worth the $$?
ab initio says:
Rather than spend much time to determine the origin and players of the forgery wouldn’t it be better to find out how the forgery was used, analyzed and passed along in the intel community? I’d like to know who saw the forged document, who analyzed it, who received the analysis reports, where did Joe Wilson and hist report fit in, how was the forged document used in the preparation of the NIE and the 16 words, who was involved in doing that?
Disturbance says:
I don’t know what he has but Ray McGovern would have to be a complete idiot to say he has evidence if he doesn’t. Josh Marshall didn’t say he doubts him. In fact, he found it credible enough to link to and have a post on. Josh Marshall is a great reporter but that doesn’t mean that just because he couldn’t come up any evidence that McGovern couldn’t. McGovern is ex-CIA and he may well have sources that Josh doesn’t have. Again, I have no idea what he has, if anything, but I think the jury’s still out.
obsessed says:
McGovern was the guy who stood up during the Q&A portion of a Rumsfeld address. They were going to throw him out, but Rumsfeld took the question and McGovern eviscerated him pretty thoroughly.
Jeff says:
Btw, is Tenet’s book worth the $$?
Can’t answer that question directly. It’s definitely worth reading. A lot of it is frustratingly vague, euphemistic and misleading. But there are lots of good tidbits. Rice is in trouble, if anyone pays attention. Among many other things.
William Ockham says:
The big question isn’t who forged the documents. That’s almost irrelevant because, as eRiposte has demonstrated, the Italians (SISMI) deliberately hid the bogosity of those forgeries from the CIA. Of much greater interest (to me at least) is some investigation of infamous West African Businessman. He’s the proof of an on-going conspiracy to push the Niger story in response to its debunking inside the U.S. Intel community. Think about that for a minute (if you don’t know what I’m talking about head over right now to theleftcoaster to get up to speed). Somebody inside the U.S. government was leaking information to push this story.
Here’s my speculation: The INC, in concert with the Iranian government and the stupid neo-cons they conned, ginned up additional â€evidence†for the Niger story every time the CIA, INR, or Joe Wilson shot it down.
Rayne says:
What’s the chances, given how widespread and sloppy the White House was about using RNC-funded external email, that there were communications captured on the outside about what happened?
When we started looking at this stuff in regards to Plame’s outing in 2003, we had no idea the folks in the administration were this inept with communications. But now we know…does that change our perspective on evidence that may be available?
Anonymous says:
rayne — the chances are high to very-high, to certain.
the latest nasty-gram [full-text at above link] was sent tonight to the attention of mike duncan, the chair of the r.n.c., giving him a head’s-up about what he’ll be expected to answer for next tuesday, under the klieg-lights. . .
cool!
kspena says:
I hope that the Rendon Group is called for testimony on what they know about the construction and use of the forgeries. This comes up in Larisa Alexandrovna’s work posted today on her site, at-Largely.
Yellowcake road to the White House
â€Tucker Carlson might need to read the news because he asks former spook Ray McGovern (I am paraphrasing) if McGovern have proof that the Yellowcake forgeries, aka the Niger forgeries were part of a fabrication stemming from the OVP. See the video of the interview at Raw Story.
â€McGoven won’t say the names, but he basically identifies the people without saying the names. â€They are the people who traveled abroad to Rome and Paris†and â€have a close relationship to the Italians†and some are â€former intelligence officers.†As we know, from my own work on this whole mess, Ledeen made the introductions, but he was not part of the ongoing series of meetings between the key players, Harold Rhode and Larry Franklin were. But neither is a former â€intelligence agent†and this leads directly to the opinion of some spooks that the Rendon Group was responsible for tasking Martino with delivering the forgeries and the Rendon Group, which has on its BOD former far right spooks close to the Italians, is also very likely to have actually helped forged the documentsâ€â€¦.(more)
CityGirl says:
EW–sorry for being OT on this thread, but thought you might be interested in this if you haven’t seen yet (re: US Atty’s office, MI):
My machine crashed earlier before I could post this, so I’ll have to try to recreate the searches. sigh And it keeps crashing. And typepad won’t let me post it… let’s try splitting it.
Migrained-out dyslexics don’t need col-icky computers!
William Ockham,
I must disagree with your contention that who forged the Niger documents isn’t important. There was nothing accidental or spontaneous about it, and if the trail leads back to our government, then half a million deliberate deaths are on our doorstep, and all the rain for the next century won’t wash off that blood.
On January 2, 2001, the Niger embassy in Rome was robbed. Little was missing-a wristwatch, perfume, embassy stationery, and a stamp bearing the official seal of Niger.
The outcome of the petty burglary would have catastrophic implications.
For more than two years it has been widely reported that the U.S. invaded Iraq because of intelligence failures. But in fact it is far more likely that the Iraq war started because of an extraordinary intelligence success—specifically, an astoundingly effective campaign of disinformation, or black propaganda, which led the White House, the Pentagon, Britain’s M.I.6 intelligence service, and thousands of outlets in the American media to promote the falsehood that Saddam Hussein’s nuclear-weapons program posed a grave risk to the United States.
Watergate, by comparison, was a random burglary in an age of innocence.
(snip)
Fitzgerald has reportedly asked for a copy of the Italian government’s investigation into the break-in of the Niger embassy in Rome and the source of the forged documents. The blatantly fake papers, which purported to show that Saddam Hussein had cut a deal to get yellowcake uranium from Niger, turned up after a December 2001 meeting in Rome involving neo-con Michael Ledeen, Larry Franklin, Harold Rhodes, and Niccolo Pollari, the head of Italy’s intelligence agency SISMI, and Antonio Martino, the Italian defense minister.
According to a source in the Italian embassy, Patrick J. ’Bulldog’ Fitzgerald asked for and ’has finally been given a full copy of the Italian parliamentary oversight report on the forged Niger uranium document,’ the former CIA officer tells me: ’Previous versions of the report were redacted and had all the names removed, though it was possible to guess who was involved. This version names Michael Ledeen as the conduit for the report and indicates that former CIA officers Duane Clarridge and Alan Wolf were the principal forgers. All three had business interests with Chalabi.’â€
As for our Administration being involved? How about this for the 3 a.m. raid on the diplomatic station at Arbil on Jan 11th, 2007, where sleepy staffers were abducted, the flag indicating sovereignty was torn down, and the US stole the computers and letterhead and documents needed to make more forgeries under an Iranian imprint. If this office had been issuing visas for more than a decade, and acting as an offcial consulate, they had the seals and stamps and signatures needed, and a current roster of officials!
In Washington, a U.S. official confirmed that six Iranian officials were detained for questioning. But he disputed accounts that troops broke open a consulate gate and conducted a raid.
â€No shots were fired. No altercation ensued,†said the official. â€It was a knock on the door and, ’Please come out.’ â€
The official also explained that the Iranians in question were not inside an officially designated diplomatic consulate or embassy-like building.
According to Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari, the detained Iranians had been working in Arbil with official sanction, and the liaison office was in the process to become a full consulate.[8] Officials of the Regional Government said that consular activities, such as the issuance of visas, had been carried out by the office staff since 1992, and they were treated as if they were accredited diplomats.[9]
(snip)
According to Iranian officials, five U.S. helicopters landed on the roof of the liaison office in Arbil. U.S. soldiers entered the building, detained five people and took away materials.[15] The raid occurred between 3 to 5 a.m., when the U.S. troops entered the liaison office after disarming the guards.[3][16]
According to two Kurdish officials multinational forces detained as many as six Iranians in an overnight raid on Tehran’s liaison office in Arbil, just hours after George W. Bush gave details about his new military plan for Iraq. The forces stormed the Iranian office at about 3 a.m., detaining the five staffers and confiscating computers and documents, two senior local Kurdish officials said.[17]
A resident living near the office said the force used stun bombs in the raid and brought down an Iranian flag that was on the roof of the two-story yellow house. As the operation went on, two helicopters flew overhead, said the resident on condition of anonymity because he feared retribution.[citation needed]
American forces backed by helicopters raided the Iranian consulate in the mainly Kurdish city of Erbil in northern Iraq before dawn today, detaining at least five Iranian employees in the building and seizing some property, according to Iraqi and Iranian officials and witnesses.
Kurdish forces were in control of the consulate building when a reporter went there after the raid. There was broken glass on the pavement outside the building, and no sign of the Iranian flag.
(snip)
Statements by the Iranian government were more explicit. A Foreign Ministry spokesman, Mohammad Ali Hosseini, said that United States forces arrested five Iranian staff members at the consulate early this morning, and confiscated computers and documents.
(snip)
IRNA also quoted an Iraqi Kurdish security official, whom it did not name, as saying that Kurdish forces were responsible for maintaining security in Erbil, including protecting the consulate. American forces “disarmed the Kurdish guards of the consulate and used force to enter the building,†IRNA quoted the Kurdish official as
Iranian and Iraqi officials said the building was an Iranian consulate and the detainees its employees.
The US military said it was still investigating, but that the building did not have diplomatic status.
The troops raided the building at about 0300 (0001GMT), taking away computers and papers, according to local media.
(snip)
One Iranian news agency with a correspondent in Irbil says five US helicopters were used to land troops on the roof of the Iranian consulate.
It reports that a number of vehicles cordoned off the streets around the building, while US soldiers warned the occupants in three different languages that they should surrender or be killed.
If former CIA officers were guilty of forging the last batch of documents, and they are still at liberty, how long until a new batch appears? How long before another trumped-up war is launched on pretense?
It does matter.
hauksdottir says:
ratzin-fratzin formatting!
pseudonymous in nc says:
is Tenet’s book worth the $$?
I’d suggest that if you’ve read Ron Suskind’s The One Percent Doctrine, you won’t be missing a huge amount. My guess is that Tenet was a (limited) primary source for that book, and if not, then Suskind definitely had direct access to most CIA people close to him.
freepatriot says:
thanks hauksdottir
noted and remembered
sounds like dick wants some authentic looking forgeries this time
Ray McGovern said on Tucker Carlson that he thought that the OVP was behind the Niger forgeries, working through ex-agents and various people with ties to the Italians. Presumably this is the Ledeen-Dewey Claridge story we heard earlier? Josh Marshall (McGovern clip included) says he doubts that McGovern has proof, and seems to say he doesn’t believe the story. The Niger docs apparently predate 9/11, and then were recycled for various uses, as eRiposte has chronicled. Josh has actually talked to Martino. What’s your take?
Almost exactly the same as Marshall’s. I think OVP is involved, definitely (and particularly in ensuring the forgery claims were sustained in intell. But I think Ledeen has a more tertiary role in the process–definitely a part of it, but not the central one.
Mostly I think the Niger forgeries aren’t as easy as finding one smoking gun, one motive, one coherent conspiracy. There’s a lot of guilt to go around, but not very well-organized guilt.
My take, fwiw, is that McGovern’s blowing smoke here, in a bit of clumsy psyops aimed at the people he suspects.
All signs suggest that Rozen and Marshall hit a wall of silence on the US side, and that there’s a similar final barrier that the Italian journalists couldn’t cross. We pretty much know what’s behind that barrier: the people with the connections, the means and the motive.
People have noted, reasonably, that one might expect Cheney to come up with better forgeries. But the point isn’t so much the genesis and provenance of the documents: it’s the provenance of the claim, through its various redactions in the US and abroad.
More interesting, for me, is that Foley seems to have been consulted during leak week 2003, when OVP and Tenet were fighting over what to say in Tenet’s statement.
I believe there’s an allusion to this – Foley was traveling in Australia – in Tenet’s book.
Oh and Marshall is coming late to the party. Long ago, Laura Rozen cast serious doubt on what McGovern is now insinuating, again. Royce was unable to find any evidence of it. And Carlo Bonini found not a shred of evidence either.
I’m tired of those ex-CIA guys hinting that they have evidence. I’m deeply skeptical. Out with it, or leave it alone.
Jeff
Cool–that confirms the note from the July 10 meeting referred to Foley.
Btw, is Tenet’s book worth the $$?
Rather than spend much time to determine the origin and players of the forgery wouldn’t it be better to find out how the forgery was used, analyzed and passed along in the intel community? I’d like to know who saw the forged document, who analyzed it, who received the analysis reports, where did Joe Wilson and hist report fit in, how was the forged document used in the preparation of the NIE and the 16 words, who was involved in doing that?
I don’t know what he has but Ray McGovern would have to be a complete idiot to say he has evidence if he doesn’t. Josh Marshall didn’t say he doubts him. In fact, he found it credible enough to link to and have a post on. Josh Marshall is a great reporter but that doesn’t mean that just because he couldn’t come up any evidence that McGovern couldn’t. McGovern is ex-CIA and he may well have sources that Josh doesn’t have. Again, I have no idea what he has, if anything, but I think the jury’s still out.
McGovern was the guy who stood up during the Q&A portion of a Rumsfeld address. They were going to throw him out, but Rumsfeld took the question and McGovern eviscerated him pretty thoroughly.
Btw, is Tenet’s book worth the $$?
Can’t answer that question directly. It’s definitely worth reading. A lot of it is frustratingly vague, euphemistic and misleading. But there are lots of good tidbits. Rice is in trouble, if anyone pays attention. Among many other things.
The big question isn’t who forged the documents. That’s almost irrelevant because, as eRiposte has demonstrated, the Italians (SISMI) deliberately hid the bogosity of those forgeries from the CIA. Of much greater interest (to me at least) is some investigation of infamous West African Businessman. He’s the proof of an on-going conspiracy to push the Niger story in response to its debunking inside the U.S. Intel community. Think about that for a minute (if you don’t know what I’m talking about head over right now to theleftcoaster to get up to speed). Somebody inside the U.S. government was leaking information to push this story.
Here’s my speculation: The INC, in concert with the Iranian government and the stupid neo-cons they conned, ginned up additional â€evidence†for the Niger story every time the CIA, INR, or Joe Wilson shot it down.
What’s the chances, given how widespread and sloppy the White House was about using RNC-funded external email, that there were communications captured on the outside about what happened?
When we started looking at this stuff in regards to Plame’s outing in 2003, we had no idea the folks in the administration were this inept with communications. But now we know…does that change our perspective on evidence that may be available?
rayne — the chances are high to very-high, to certain.
now, interestingly, on the RNC e-mail score,
rep. henry waxman’s been one busy bee, putting
pen to parchment, once again, this evening.
the latest nasty-gram [full-text at above link]
was sent tonight to the attention of mike duncan,
the chair of the r.n.c., giving him a head’s-up
about what he’ll be expected to answer for next
tuesday, under the klieg-lights. . .
cool!
I hope that the Rendon Group is called for testimony on what they know about the construction and use of the forgeries. This comes up in Larisa Alexandrovna’s work posted today on her site, at-Largely.
Yellowcake road to the White House
â€Tucker Carlson might need to read the news because he asks former spook Ray McGovern (I am paraphrasing) if McGovern have proof that the Yellowcake forgeries, aka the Niger forgeries were part of a fabrication stemming from the OVP. See the video of the interview at Raw Story.
â€McGoven won’t say the names, but he basically identifies the people without saying the names. â€They are the people who traveled abroad to Rome and Paris†and â€have a close relationship to the Italians†and some are â€former intelligence officers.†As we know, from my own work on this whole mess, Ledeen made the introductions, but he was not part of the ongoing series of meetings between the key players, Harold Rhode and Larry Franklin were. But neither is a former â€intelligence agent†and this leads directly to the opinion of some spooks that the Rendon Group was responsible for tasking Martino with delivering the forgeries and the Rendon Group, which has on its BOD former far right spooks close to the Italians, is also very likely to have actually helped forged the documentsâ€â€¦.(more)
EW–sorry for being OT on this thread, but thought you might be interested in this if you haven’t seen yet (re: US Atty’s office, MI):
http://www.detnews.com/apps/pb…..10458/1020
My machine crashed earlier before I could post this, so I’ll have to try to recreate the searches. sigh And it keeps crashing. And typepad won’t let me post it… let’s try splitting it.
Migrained-out dyslexics don’t need col-icky computers!
William Ockham,
I must disagree with your contention that who forged the Niger documents isn’t important. There was nothing accidental or spontaneous about it, and if the trail leads back to our government, then half a million deliberate deaths are on our doorstep, and all the rain for the next century won’t wash off that blood.
On January 2, 2001, the Niger embassy in Rome was robbed. Little was missing-a wristwatch, perfume, embassy stationery, and a stamp bearing the official seal of Niger.
The outcome of the petty burglary would have catastrophic implications.
http://www.crooksandliars.com/…..k-reviews/
For more than two years it has been widely reported that the U.S. invaded Iraq because of intelligence failures. But in fact it is far more likely that the Iraq war started because of an extraordinary intelligence success—specifically, an astoundingly effective campaign of disinformation, or black propaganda, which led the White House, the Pentagon, Britain’s M.I.6 intelligence service, and thousands of outlets in the American media to promote the falsehood that Saddam Hussein’s nuclear-weapons program posed a grave risk to the United States.
http://www.vanityfair.com/poli…..cake200607
Watergate, by comparison, was a random burglary in an age of innocence.
(snip)
Fitzgerald has reportedly asked for a copy of the Italian government’s investigation into the break-in of the Niger embassy in Rome and the source of the forged documents. The blatantly fake papers, which purported to show that Saddam Hussein had cut a deal to get yellowcake uranium from Niger, turned up after a December 2001 meeting in Rome involving neo-con Michael Ledeen, Larry Franklin, Harold Rhodes, and Niccolo Pollari, the head of Italy’s intelligence agency SISMI, and Antonio Martino, the Italian defense minister.
http://www.commondreams.org/views05/1021-23.htm
According to a source in the Italian embassy, Patrick J. ’Bulldog’ Fitzgerald asked for and ’has finally been given a full copy of the Italian parliamentary oversight report on the forged Niger uranium document,’ the former CIA officer tells me: ’Previous versions of the report were redacted and had all the names removed, though it was possible to guess who was involved. This version names Michael Ledeen as the conduit for the report and indicates that former CIA officers Duane Clarridge and Alan Wolf were the principal forgers. All three had business interests with Chalabi.’â€
http://www.btinternet.com/~nlp…..uroOil.htm
As for our Administration being involved? How about this for the 3 a.m. raid on the diplomatic station at Arbil on Jan 11th, 2007, where sleepy staffers were abducted, the flag indicating sovereignty was torn down, and the US stole the computers and letterhead and documents needed to make more forgeries under an Iranian imprint. If this office had been issuing visas for more than a decade, and acting as an offcial consulate, they had the seals and stamps and signatures needed, and a current roster of officials!
In Washington, a U.S. official confirmed that six Iranian officials were detained for questioning. But he disputed accounts that troops broke open a consulate gate and conducted a raid.
â€No shots were fired. No altercation ensued,†said the official. â€It was a knock on the door and, ’Please come out.’ â€
The official also explained that the Iranians in question were not inside an officially designated diplomatic consulate or embassy-like building.
http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/…..index.html
According to Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari, the detained Iranians had been working in Arbil with official sanction, and the liaison office was in the process to become a full consulate.[8] Officials of the Regional Government said that consular activities, such as the issuance of visas, had been carried out by the office staff since 1992, and they were treated as if they were accredited diplomats.[9]
(snip)
According to Iranian officials, five U.S. helicopters landed on the roof of the liaison office in Arbil. U.S. soldiers entered the building, detained five people and took away materials.[15] The raid occurred between 3 to 5 a.m., when the U.S. troops entered the liaison office after disarming the guards.[3][16]
According to two Kurdish officials multinational forces detained as many as six Iranians in an overnight raid on Tehran’s liaison office in Arbil, just hours after George W. Bush gave details about his new military plan for Iraq. The forces stormed the Iranian office at about 3 a.m., detaining the five staffers and confiscating computers and documents, two senior local Kurdish officials said.[17]
A resident living near the office said the force used stun bombs in the raid and brought down an Iranian flag that was on the roof of the two-story yellow house. As the operation went on, two helicopters flew overhead, said the resident on condition of anonymity because he feared retribution.[citation needed]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U…..e_in_Arbil
American forces backed by helicopters raided the Iranian consulate in the mainly Kurdish city of Erbil in northern Iraq before dawn today, detaining at least five Iranian employees in the building and seizing some property, according to Iraqi and Iranian officials and witnesses.
Kurdish forces were in control of the consulate building when a reporter went there after the raid. There was broken glass on the pavement outside the building, and no sign of the Iranian flag.
(snip)
Statements by the Iranian government were more explicit. A Foreign Ministry spokesman, Mohammad Ali Hosseini, said that United States forces arrested five Iranian staff members at the consulate early this morning, and confiscated computers and documents.
(snip)
IRNA also quoted an Iraqi Kurdish security official, whom it did not name, as saying that Kurdish forces were responsible for maintaining security in Erbil, including protecting the consulate. American forces “disarmed the Kurdish guards of the consulate and used force to enter the building,†IRNA quoted the Kurdish official as
saying.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01…..1e4305e528
&ei=5070
Iranian and Iraqi officials said the building was an Iranian consulate and the detainees its employees.
The US military said it was still investigating, but that the building did not have diplomatic status.
The troops raided the building at about 0300 (0001GMT), taking away computers and papers, according to local media.
(snip)
One Iranian news agency with a correspondent in Irbil says five US helicopters were used to land troops on the roof of the Iranian consulate.
It reports that a number of vehicles cordoned off the streets around the building, while US soldiers warned the occupants in three different languages that they should surrender or be killed.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/6251167.stm
If former CIA officers were guilty of forging the last batch of documents, and they are still at liberty, how long until a new batch appears? How long before another trumped-up war is launched on pretense?
It does matter.
ratzin-fratzin formatting!
is Tenet’s book worth the $$?
I’d suggest that if you’ve read Ron Suskind’s The One Percent Doctrine, you won’t be missing a huge amount. My guess is that Tenet was a (limited) primary source for that book, and if not, then Suskind definitely had direct access to most CIA people close to him.
thanks hauksdottir
noted and remembered
sounds like dick wants some authentic looking forgeries this time