[Eva]

Here's some of the Ritter tie stuff, but it was loaded with hot links that you had to follow. This is all from Just One Minute. The last poster is a flaming liberal that is trying to tie Aburdene back to the administration.

osted by: The Kid | October 10, 2004 09:07 PM

Is it possible that Fitzgerald has moved past the Plame outing into something more serious?

Everyone assumes that Plame nominated her husband for the non-paying Niger trip out of dull domestic motives. It is further assumed that he misrepresented his findings because he's a politically motivated horse's ass. What if those assumptions are wrong?

The Niger documents found in Italy were forgeries. The forger says he created them for French Intelligence, with the expectation that they would be exposed and thus damage the Saddam/yellowcake link. In other words, the French - possibly with the connivance of others - ran a counterintelligence operation against the United States.

Joe Wilson's credentials for the Niger trip were weak. He was not an investigator. But because he was sent, a professional investigator was not. When his findings were ignored, he went public via the New York Times - with a claim that is now known to be false. Just as false as those Italian forgeries, in a distinctly similar way, with distinctly similar intent.

Wilson was not paid for the Niger trip but he does receive a paycheck from Arab sources. It would be easy to hide a payoff in plain sight. Has Fitzgerald found something suspicious? Is it possible that Wilson and his wife were part of the same operation that created the Italian forgeries?

Posted by: lyle | October 10, 2004 09:18 PM

The head rats have weighed in.

Posted by: The Kid | October 10, 2004 09:21 PM

Speaking of investigations that have fallen off the radar screen, what about the neocon(s) who supposedly were leaking secrets to the Israeli government?

Posted by: Jerry | October 11, 2004 05:32 AM

Jerry,

The subject was dropped because it was discovered that the "so called secrets leak" was false. It was discovered that the leak was one lower level flunky who WAS NOT passing secret information. What he gave out was readily available Non-secret information.

The Terrorist supporting, Jew hating Demoncratic press struck out. They are still foaming at the mouth, as usual.

Posted by: leaddog2 | October 11, 2004 06:52 AM

These are the questions I have yet to see asked:

1. What, if any, the connection is there between Saddam's bribing of diplomats and Joe Wilson, a UN diplomat?

2. Was Joe Wilson mentioned in the list of officials bribed by Iraqi intelligence?

3. What connection, if any, is there between, Saddam's mention of a "susceptible" weapons inspector and Plame? Everyone suspects Scott Ritter, an outspoken critic of the war. Could Plame also have been passing counter-intelligence using her status as a WMD "expert"?

4. Was Plame "outed" rather than simply "taken care of" due to her diplomatic husband? Outing her effectively terminated her access to confidential materials and end her CIA career.

5. What is Ms. Miller's connection to Chalabi (http://slate.msn.com/id/2083736/) and how does Chalabi's connection to Iran (outed by Tenet) imapact this story? Was Miller a conduit feeding CIA inside information to Chalabi via Plame?

Interesting indeed.....

Posted by: Retrograde | October 11, 2004 07:11 AM

Retrograde's number 4 has been swirling as a rumor inside the CIA. Many people inside the CIA are furious how Kerry supporters, including Plame, have been politicizing intelligence. That was the alleged motivation of the outing. Some forms of the rumors have Tenet as the person who outed Plame.

We shall see if the rumors are true.

Posted by: Rich | October 11, 2004 07:35 AM

Read Novak's original column. Nowhere does he say that the administration sources gave him Wilson's wife's name or identified her as a CIA agent. Novak gets some info from the admin sources. Novak names Plame. He does not say that the name came from the admin sources.

Posted by: tipton cole | October 11, 2004 09:21 AM

So I was chuckling at Retrograde’s speculations, figgerin’ that the answer to #1. was “probably none” because Wilson was a US, not a UN diplomat. The answer to #2 will take some time because US law prevents the naming of US citizens in this case. But then I got to #3 and vaguely remembered that Ritter had Iraqi-linked financing for his movie, did a Google, and got this:

Mr Ritter formed a partnership with Mr al-Khafaji to finance the film, Shifting Sands which, according to Mr Ritter, "proved" that Iraq did not have weapons of mass destruction. In an interview with the New York Times in 2001, Mr Ritter stated that none of Mr al-Khafaji's funding came from Saddam's regime. Of the £250,000 spent on the film, he said that only £26,250 went into his own pocket.

While he confirmed that he had received money from Mr al-Khafaji, Mr Ritter said that he had had his business associate checked by CIA "sources" via a friend who was a reporter, and was reassured.


(Further on the article does mention Iraq’s thoughts of funding Mr al-Khafaji through an oil deal.)

So I’m going to go wrap my head in duct tape – after I apply a double layer of tin foil – right after I note that:

For #4, per the NYT’s Kristof, the CIA brought Plame and others back to Washington for safety reasons out of concern that Aldrich Aimes had disclosed their identities to the Russian’s before his arrest in 1994.

For #5, Miller and Chalabi were an item, and Fitzgerald has subpoenaed Miller’s phone records.

BTW, I recommend Nashua 398 as the very best duct tape for home or business use - it'll stick when others won't - and ditto for Reynolds heavy duty - it really keeps those mind rays out. I think. I hope.

Posted by: The Kid | October 11, 2004 10:00 AM

Kid, even paranoids have real leads. I am cutting and pasting a comment left by a "Don Williams" from a July 22 post:

BEGIN EXCERPT

...Actually , the real target of New Republic is probably the money man behind Joe Wilson --
Elias Aburdene.

I posted the following over on Roger L Simon's blog back in Oct 2003 (See http://rogerlsimon.com/archives/00000404.htm
and scan for my name )

---

"
1) If I understand him correctly, Roger has indicated that he thinks this is a war between the CIA and White House. I think it is a war between the Saudi advocates and the Neocon Likud advocates....
...
On the other side:

1) The news media keeps listing Joseph C
Wilson as "CEO of JC Wilson International Ventures"

Their ignorance is hilarious. As of May 2003, Joseph Wilson's email address was
joewilson@rockcreekcorp.com
(See the May 2003 symposium on Africa at www.sahel-club.org/doc/conflict_sem0305_en.doc )

2) Mr Wilson's affiliation at several recent foreign policy conferences was listed as Rock Creek Corp. See ,e.g.,
http://www.mepc.org/public_asp/forums_chcs/30.asp
and
http://www.mepc.org/public_asp/forums_chcs/30.asp
(Search for "Wilson" --e.g Iraqi Town Hall seminar on April 2003

3) If you look at Saudi Net's list of firms doing business in Saudi Arabia, you see Rock Creek Corporation--
see http://www.the-saudi.net/business-center/links-usa.htm

4) According to the Center for Contempory Arab Studies, a member of their Board is the President of Rock Creek Corporation --Mr Elias Aburdene . see
http://www.ccasonline.org/events/Board.htm

5) Rock Creek Corporation is what is tactfully called a "private equity firm" See
http://www.cohengroup.net/team-amb.html

6) An October 1996 article in the Washington Business Journal notes re Mr Elias Aburdene:
"Franklin National Bank in Washington has hired the former head of Palmer National Bank's international private banking unit, in an effort to attract deposits from well-heeled foreign investors.

Since opening Sept. 1, Franklin's new international private banking division has garnered about 50 customers and $15 million in deposits. Elias Aburdene, advisor to the division, headed a similar department for five years at Palmer, which became a subsidiary of George Mason Bankshares in May.

Franklin, with $450 million in assets, has started a foreign exchange operation to accommodate the new business. But mostly, Aburdene said, international private banking means plain-vanilla services like checking, delivered with personal service.

"They [international clients] are looking for intangibles -- discretion, confidentiality, competence," Aburdene said. Clients also like to have access to top executives at the bank, giving smaller institutions like Franklin an edge, he added. "

Who the "well-heeled foreign investors" are and the nature of the "intangibles" they want is left as an exercise for the reader.

7) However, the name "Palmer National Bank" of Washington DC should make any spooks out there grin knowingly.
See http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/CIA/S&L_Scandal_CIA.html
and search for "Palmer".

It certainly seems as if
Mr Wilson's boss has ..er.. been around the track a few times. Certainly enough times to know how to poke the Likud Neocons in the butt with a very sharp stick.

Posted by Don Williams @ 10/01/2003 11:20 AM PST

[Fedora]

Thanks. I remember the al-Khafaji/Ritter link. On the Miller-Plame part of it, I'm inclined to draw some different conclusions from that the original posters, because it seems to me Chalabi and Plame represent opposing factions in the CIA rather than being on the same side (Chalabi being supported by James Woolsey, Plame being linked to a group in NSC and CIA led by Anthony Lake, George Tenet, and Steve Richter that opposed Woolsey and Chalabi under Clinton), so the idea of Miller feeding information through Plame to Chalabi seems problematic to me. Something interesting that reminds me of, though, is the role Miller's NYT boss John Burns played in the controversy over Chalabi:

Intra-Times Battle Over Iraqi Weapons

The Chalabi connection surfaced when John Burns, the paper's Pulitzer Prize-winning Baghdad bureau chief, scolded Miller over her May 1 story on the Iraqi without clearing it with him.

"I am deeply chagrined at your reporting and filing on Chalabi after I had told you on Monday night that we were planning a major piece on him -- and without so much as telling me what you were doing," Burns wrote that day, according to e-mail correspondence obtained by The Washington Post. [Who at NYT leaked this to the Post?--Fedora]

"We have a bureau here; I am in charge of that bureau until I leave; I make assignments after considerable thought and discussion, and it was plain to all of us to whom the Chalabi story belonged. If you do this, what is to stop you doing it on any other story of your choosing? And what of the distress it causes the correspondent who is usurped? It is not professional, and not collegial."

Miller replied to Burns: "I've been covering Chalabi for about 10 years, and have done most of the stories about him for our paper, including the long takeout we recently did on him. He has provided most of the front page exclusives on WMD to our paper."

She apologized for any confusion, but noted that the Army unit she was traveling with -- Mobile Exploration Team Alpha -- "is using Chalabi's intell and document network for its own WMD work. . . . Since I'm there every day, talking to him. . . . I thought I might have been included on a decision by you" to have another reporter write about Chalabi.

Reached by phone, Miller said: "I'm not about to comment on any intra-Times communications." Andrew Rosenthal, assistant managing editor for foreign news, said it is "a pretty slippery slope" to publish reporters' private e-mail and "reveal whatever confidential sources they may or may not have."

"Of course we talk to Chalabi," he said. "If you were in Iraq and weren't talking to Chalabi, I'd wonder if you were doing your job."

According to the New Yorker's Seymour Hersh [another reporter linked to Wilson--Fedora], Chalabi's Iraqi National Congress was a key source of information about weapons for the Pentagon's own intelligence unit -- information sometimes disputed by the CIA [by who in CIA is an important question--Fedora]. Chalabi may have been feeding the Times, and other news organizations, the same disputed information.