Posted on 07/30/2005 5:45:23 PM PDT by Sam Hill
"FREEPER CREEP: Careful!" Facts in these areas have been very murky, and many e-mailers are picking and choosing, selecting the facts they like. In a previous life, we mocked Freepers for that, but now it’s become common conduct. And it’s easy to find an anonymous official offering statements that “prove” your case. It’s easy to cherry-pick comments like that. We have a name for it now: Creeping Freeperism."....... LOL ..
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Interesting, from the link above:
"If Ignatius is wrong in any of these claims, we hope you’ll let us know. But his reporting tends to support a point we have made—a point which many e-mailers have misunderstood. His reporting tends to suggest that Bush’s 16-word statement may have been accurate. That is, it may be true that Iraq was seeking uranium in Africa.
We have cited this possibility many times, and many mailers have misread our claim. We have never said that Bush’s claim was “technically accurate;” indeed, we’re not sure what that claim would mean in this context.
(When Bush said “learned,” he vouched for the accuracy of the Brit intel. We were among the first to make this pedestrian point, although readers continue to lecture us on it.) No, we haven’t said that the statement was “technically accurate;” we have said that the statement may simply be true. That is, it may be true that the Iraqi government was trying to acquire uranium in Africa.
And that’s part of the reason why we’ve said this flap is so peculiar. Clearly, there are many large questions about pre-war intelligence, and about the Bush Admin’s pre-Iraq claims. But in the case of this relatively minor item, we are talking about an American president citing British intelligence—and making a statement which may be accurate. Can this possibly be the basis on which the Admin is assailed for misconduct?"
Can you provide a link to this article? The one posted is dead. I'd like to email it on.
Happy to:
WorldNetDaily: Democrats subvert war intelligence
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=36272
Thank you ;)
Seems Chris Mellon was pretty well entrenched in high level DOD, terrorism, issues, ... for all the billions in years, expertise and effort, what did all our "intelligence" get us, pre-9/11?
http://www.library.umaine.edu/cohen/senate/slegdef1.htm
http://www.library.umaine.edu/cohen/senate/slegfor.htm
I remember reading this article at the time of print. It came about a month after Rockefeller had written the treason memo, which purpose was to get the Democrats on the same page in hopes of winning the White House in 2004. This of course was AFTER Larry Johnson set up a "disgruntled CIA employees" group [VIPS] to turn the CIA into a sieve of leaks.
I can remember FReepers were saying all this nonsense would go away after the 2004 elections.
Bookmark
It is amazing how the anti GW MSM buries info like this and then whips up the nation with a nothing story like the supposed out of Plame.
Rome being the key word...remember Vince Cannistraro? Ex-CIA, consultant to the Vatican. He blamed the forgeries on Michael Ledeen based on the fact that Ledeen was in Rome in Dec 2001. Guess who was in Rome in Nov 2001? Cannistraro was being interviewed by La Repubblica.
Then from my files:
Equally suspicious is the Hersch article, where Cannistraro and another unnamed agent state the exact route the documents took and Cannistraro actually admits that he called the CIA about the documents before they were proven to be false. This begs the question...just how did Cannistraro know about the documents before they were vetted? Sounds a whole lot like Wilson's slip-up about seeing the documents.
Two other names just crept into this...Niger Ambassador Adamou Chekou, who was in charge at the Embassy when the break-in and forgeries occurred and Wissam al-Zahawiah, Iraqi Ambassador to the Holy See. Seems Italian Intelligence was eavesdropping on these two and discovered their "hotline".
Did you read that carefully. Holy See? As in Vatican? Where Vincent Cannistraro is the security advisor?
And speaking of al Zahawie, he was also apparently clairvoyant:
JANUARY 2003 : (AL ZAHAWIE, "RETIRED IN JORDAN" - IS RECALLED BACK TO BAGHDAD, IRAQ; HE IS TAKEN TO MEET UN WEAPONS INSPECTORS) But last January, al-Zahawie was summoned back to Baghdad for what he had expected would be a request to help Iraq's Foreign Service plan for deputy prime minister Tariq Aziz's planned visit to the Vatican. Instead, upon landing in Baghdad, al-Zahawie was taken to meet with UN weapons inspectors. Five inspectors interviewed him in a 90-minute session, he says.
"They asked why I went [to Niger], why I was chosen, when I left Rome and whether there were any other Iraqi diplomats at the Vatican," he says. "But then they asked who had the seal of the embassy and where I had left it." That's when al-Zahawie got wind of some kind of foul play. Italy had handed over cables from al-Zahawie to the Niger government announcing the trip, and other documents had pointed to his presence in Niger. But the inspectors were particularly interested in a July 6, 2000, document bearing al-Zahawie's signature, concerning a proposed uranium transaction. The inspectors refused to show him the letter, he says, but al-Zahawie was sure he had never written it. "If they had such a letter, it had to have been a forgery," he says. The tell-tale signs of the forgery were quite obvious, he stresses. [* My note: How would he know the 'tell-tale sign' if they refused to show the letters to him? Shades of Joe Wilson's foreknowledge of the docs?]
I still say Cannistraro is up to his greedy little eyes in this thing.
My theory (#42)is that this was a collaborative effort by the French and CIA coordinated by Wilson. Jacqueline, (Joe's his second wife), was a French diplomat and may have provided the connections for Wilson to see the forged documents that were supplied by the French through the Italians. In other words it is possible that Wilson knew that the docs were forged because he was privy to the information that French wanted to discredit the British info on Saddam shopping for yellowcake and that Wilson's objective was the same. The French just happen to manage the yellowcake production in Niger.
Therefore, Wilson did not lie when he said he saw the documents.
Per a thread by Fedora:
French intelligence soon began a campaign to discredit the US case for war against Iraq. In 1999, French intelligence had begun investigating the security of uranium supplies in Niger, where uranium production was controlled by a consortium led by the French mining company COGEMA, a division of the French state-owned nuclear energy firm AREVA. At that time, Italian businessman Rocco Martino provided French intelligence with genuine documents revealing that Iraq was planning to expand trade with Niger. French intelligence took an interest in the documents and asked Martino to provide more information. In 2000 he used a contact in the Niger embassy in Rome to provide French intelligence with documents purporting that Iraq had purchased uranium from Niger. These documents were later exposed as forgeries;
< snip >
Since it is now also known that French intelligence was trying to push Martino’s forgeries on US and British intelligence, as simultaneously the Democratic National Committee was planning to discredit President Bush’s Iraq policy by accusing his administration of manufacturing evidence against Hussein’s regime, heightened suspicion is cast on Wilson’s use of the Niger investigation to discredit the Bush administration’s case for war.
What Wilson Didn’t Say About Africa
Also, Rocco only "procured" the documents, he did not forge them. Fitzgerald went to Italy to investigate the Niger Embassy (in Rome) burglary...where the letterhead and seals for the forgeries were stolen. Ex-CIA agent (and coincidentally, an advisor to the Vatican in Rome),Vincent Cannistraro has stated that Alan Wolf and Duane Clarridge were the actual forgers, but his account is the only one available that I can find on the subject. He has also pointed the finger at Michael Ledeen, but Ledeen has publicly made a statement that he had nothing to do with it and demanded an apology from Cannistraro.
In addition, despite what the MSM is reporting, the Italians released a press report yesterday saying they had nothing to do with the forgeries:
Italy denies role in fake documents on Iraq
This was also backed up by Rocco here
Cannistraro's "theory" falls apart when you consider that he:
1) blamed SISME (the Italians), which has proven to be wrong
2) bases his assumptions on a Dec 2001 Ledeen meeting, when Cannistraro himself was in Rome in Nov 2001, which would make him just as suspect.
I also discovered that Cannistraro worked directly with Clarridge during Iran Contra, so he has alot of nerve bringing that up in connection to Ledeen. Another interesting tidbit (#47) that I discovered is that Wolf and Clarridge worked with Aldrich Ames, who outed Plame to the Russians in the 90's. Coincidence? I think not. Cannistraro trying to kill two birds with one stone to cover his own carcass seems to be the more likely answer. Equally suspicious is the Hersch article, where Cannistraro and another unnamed agent state the exact route the documents took and Cannistraro actually admits that he called the CIA about the documents before they were proven to be false. This begs the question...just how did Cannistraro know about the documents before they were vetted? Sounds a whole lot like Wilson's slip-up about seeing the documents.
Hersch also claims in the above linked article:
Another explanation was provided by a former senior C.I.A. officer. He had begun talking to me about the Niger papers in March, when I first wrote about the forgery, and said, “Somebody deliberately let something false get in there.” He became more forthcoming in subsequent months, eventually saying that a small group of disgruntled retired C.I.A. clandestine operators had banded together in the late summer of last year and drafted the fraudulent documents themselves.A more reliable source, Joe diGenova claims it was a possible CIA coup as well. As does James Lewis in two articles, here and here
Two other names just crept into this...Niger Ambassador Adamou Chekou, who was in charge at the Embassy when the break-in and forgeries occurred and Wissam al-Zahawiah, Iraqi Ambassador to the Holy See. Seems Italian Intelligence was eavesdropping on these two and discovered their "hotline".
Did you read that carefully. Holy See? As in Vatican? Where Vincent Cannistraro is the security advisor?
And speaking of al Zahawie, he was also apparently clairvoyant:
JANUARY 2003 : (AL ZAHAWIE, "RETIRED IN JORDAN" - IS RECALLED BACK TO BAGHDAD, IRAQ; HE IS TAKEN TO MEET UN WEAPONS INSPECTORS) But last January, al-Zahawie was summoned back to Baghdad for what he had expected would be a request to help Iraq's Foreign Service plan for deputy prime minister Tariq Aziz's planned visit to the Vatican. Instead, upon landing in Baghdad, al-Zahawie was taken to meet with UN weapons inspectors. Five inspectors interviewed him in a 90-minute session, he says.
"They asked why I went [to Niger], why I was chosen, when I left Rome and whether there were any other Iraqi diplomats at the Vatican," he says. "But then they asked who had the seal of the embassy and where I had left it." That's when al-Zahawie got wind of some kind of foul play. Italy had handed over cables from al-Zahawie to the Niger government announcing the trip, and other documents had pointed to his presence in Niger. But the inspectors were particularly interested in a July 6, 2000, document bearing al-Zahawie's signature, concerning a proposed uranium transaction. The inspectors refused to show him the letter, he says, but al-Zahawie was sure he had never written it. "If they had such a letter, it had to have been a forgery," he says. The tell-tale signs of the forgery were quite obvious, he stresses. [* My note: How would he know the 'tell-tale sign' if they refused to show the letters to him? Shades of Joe Wilson's foreknowledge of the docs?]
Also take into consideration:
Wilson (as Ambassador to Gabon) had/has connections to the Gabon Chief of State, Omar Bongo, who was the chief African ally of the French oil company TotalFinaElf, a major beneficiary of the Oil-for-Food bribes. Prior to the Iraq War, they had a contract with Saddam's regime worth an estimated 12.5 to 27.0 billion barrels of oil reserves. Also he had connections via the Middle East Institute and Rock Creek, both of which are Saudi controlled.
Wilson's wife Jacqueline was also apparently a lobbyist for Bongo and it seems Wilson was pretty chummy with Saddam's weapons buyer, having dinner with him on the eve that Kuwait was invaded in 1990. She is now an advisor to Bongo, her picture from a 2005 conference can be found here That makes it very clear that there are connections to oil-for-food. No wonder Wilson can afford his lifestyle.
"It is amazing how the anti GW MSM buries info like this and then whips up the nation with a nothing story like the supposed out of Plame."
Yep.
And look at the bigger picture.
We spent a fortune on a gold medal non-partisan 9/11 Commission, which to determine once and for all whether the country was lied into war and if the Bush administration had leaned on the intelligence agencies.
The 9/11 Commission said we were not lied into war and that nobody tried to influence the intelligence agencies. (It also said that Joe Wilson is a goddamn liar.)
But what does the media continue to repeat day after day, 24/7?
Bush lied us into war and leaned on the intel agencies.
And to prove it they cite proven pathological liars and nutjobs like Wilson, Johnson and McGovern.
As I've said before, this is the Bush AWOL story, only bigger. The media could have discovered that the only source for that lie, Larry Burkett was a mentally ill Bush hater with two clicks of a mouse. They knew he was insane and a pathological liar with an insane hatred of Bush.
But that didn't stop them from pushing his story for five years -- until they finally went to far with his forged "memo."
That is the way the media works. They choose to believe anyone, no matter how clear it is they are a liar and/or crazy, as long as he advances their agenda.
As you undoubtedly know, Cannistraro is a high ranking member of McGovern's VIPS.
"As I've said before, this is the Bush AWOL story, only bigger. The media could have discovered that the only source for that lie, Larry Burkett was a mentally ill Bush hater with two clicks of a mouse. They knew he was insane and a pathological liar with an insane hatred of Bush.
But that didn't stop them from pushing his story for five years -- until they finally went to far with his forged "memo."
I just posted this reply to Starwise on another thread:
"I really think Wilson is close to imploding with all of his lies, acts of deceit and treason.
Prison break has this lying scheming female vice president, who has become a liability to her political party. The last show appears to be setting her up for an early demise. Wilson had better stay out of chartered planes, off of railroad tracks and out of marcy park.
He is about to become a leper like Dan Rather did with more severe consequences when he is exposed as a liar and a coup planner. Sinister dark side lefties like Johnson, Generals Clark and Zinni will not allow a nothing like Wilson to endanger them."
That is the way the media works. They choose to believe anyone, no matter how clear it is they are a liar and/or crazy, as long as he advances their agenda."
I'm in total agreement with you. This was a planned coup attempt by Wilson and other rats in and out the government, which was aided and abetted by the MSM. Many more people were/are involved in this than a few CBS liars and misfits.
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