[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.

[Eva]

Like I said, the poster that was talking about the Chalabi/Miller link is anti Bush, so his conclusions must be viewed from that prospective. If you continue reading on the blog, the owner calls the poster a fool.

The interesting part is that Miller was very strong on WMDs being in Iraq. At the time of the Plame affair she wrote about the British WMD specialist who committed suicide due to the falsification of his reports and Miller included the information that he had been under terrible pressure from the anti-war forces to change his estimates. It was concluded that perhaps Miller was feeling some of that same pressure. (Actually, we know that she was)