Posted on 10/09/2005 8:55:28 PM PDT by Fedora
My Grandma and my Mom would always say, "That's my story and I'm sticking to it." :-)
I agree the war's opponents had a plan like that to stop the war. One piece of evidence would be that intercepted Democratic National Committee memo that was circulating in January 2003 which laid out a public relations strategy which included “[c]laiming the Bush administration has ‘manufactured’ evidence against Saddam Hussein and used that evidence to encourage Britain and other allies to join the American fight against Iraq." I was only suggesting that the implementers of this plan may have used pre-existing forgeries originally designed for another purpose, since as far as we know Martino was only the middleman who transmitted the forgeries to the French: he reportedly did not write them himself, he bought them on behalf of French intelligence from someone else at the Nigerian embassy in Rome sometime in fall 2000 (before or after Gore lost the election would be a relevant question), before there was any concrete threat of US action against Iraq and while there was good reason to believe the Oil-for-Food scam would continue indefinitely.
But as far as the operation against Bush--whenever that started--something interesting is that October 2002 is both the month when Martino attempts to sell the forged documents to Burba and the time Wilson (who has up to now confined his comments on Iraq to lectures and TV appearances) publishes his first written contribution on the Iraq controversy in the San Jose Mercury. Two ends of the same operation? I think that's a good bet. If I recall correctly, that's also about the time the Senate and the UN were voting on whether to authorize military action, and it was the month after the British white paper came out.
Funny you should say that, fedora. I've had the same thought. About the only thing done under that plan before the memo was discovered was a referral to the FBI on the forged documents.
In July the Guardian of all places printed that investigation was ongoing.
Wouldn't it be delicious if the Dems were stupid enough to believe Wilson and have the whole thing blow up in their faces? Just asking.
Yes, that would be amusing :-)
Do you have links on the FBI referral and the Guardian article? I don't think I've seen those.
Wow, thanks for all of that. It seems it could go in any number of directions. A target wouldn't necessarily be named in public or necessarily subpoenaed. Is that how you read it?
Martino may well be the "independent" source that British intelligence maintains it had, apart from the forged documents, for the story of Iraq attempts to purchase Niger uranium.
I have always wondered about the timing of the WH retracting (7/6/03) and then Tenet taking responsibility (7/11/03) for the uranium claim in the SOTU. (I don't know that they ever provided a cogent explanation on how it got in there in the first place.) Were they trying to do damage control, were the British and forged documents from the same source or had they pieced together something else about what was going on at the CIA?
I've been wondering about that, also. If they ever explained it, I missed the explanation. But it is interesting that this development was about the same time Novak attempted to expose the CIA angle to Wilson's trip (the real story in his article that got forgotten in the Plame leak controversy), which might fit with the idea that someone was asking questions about what was going on at CIA.
I'm going to need to dig a bit on the identity of Britain's independent source. I did find these stories from June-July 2004, but I need to find the follow-up details--know I've seen them somewhere (piasa, anything on that handy?):
Intelligence backs claim Iraq tried to buy uranium
Illicit sales of uranium from Niger were being negotiated with five states including Iraq at least three years before the US-led invasion, senior European intelligence officials have told the Financial Times.
Intelligence officers learned between 1999 and 2001 that uranium smugglers planned to sell illicitly mined Nigerien uranium ore, or refined ore called yellow cake, to Iran, Libya, China, North Korea and Iraq.
These claims support the assertion made in the British government dossier on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction programme in September 2002 that Iraq had sought to buy uranium from an African country, confirmed later as Niger. George W. Bush, US president, referred to the issue in his State of the Union address in January 2003.
President Bush has been called a — "liar" for saying last year that, according to British intelligence officers, Saddam Hussein was seeking to buy uranium from Africa. But an investigation by the British government has now found that British intelligence officers were right to make the claim.
A report on the investigation, expected to be released next week, concludes that the claim was both reasonable and consistent with British intelligence, which indicates that the African country of Niger negotiated with Iraq to sell it refined uranium.
However, according to the Financial Times, the investigation did find British Prime Minister Tony Blair's claim that Saddam could deploy chemical weapons within 45 minutes was inadequately supported by intelligence.
Everything I have read about Fitzpatrick indicates he is a straight arrow and his investigations are thorough and usually very tight lipped. I have read he will follow an investigation regardless of where it leads or how high it goes. He is an equal opportunity prosecutor, IOW he follows no political agenda.
If the above is true, it follows he would not name a target until he had all of his ducks in a row.
This line caught my eye:
"....Notification would not be appropriate in routine clear cases or when such action might jeopardize the investigation or prosecution because of the likelihood of flight, destruction or fabrication of evidence, endangerment of other witnesses, undue delay or otherwise would be inconsistent with the ends of justice...."
I go back to Fitzpatrick's statement that all he needed to wrap this up was Miller's testimony. It was after Miller's testimony that the SP called Wilson, this after Wilson bragged about not even receiving so much as a phone call from the SP.
I am reading tea leaves just like everyone else. We have no way of knowing why SP called Wilson, but if SP has solid grounds for indictment of anyone and Wilson had needed information, it would seem the information would be given under oath.
It could go any way. Given what I have read about the SP, no target would be named until he explored all areas.
But then again, I am not a lawyer and do not play one on TV or in front of the keyboard.
Speaking of Physicians for Social Responsibilty... you know who is a member of this little group?
A gal by the name of "Dr. Meryl Nass." Dr. Meryl Nass is the woman whose 1992 article or "paper" on a Rhodesian anthrax outbreak in 1978-1980 was used by her friend, FAS's Dr. Barbara Hatch Rosenberg, to try to accuse Dr. Steven Hatfill of being the anthrax mailer. The Rhodesian angle was also peddled by Kristof and other journalists. Nass is a fruitcake who has her articles published in such upstanding *cough* places as Red Flags Weekly. She spent some time in Cuba as, in her words, a 'consultant for the Cuban Ministry of Health' before coming back to the US to end up as an internist in an office in Maine. In the US she has campaigned actively against anthrax vaccinations.
Rosenberg is of course the gal who vociferously claimed the anthrax mailer must be an American.
As a sidenote, the none-too-sweet Robert Mugabe came to power in Rhodesia aka Zimbabwe- in 1980.
Good research job--You may want to peek in at macsmind.com where the web owner has been looking into the merry band at EPIC. On the assumption you wouldn't mind my moving his research along, I'm going to copy your post their.
I observe tht would be back when Wilson was with the State Department's Bureau of African Affairs, and shortly to be transferred to South Africa in 1981.
Thanks for the info on the Nass-Rosenberg connection. I didn't know that, but when you mention it, that makes sense. PSR has been involved in WMD-related controversies since the Vietnam War era (Martin D. Turner, "Project Whitecoat", Spectrum, Summer, 1970: "Although the debate over CBW [Chemical and Biological Warfare] has become more audible within the past year, actually it has been going on for some time. A number of professional and scientific groups have studied the matter, among them the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, Physicians for Social Responsibility, Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, The Union of Concerned Scientists, and the Pugwash Study Group. These groups have also sponsored numerous conferences and symposiums, one of which met in London in February 1968, sponsored by the J. D. Bernal Peace Library."). They came up in my VVAW research recently. Their roots are in the antinuclear network centered around SANE. More recently they've become part of the Win Without War coalition, which is aligned with United for Peace and Justice (UPJ), an outgrowth of the Vietnam-era People's Coalition for Peace and Justice (affiliated with the VVAW through Al Hubbard) via CP leader Gil Green's Committees on Correspondence (a post-Soviet CP offshoot started in the 1990s) and the People for the American Way; UPJ is affiliated with longstanding CP front groups like the American Friends Service Committee and the Insitute for Policy Studies and is led by Leslie Cagan, a veteran of the CP and the Venceremos Brigade, a pro-Castro group.
BTW Veterans for Common Sense, also mentioned in the snip you quote, works closely with VVAW and VVAW's parent, Veterans for Peace.
I observe that my typing is uncoordinated this morning :-)
I will be very disillusioned if Fitzgerald's investigation started and stopped with Plame and the White House.
I will be very disillusioned if Fitzgerald's investigation started and stopped with Plame and the White House.
Here's some background on the genesis of the 16 words (from 2003, so there may be updates on this--I'm in the process of reviewing my files and if I come across something I'll post it):
"Head of CIA Weapons Analysis Program Leaving", 9/10/2003
A top CIA expert on weapons of mass destruction, who became embroiled in controversy over whether the White House stretched evidence about Iraq's programs, said he planned to leave the agency in October.
Alan Foley, who heads the Weapons Intelligence, Nonproliferation, and Arms Control Center, told colleagues in a note dated Aug. 29 that he had been "thinking about life after the agency for some time" and decided to leave after 26 years to enter the private sector.
He alluded to this summer's finger-pointing between the Central Intelligence Agency and the White House over who was responsible for an unsubstantiated claim in President Bush's State of the Union address in January that Iraq had sought uranium from Africa.
Critics seized on the reference, later found to have been partly based on forged documents, as a sign the White House had exaggerated the threat from Iraq to build support for the war.
SNIP
U.S. officials have said White House National Security Council weapons expert Bob Joseph discussed the uranium line with Foley, but there were differing recollections about who said what.
In one version, Joseph asked CIA's Foley if it was OK to use the uranium line in the speech and cite the British as the source, and that the CIA approved that language.
In another version, Foley told the White House's Joseph the CIA had recommended the British not include the claim in their September 2002 dossier on Iraq but the British included it anyway, citing intelligence that the Americans did not have.
On Niger, here's another thread of interest:
Niger's low security for uranium, radioactive materials under scrutiny
"Do you have links on the FBI referral and the Guardian article? "
I couldn't tell if someone already sent to you:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,12271,1534684,00.html
Thanks! :-)
The National Intelligence Estimate [NIE] was released then...
OCTOBER 2002 : (NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE ESTIMATE : IRAQ & ITS SEARCH FOR URANIUM) We're reliably told that that now famous NIE, which is meant to be the best summary judgment of the intelligence community, isn't nearly as full of doubt about that yellowcake story as the critics assert or as even CIA director George Tenet has suggested. The section on Iraq's hunt for uranium, for example, asserts bluntly that "Iraq also began vigorously trying to procure uranium ore and yellowcake" and that "acquiring either would shorten the time Baghdad needs to produce nuclear weapons."
Regarding the supposedly discredited Niger story [of 2003], the NIE says that "A foreign government service reported that as of early 2001 Niger planned to send several tons of 'pure uranium' (probably yellowcake) to Iraq. As of early 2001, Niger and Iraq reportedly were still working out arrangements for this deal, which could be for up to 500 tons of yellowcake. We do not know the status of this arrangement."
That foreign government service is of course the British, who still [as of July 17, 2003] stand by their intelligence. In the next paragraph, the NIE goes on to say that "Reports indicate Iraq also has sought uranium ore from Somalia and possibly the Democratic Republic of the Congo." It then adds that "We cannot confirm whether Iraq has succeeded in acquiring uranium ore and/or yellowcake from these sources."
Keep in mind that NIEs are consensus documents. They aren't the view of some Lone Ranger analyst or a policy cabal... - "CIA Intelligence Report Believed Niger Story was Accurate in Oct," The Wall Street Journal , July 17, 2003
...and there was the joint resolution authorizing war on Iraq...
...and to make things particularly interesting:
OCTOBER 15, 2002 : (REPORT : UK'S INTELLIGENCE SERVICE MI6 HAS UNCOVERED FRENCH, GERMAN AND SOUTH AFRICAN EQUIPPING OF IRAQ; SAY IRAQI INTELLIGENCE OFFICER NADHIM JABOURI MAKES CONTACT WITH SOUTH AFRICAN NUCLEAR ENGINEERS AND ARMSCOR OFFICIALS) An MI6 investigation has uncovered how France, Germany and South Africa have equipped Iraq with almost £1 billion of equipment capable of being used to boost Saddam's arsenal. The sales have been approved by the UN sanctions committee after "intense lobbying" from the countries involved - and supported by China and Russia. Both already have substantial trade deals with Iraq. UN Resolution 1409, adopted last May, allows exports to Iraq of a wide range of equipment with military applications. Agricultural sprayers which could be adapted to disperse biological weapons. Fibre-optics and telecommunications hardware have a dual capability of creating a powerful air-defence network. Much of this equipment has come from Europe's leading technology giants - Siemens in Germany and Alcatel in France. All were sold for civilian use only. But some of the equipment includes neutron generators which UN weapons inspectors discovered were key components in the crude gun-implosion nuclear device Iraq had created before the 1991 Gulf War. Last week, a top Iraqi intelligence officer, Nadhim Jabouri, arrived at the Iraqi embassy in Pretoria to pursue contacts with South African nuclear engineers and meet with senior officials at Armscor, the country's arms corporation. MI6 believe Jabouri's task is to obtain the vital aluminium tubes needed for the enrichment centrifuges to produce a nuclear bomb. The MI6 report says the willingness of the South African government to help Iraq lies behind the extraordinary outburst by the country's former president, Nelson Mandela, who recently branded President Bush as "a threat to world peace" - not Saddam Hussein. But it is Europe's role in helping Saddam that will cause fury in Washington and London. In Iraq the operation is controlled by Saddam's older son, Uday. Central to it is freeing large sums of money from Iraq's blocked account in the Banque Nationale de Paris. The money is deposited in the bank's New York branch. Once the UN sanctions committee approves an export licence to Iraq, the money is freed. "Uday relies on middlemen to sign the contracts for food and medicine. But in reality the contracts are for dual purpose equipment", an Iraqi defector has told MI6 investigators. -- "MI6 Report Reveals How France, Germany And South Africa Boost Saddam's Arsenal," by Gordon Thomas, Globe Intel, 10/15/02 , http://www.gordonthomas.ie/, page http://www.life-info.de/inh1./texte/GLOBE_INTEL2.html.
2002 before the 15th of Oct : (SOUTH AFRICA'S FORMER PRESIDENT NELSON MANDELA CALLS US PRESIDENT BUSH "A THREAT TO WORLD PEACE") ... the extraordinary outburst by the country's former president, Nelson Mandela, who recently branded President Bush as "a threat to world peace" - not Saddam Hussein. -- "MI6 Report Reveals How France, Germany And South Africa Boost Saddam's Arsenal," by Gordon Thomas, Globe Intel, 10/15/02 , http://www.gordonthomas.ie/, page http://www.life-info.de/inh1./texte/GLOBE_INTEL2.html.
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